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This article gives an overview of the Salesforce Export integration and explains how to set it up for your Salesforce instance. These instructions also apply if you want to use Salesforce as a data connector in your Gainsight instance.

Why use this integration?

Our Salesforce community data export enables you to:

  • Provide Salesforce users with a 360 customer view of community activity around a specific Contact or Account.
  • Get deeper insights on community engagement and ideation by combining community engagement data with your customer data in Salesforce.
  • Create engagement workflows and campaigns by defining segments of Contacts and Accounts based on their activity in the community.

Our community member and community member activity objects in Salesforce are linked to both Contacts and Accounts, so if you’re a B2B company you can additionally get engagement insights on a company level as well as on the level of an individual person.

Steps to set up the integration to export community data to Salesforce

  1. Install the Salesforce app on inSided

  2. Install the Salesforce components (custom objects) required for the integration.

  3. Configure the Salesforce export integration on CC.

Once these steps are all complete, you’ll start receiving data as soon as the next refresh interval runs (within 6 hours).

Does the integration backfill any community data in Salesforce?

If a community member can be matched with a Contact, then we’ll create the community member (so yes, all existing community members that can be matched will be created).

However, community member activities (e.g. community visited, question asked, idea voted) will not be backfilled. We only send community member activity from the moment a community member is linked to a Contact and the Community Member object is created in Salesforce.

 

Install the Salesforce app on CC

Please follow this tutorial to install the Salesforce app on CC:

Install the required Custom Objects in Salesforce

To push community data into Salesforce, we need two custom objects available in your instance which hold the data:

  • Community Member (represents a community member)

  • Community Member Activity (represents activities of community members - e.g. a visit to the community, a question asked on the community, an idea submitted or voted).

We offer three unmanaged packages, all of which include the custom objects. Two of the packages include a set of basic reports/dashboards to inspire you on how you can combine CC data with other data in Salesforce.

To install these custom objects, please go to one of the following URLs to install our (Unmanaged) Packages. This requires admin access to your Salesforce instance. 

Click ‘Install for All Users’ using one of the following links, based on whether you’re setting up the integration on your Sandbox or Production environment. Don''t forget to follow the post-installation instructions below the table to complete the installation.

Package type Production installation URL Sandbox installation URL
Custom Objects: recommended for fastest install time ⚡️ Install on Production Install on Sandbox

Custom Objects + inspirational dashboards including ideation reports based on ARR*

 Install on Production Install on Sandbox
Custom Objects + inspirational dashboards excluding ideation reports based on ARR* Install on Production Install on Sandbox

The dashboards and reports are not required for this Salesforce integration to work, and do not result in any reduced functionality.

E.g all packages support ideation activity, even if some don’t have an ideation report/dashboard.​​​

The inspirational dashboards we offer are a starting point, rather than a turnkey solution. It is always possible to create additional custom reports/dashboards after installation.

After you install the package, the dashboards can be found in a folder called ‘CC Dashboards’ within the Dashboard section of Salesforce.

*To complete the installation, follow the below post-installation instructions for the dashboards:

Reach dashboard

  • Press Edit
  • Press + Component
  • Choose report % Accounts registered on the community
  • Press Add
  • Reposition (top of dashboard, since it’s a KPI)
  • Press Save changes

Engagement dashboard

  • Press Edit

First component

  • Press + Component
  • Choose report %Accounts w/ community post last 30d (c)
  • Press Add
  • Reposition (top of dashboard, since it’s a KPI)

Second component

  • Press + Component
  • Choose report % Accounts w/ community visit last 30d
  • Press Add
  • Reposition (top of dashboard, since it’s a KPI)
  • Press Save changes

Ideation dashboard

  • Press Edit
  • Press + Component
  • Choose report % Accounts engaged with ideation last 90d
  • Press Add
  • Reposition (top of dashboard, since it’s a KPI)
  • Press Save changes

Configure the Salesforce Export integration on CC

 

Ensure that you’ve completed the above two steps before continuing (install Salesforce app on CC & install custom objects in your Salesforce instance).

  1. As a community manager/admin user,  go to Control → Integrations → Apps → Salesforce
  2. Under integrations, click on the panel ‘Export community member and activity data to Salesforce’. 
  3. Enable the toggle to automatically export community data to Salesforce and press Save changes. 
  4. You’re done! 

What happens next?

Automatically export Community Members to Salesforce

  • The Salesforce export currently runs on a schedule every 6 hours to import Contacts in order to link them with Community Members.
  • Every 6 hours, we’ll import all Contacts from your Salesforce instance and try to link them with Community Members based on a matching email address.
  • If we find a match, then we create a new Community Member object in Salesforce.

How do we match community members to Contacts?

We match community members to Contacts based on email address.

What happens if a there is no matching Contact for a community member?

If there is no matching Contact for a community member, nothing happens. We do not create a new Contact. Some customers set up custom flows in Zapier to address this limitation.

If a Contact is subsequently added that matches the community member, then we will link the community member to that Contact.

What if there are multiple Contacts with the same email in Salesforce?

We only create a single community member and match it to the first Contact that we retrieve (based on most recent last modified date).

Automatically export Community Member Activities to Salesforce

  • In order to export community member activities, we need a matching community member first.
  • If we have successfully matched a community member and a contact in Salesforce, then new activity is pushed to Salesforce on a schedule every 10 minutes.

Reminder: community member activities are not backfilled in Salesforce, they are only sent from the moment we link a community member to a Contact and create a Community Member object in Salesforce.

