Salesforce Integrations with 3rd-party services

Salesforce, positioning itself as the world’s #1 CRM is constantly increasing the reach of its digital presence. As any big player, regularly expanding into new areas, they are growing their ecosystem.

How? Feed your AI and ML machines with customer data -> this will result in better analytics, recommendations, etc. -> sell these to new customers -> bring more customers -> increase the amount of valuable data that will work for the Salesforce even more -> repeat. Just kidding.

Nevertheless, some of high-demanded services and products are still out of Salesforce proprietary umbrella.

While “What exactly is Salesforce doing to link all its countless products, clouds, services?” is perhaps a topic warrant for a separate blog post, this time we would like to focus on the question: “What can you (as a Salesforce user) do to gather all your toolset in a convenient way?”

Let’s see what are some of the most popular 3rd-party Salesforce integrations and what are the ways to manage these integrations efficiently.

Reasons to integrate off-site services into Salesforce

Well, first off: isn’t the world’s #1 CRM covering just enough to provide robust operations out-of-the-box? Naturally, SF is really powerful - however, it’s not that almighty, and given the particular needs of enterprises, there may be many gaps they want to fill with time-proven pre-existing products.

Unique business goals

Every digital enterprise is really unique. With its unique scope of projects, its unique logistics, infrastructure, unique product line, etc etc. So that there is no one-size-fits-all software in the world that could cover all the needs and address all the challenges the entrepreneurs face. On this messy battle ground of emerging products and services, companies are busy blazing their own unique trail.

The choice of particular Salesforce integration may be a result of myriad occasions (either technical or operational). Then you stick with it, KPIs are fine, you don’t want to replace it with any other, it just works really well for you. Finally, it becomes pivotal to your enterprise.

Better communication

It’s a no-brainer that people prefer to talk in their native languages. So are systems. And the communication between them is a great concern for hi-tech companies. That’s why systems also have their “translators” - connectors. Integrations with 3rd-party products managed by certified Salesforce experts allow this communication to be as smooth - as conversation between two native speakers.

Greater performance

There are countless groundbreaking services in tech that are just as potent as Salesforce, but in their own niche. Any one of them may be used to increase the stability and adaptability of your web-based business. Integrating Salesforce with time-tested industry-proven instruments with output you can rely on, will guarantee a boost to performance.  

Data consistency

There are sufficient data integration capabilities inside the Salesforce ecosystem to eliminate the need to manually copy and paste information from the off-site sources so that it can be monitored and acted upon in real time. 

Cost- and resource-efficiency

The costs associated with integrations might be rather high. Customizing point-to-point infrastructure may seem like a cheaper alternative at first, but it may quickly turn into a complex "big ball of mud" with a lot of technical debt.

For large organizations, subscribing to the Salesforce services like Anypoint Platform provides a more convenient, cost-efficient, and trustworthy option. Such Salesforce tools with many integration options and opportunities for developers, leading to a notable improvement in productivity.

Salesforce Integration Tools. How to integrate into Salesforce

Once you’ve set up your extended toolset, your great collection of hi-end instruments, comes the above-mentioned headache of how to glue everything together so that it not only breaks apart but becomes efficient, industry-competitive and profitable.

And here, Salesforce will not disappoint you: no-code, low-code, mixed build development tools to integrate so seamlessly it will go without a hitch.

Admin / No-code tools for Salesforce integration

MuleSoft Composer

Using the MuleSoft Composer app, you can design the integration flows without writing a single line of code. The intuitive graphical user interface makes it easy to design complex integration infrastructure with a point-and-click approach. 

Private Connect

By utilizing Private Connect (with no hassle or lengthy poems of code), you will be able to establish a bridge by means of which your Salesforce data will be securely connected with AWS, one the most reliable cloud platforms to offer servers. 

Low-code tools for Salesforce integration (some code required)

Platform Events

Platform Events is a Salesforce's built-in component that allows for easy, real-time tracking of any and all data changes throughout your ecosystem. With the streaming API's ability to integrate with a wide variety of third-party services, you can drastically thin out the technical integration layer, which in turn speeds up the entire development process.

Change Data Capture

The service aids in alleviating a typical problem faced by developers: the need to constantly update data. The solution offers automatic data gathering and real-time updates to prevent push-and-pull jumble with draining constantly exporting/importing data and unending API calls. 

Salesforce Flow (Builder)

You may further automate your whole infrastructure with the assistance of Flow. The service may speed up and improve your workflow by seamlessly integrating tools like Apex actions, Lightning components, Platform Events, and MuleSoft. 

