Manually Trigger Activity-to-Task Sync

Agreed....having to wait over a day for a sync will cause operational issues.

Agreed.  I figured I had something mapped wrong that was making the sync fail at first. 

Thanks for all the great feedback!  A couple of follow-up questions:

• I think you are still referring to a bulk-sync to SF, just manually triggered on an ad-hoc basis. Correct? If yes, assuming we provide some solution to the frequency problem, would you still want to be able to manually force-sync?
• The main concern with syncing real-time is making too many SF api calls. What would you say is an acceptable wait-time (currently ranges from 5 to 30 hours)? Should this be configurable by admins?
• Is there a need for CSMs to be able to manually sync individual Activities to SF, like in Cockpit? 

For me there are two use cases:

Admin - as an admin, when testing or demoing functionality I need to be able to force the sync to see the results. I can't wait to see if what was implemented worked. Also, for demo or training purposes I'd want to be able to show the resulting synced activity in Salesforce right away.

End Users - ideally, the sync is real time, so there is no question in their minds that the data from Gainsight is flowing into Salesforce. I don't want them to have to click a button as an extra step. At a minimum the sync needs to happen multiple times a day.

Thanks for your questions, Manu.

1. If the automatic syncing was more frequent/rapid, then yes, this wouldn't really be an issue.
2. If the number of API calls isn't a concern for automatic syncing of CTA Tasks, then it's unclear to me why the API calls would be a concern for syncing of Timeline Activities. Also, in our own product, which integrates with Salesforce as well, we've implemented logic to detect the number of API calls the customer has remaining, and reduce the frequency of some of our calls if they begin to approach their limit. (Their current call count and call limit are both available via the API.) But I think that, if it must be set up on a batch basis, then making it admin-configurable would be great, and the default should be "sync once there are 10 Activities to sync, and sync over all the remaining Activities at the end of the day".
3. I can imagine a use case where a customer might want to only sync activities manually, since the activity types are configurable. One might be set to "Internal Meeting" or something, in which case maybe that's not an important enough event to sync to a Salesforce Task. But it's not relevant for us -- I'm on board with all Timeline Activities being synced.

Thanks, Seth!  I believe the difference is that we leverage Apex triggers for CTA Tasks. The new Activity model lives outside of force.com entirely. Using the Bulk API and batching does have an advantage in terms of API consumption, but this may not be a concern for everyone. Interesting thoughts on making the frequency a function of API call availability. Do you also maintain an upper limit so as to not affect other systems consuming the same APIs? 

Ah I see, the Apex versus API distinction makes sense!

I believe we do stop making any calls at all if they're within 3% or 5% of their cap (except for calls to check if they're still near their cap). I think that answers your question?

It does. Thanks!

This is a concern that has been identified by many other customers. Would appreciate a timeline on when we can have sync in more "real-time". At minimum (for the short-term), imo, remove the logic where < 50 tasks sync in 24 hours.

Hello Everyone! Happy to announce that bi-directional sync is available with v6.10 release. This feature is implemented in both SFDC & NXT version.

Happy to announce that your request has been considered and included as part of v6.10 release (Jan).  Gainsight now syncs Activities from the Event and Task Salesforce objects into Timeline. This means if a customer is switching systems, they can bring historic data into Timeline. And, if other cross-functional teams use Salesforce Activities to capture touchpoints, these can be displayed in Timeline to avoid users going back and forth between multiple systems.

You can find the relevant information in our v6.10 Release Notes.

Thanks for posting!