Learn more and get inspired

inSided blog: Integration spotlight: get a 360 customer view with Salesforce

 

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Hi! In regards to the April 22nd note on this page (copied below for reference), does this mean the dashboards will be released as a separate Salesforce package? We were very sad that we weren’t able to install them when we installed the package initially - good to know we weren’t the only ones struggling with this issue! Cheers! :smile:

 

“*oWed 22 Apr] We’ve had some reports from customers that the package containing reports/dashboards errors upon attempts to install it. We’re looking into this and will have an update by the end of this Fri 25 April.”

Hi @aschaaff - we’re looking into it: the ideal is to have them as an independent package, separate to the custom objects, but we’re still a bit more in the research phase on how to achieve that.

Quick update (cc  @aschaaff). We need some more time to investigate solutions to solve the problem here - I expect to provide another update in a couple of weeks (I’ll provide an update on/by Fri 8 May).

@mstone @aschaaff 

I’ve updated the package links in the article to the latest version - we’ve had successful installs of the updated package version when installing from scratch, so I believe we’ve solved the issues here.

Note: please make sure to follow the (new) post-installation instructions as well - those are highlighted in the article above in green under the package installation links.

 

@aschaaff Unfortunately the package containing reports/dashboards is still not independent of the custom objects (reports/dashboards package can’t be installed if you’ve installed the custom objects already). I’d be happy to share the instructions for creating the reports/dashboards with you if you’re interested 🙂.

Hi @daniel.boon ,

I’d be happy to share the instructions for creating the reports/dashboards with you if you’re interested

 

I would be interested in this, possible to share it with me?

 

Thanks.

Hi @daniel.boon,

 

Re:

I’d be happy to share the instructions for creating the reports/dashboards with you if you’re interested

 

Please share those instructions with me as well?  I installed the custom objects without report and dashboard.  I thought I would be able to do this process after.  Thanks!

The package inSided Salesforce Integration: Custom Objects + B2B Software Reports & Dashboards has been updated. Reason: fixed issue with ideation dashboard, where reports would show activity even if there were no votes/ideas submitted.

If you’re encountering this issue, adjust the filters for the Ideas voted and Ideas submitted reports as shown in the screenshot below:

 

 

Hi @daniel.boon, thanks for this thorough documentation. Is there a way to associate Community Members to Leads in SF in addition to Contacts?

Hey @adam.ballhaussen ! What kind of workflow/process do you have in mind? E.g. how would you automatically identify whether a Community Member is a Lead vs a Contact?

Great question @daniel.boon. Since we plan to make our community public, anyone will be able to register for access. We will be using inSided’s IdentityAccess.UserRegistered webhook event to send information about the registered user to SFDC. If the member’s information matches that of a customer account, that individual will be created as a contact. Otherwise, they will be created as a lead. In either case, we would want the user’s Lead or Contact record in SFDC to be associated to the appropriate  inSided Member record in SFDC. I hope that helps.

 

Thanks!

Do users need to do the email validation before their Community Member record gets pushed into Salesforce? Or should it work once they’ve registered, but before they validate their email? 

Hey @tiffany.oda - users need to do the email validation in order be considered as registered and then get pushed into Salesforce :) 

Thanks @daniel.boon ! Is there a plan to have fields on Gamification available for the Salesforce Integration? e.g. Points, Ranks, Badge Count?

Thanks @daniel.boon ! Is there a plan to have fields on Gamification available for the Salesforce Integration? e.g. Points, Ranks, Badge Count?

 

@tiffany.oda I love that idea. I could see Points potentially coming over as a field on Community Member Activities, where different points would be assigned to different Community Member Activity types (Conversation Replied, Conversation Reply Liked, etc.) based on how gamification is configured in the platform. Then I’d imagine things like Ranks and Badges would be updated as fields on the Community Member itself. Alternatively, potentially a new Gamification object could be added to the package. We would love to be able to report on this in Salesforce. Tiffany, want to submit an idea? 🙂
 

While we’re on the topic of fields we’d like to see in the SFDC integration, it would be incredibly useful to us for Product Area and Idea Status to push into SFDC for any Community Member Activities related to Ideas. It would also be great to see Moderation Tags, and Moderation Labels push into SFDC for all “submission” activities (i.e. Question asked, Conversation started, Idea submitted)

Thanks for your additional feedback @tiffany.oda and @adam.ballhaussen.

We don’t have any plans to push gamification data via the Salesforce export integration. Do you have any particular uses in mind for this data once it’s in Salesforce? (e.g. is there a question you want to answer via reporting, or segments you want to create for engagement/outreach campaigns?)

Thanks for the update @daniel.boon. The main use case that comes to my mind is reporting on things like # of badges won, highest ranked members, total number of points earned by an account, etc. Most of it would be in an effort to give account teams across the organization more visibility into the activity/achievements of their accounts in Salesforce.

@daniel.boon - Adding to what @adam.ballhaussen said, my company does a lot of analysis on the Account level, so with regards to gamification, we want to see things like, for example, what Accounts have the most badges and points. 

Hi all, just set this integration up and wanted to add my +1 to @tiffany.oda’s feedback on pulling gamification data in at an account level. The use case for us is the ability to see how high levels of engagement in the community impact an account’s retention and health score. 

@daniel.boon +1 @adam.ballhaussen Hi all, I’d also would love to leverage the SalesForce integration in regards to gamification. My company already has an automated loyalty program and a point system to reward engagement. I would definitely like both gamification (our own loyalty program + Community points) to work together and be complementary.

 We’ve installed the package (Export community member & activity data to Salesforce) however I can’t find 

 

  1. Digital Hub
  2. CC Dashboard reports or dashboards
  3. Gainsight or anything on my end in Salesforce

 

 

Hi @Deja - are you also not seeing the CC dashboards in the Dashboard section?  I’m afraid that it could be quite hard to get to the core of the issue here in the community, so for this one it might be better to create a ticket with our smart Support folks: https://gainsight.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

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