Salesforce Connect

You naturally have a huge amount of data outside of the SF - and often you only need access to a small part of it. Through Connect, you may bring in data from outside of Salesforce (like your ERP) without having to copy or import it. All of this can be accomplished with minimal programming effort thanks to how naturally intuitive and streamlined the connection is. 

Salesforce External Services

Salesforce External Services makes it simple to include OpenAPI 2.0 and OpenAPI 3.0 schemas into your workflow, no matter how complicated they may be. Your schemes' operations will also become accessible for modification in Apex, Flow, and Einstein bots. 

Developer tools

Apex

Apex is one of the most popular Salesforce dev tools. With Apex, data from outside sources can be imported into Salesforce for further processing. When using Apex, you may make use of callouts to communicate with external RESTful and SOAP-based Web services. By combining it with other resources, efficient automation may be attained. 

Salesforce Platform APIs 

The service will provide you with programmatic access to all of your Salesforce data, enabling you to obtain all of it at once.

Developers are able to reach into the most remote corners of your digital ecosystem by utilizing the Platform API. This is accomplished while retaining full control over the data, the metadata, and the processes. 

MuleSoft

Though we have briefly mentioned the MuleSoft composer a bit earlier, we would like to focus on the MuleSoft more particularly as its role is vital when it comes to Salesforce integrations. 

In 2018, Salesforce acquired MuleSoft to enhance its own ecosystem with the next-gen integration and automation toolset that MuleSoft offered to the market. In its turn, MuleSoft, fueled by endless Salesforce resources, has made a step further in breakthrough innovations.

According to Mulesoft case studies, their impact during Salesforce Integrations is more than impressive:

• 200 % faster product development 
• 92% reduction in development time
• 40 % API reuse
• 2 million work hours saved annually

Anypoint platform

Anypoint platform is a next-gen development environment for seamless integration of literally anything into the SalesForce ecosystem: from data and metadata to applications and large systems, from Saas platforms to on-premises services. Data unification between legacy systems, cloud-to-cloud integration, API interfaces with maximum flexibility, etc etc. Anypoint connects all the dots for the developer, allowing them not to waste time setting up the infrastructure, but instead to really do architecture design.
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Read more on the topic: Impactful 3rd-party integrations to build an efficient ecommerce environment
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Most demanded Salesforce integrations

ERP

By integrating ERP into Salesforce, companies may save time and effort since it allows them to automate mundane daily tasks. You may focus more on your staff and the most pressing issues facing your organization instead of spending hours each day on mundane duties like running reports from a variety of different systems. 

• Microsoft Dynamics 365
• SAP
• NetSuite

Accounting

Accounting software helps companies in managing their receivables and payables, obtaining a clearer understanding of their profitability, and being better prepared for taxes. When it comes to accounting software, digital enterprises may prefer to use "out-of-the-box" software, which does not require a substantial amount of adjustment, integrating it afterwards into the Salesforce environment.

• QuickBooks
• Xero
• Wave

Marketing & Sales

The integration of marketing and sales data analytics into your digital ecosystem could be beneficial in a number of ways, including the improvement of decision-making, the enhancement of omnichannel traction, and the influence on holistic marketing programs.

Within the extensive Salesforce ecosystem, measuring how well a marketing campaign did can greatly enhance your understanding and vision. 

• Crazy Egg
• Hotjar
• Kissmetrics

Collaboration

Companies who care about their workers aim to make their digital environment as stress-free as possible so that teams can deliver their best performance. This results in the companies giving greater levels of performance overall.

This is an excellent reason to consider integrating to the Salesforce some of the leading tools for successful cooperation and convenient communication. 

• Slack
• SharePoint
• Office 365

Ecommerce 

Salesforce has its powerful Commerce Cloud, nevertheless there are also many options to integrate valuable customer data from 3rd-party ecommerce platforms.

• Magento
• Shopify
• WooCommerce

Bottom line

It can be challenging to integrate disparate applications into behemoth platforms like Salesforce. In addition to technical proficiency, a sense of equilibrium and maybe even harmony is necessary for the integration process.

Have you ever sat in a room that was totally, wall-to-wall furnished with pieces that were completely unrelated to one another in terms of aesthetic register, quality, or style?

Have you walked through a city where the compatibility of architectural styles, the integrity of space ensembles is not respected? Not only is it unbearable for the eyes, it is also fundamentally impractical.

Above, we’ve covered what you need to do so that your Salesforce integration does not turn into a mayhem.

Additionally, you know exactly who to contact if you need assistance.