Charity data integrations Part 3

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Salesforce data integrations – what is the best method for me?

In the first two articles, we looked at things to consider when your charity decides  to sync up different systems. We covered:

1) Typical charity use cases when integrating data with a Salesforce CRM – read the article here.
2) Questions your charity needs to answer when thinking about what exactly it wants to achieve and why – read the article here.

In this final part of the series, we will help you to evaluate and select the best method (or methods) of integration for your use case.

How will you do it?

As mentioned above, it may not be your charity alone dealing with the HOW part. However, understanding the differences between different types of integrations and tools is crucial in making an informed choice. This decision will impact the cost of the implementation, ongoing costs and maintainability – all of which will determine the long-term viability of the solution.

Listed here are some of the most popular data integration methods:

Choosing native Salesforce apps

Bear in mind that if you have not yet chosen an app that you want to integrate with your Salesforce instance, choosing a native Salesforce app will save you considerable effort.

If an app is native to Salesforce, it means that data is hosted and processed entirely within your instance of Salesforce instead of on 3rd party servers.  No tool is needed for you to integrate a native Salesforce app. Assistance may be needed from a 3rd party provider to set up the app for you, but this work will not involve data integration.

A number of Salesforce native apps exist on the Salesforce AppExchange, but not all apps on AppExchange are Salesforce native. We advise you to check with your partner whether an app is Salesforce native and what it means exactly for your data processing, data security and data integration.

The Payments management platform app Findock is an example of a native Salesforce app.

Integrating non-native systems

Let’s imagine your charity wants to integrate an external system with Salesforce. Then your options are:

• Bespoke integration app: use an integration application specifically built to integrate the app with Salesforce. For example, the event management app Cvent has its own Cvent Salesforce App available on the AppExchange (additional charges will apply). It has been developed to enable CVent and Salesforce to communicate between each other. It is usually the easiest and fastest method but it may not always exist. In that case, you will have to check other methods such as:
• Choose a tool such as our Clarity Data Transform app – an official Salesforce AppExchange application. It’s a user-friendly tool that helps you take data from files and other external sources and find/create/update records in various objects in Salesforce. You just need to get the data into Salesforce (automatically or manually) then the tool does the rest. Clarity Data Transform’s strength is in being able to manage multiple integration scenarios into Salesforce, reporting on errors and enabling a flexibility of configuration if your needs change.
• Use a ‘middleware’ tool e.g. Zapier or Make.com. The tools are known as automation tools since they allow you to connect the APIs published by the apps creators and setup an automated process defining how you would then consume that data. It’s a low code solution that is best suited for small pieces of work, or, in other words, for use cases when a charity wants to connect one or two apps with Salesforce. If you want to connect engagement platform Hivebrite with Salesforce, for example, you could use one of these automation tools.
• Choose an ETL tool if your charity already uses one for other integrations. Often charities use ETL tools if they have a data warehouse already in place. Then they extract data from their CRM and other sources, transform it and load it into a data warehouse using an ETL tools, such as Microsof Azure, Talend, Mulesoft, or other. Depending on the complexity of the data transformation into Salesforce records, you may choose to load data into a ‘Holding’ object and use on-platform transformation with an app such as Clarity Data Transform.
• Use the Salesforce API (API stands for Application Programming Interface) by writing the integration code yourself / have it written by an external provider, such as your Salesforce partner. A variety of methods (clicks and code) are available to help your developer to integrate directly with external systems – both outbound and inbound.

About API’s

APIs allow different systems to communicate and transfer data between each other, or ‘make calls’, as developers say. Charities need to understand how these calls function before planning any data integration since they have implications on the cost of the integration and system performance once that integration is done. These implications depend on the number of fields to be updated in Salesforce, data volumes to be updated and the data update frequency.

While APIs allow the systems to communicate with each other, data will have to subsequently be transformed and unified. Your business requirements may additionally include automating certain processes, such as creating tasks or updating other data when certain data is created.

If your charity seeks a web integration with Salesforce, for example, if you want to integrate certain data from your website, Giveclarity has developed an accelerator called ‘Integration Services’ that uses the Salesforce REST API but does not require any new coding in Salesforce and helps to simplify the use of the Salesforce API and also makes the API calls made by the website more efficient.

Would you like to talk to one of our team about your integration needs?

We can help you in defining and building robust integrations tailored to your needs. With our extensive experience in integrating Salesforce with a variety of platforms, we can ensure seamless connectivity and enhanced functionality.

Whether you’re looking to streamline your workflows, improve data accuracy, or enhance customer experiences, we have the knowledge and skills to help you achieve your goals.

Contact us now: sales@giveclarity.org

About the author:

Julia Narkeviciute joined Giveclarity after more than 12 years of experience in the charity sector. Julia helped set up Salesforce and integrate and migrate data at her human rights charity and learned a lot in the process. She is a certified Salesforce Administrator and has been involved in analysing charities’ business requirements when moving to a new CRM. Working at Giveclarity has allowed Julia to combine both her passion for nonprofits and user-friendly software.