If you work with Account Engagement (Pardot), you will be aware that the connector between the two can create and update records from one to the other, and only read others. While covering typical marketing needs, some organizations will strive to extend their marketing data model – however, custom development isn’t cheap, could require specialist maintenance over time, and adds to your org’s technical debt.
Salesforce Labs is an incredible program inside Salesforce for employees to create apps and share them on the AppExchange for everyone to take advantage of – for free! A new addition is the “Record Create” app, which is worth checking out if you’re looking to extend your connector’s capabilities while maintaining control in your setup.
How Salesforce and Account Engagement (Pardot) Work Together
The Salesforce Connector for Account Engagement, a pre-built integration developed by Salesforce, is available to all Pardot customers to sync data between the two platforms.
In the out-of-the-box data model, syncing object behavior is categorized into:
- One-directional or bi-directional sync.
- Create/update, create/update, or read-only.
Even if your Account Engagement edition allows for custom objects, you could still face limitations. When referring to Account Engagement custom objects, by ‘custom’ we’re referring to additional objects syncing to Account Engagement, which can either be Salesforce custom objects, or Salesforce standard objects not included in the out-of-the-box connector sync.
Note: These records syncing to Account Engagement are intended to be read only – their purpose is to bring in data for use in segmentation and automation.
Salesforce Records That Can be Created from Account Engagement (Pardot)
To drill down into record creation between Account Engagement and Salesforce, with the standard connector you have:
- Prospects → Leads
- Prospects → Contacts (if Reverse Syncing is enabled)
- Prospects → Campaign Members
- Tasks
Outside of the list above, the connector works with other objects to read or update – not create.
Other Record Create Scenarios from Account Engagement to Salesforce
Let’s take a basic ‘cookie cutter’ example of a customer lifecycle, as illustrated with the Salesforce data model.
- A prospect record reaches some threshold that makes it eligible for the sales team to work on (a lead record).
- The lead is converted into a new contact, which is related to a new or existing account.
- Optionally, at the time of conversion, an opportunity is raised. Otherwise, an opportunity can be raised later from the contact or account record.
- Post-sale (when the account and contact become a customer), they may request support. The case is related to the contact that made the request.
What this is demonstrating, is that it’s a linear process, with limited arrows from one object to another. As we know, once the prospect syncs to Salesforce, the prospect record is mainly interacting with the lead/contact record.
There have been workarounds documented to launch an opportunity from a prospect interaction that’s an existing customer, or on the flip side, to only create Salesforce leads from Account Engagement (i.e. treat existing customers as new leads). However, this doesn’t cover all bases with other objects you may want to tap into within your Salesforce data model.
TL;DR there’s a limitation to which other records in the Salesforce data model that can be created from Account Engagement.
Record Create App for Account Engagement
Now that we’ve covered the background, let’s take a look at this promising (and free!) app.
This app leverages Salesforce Flow automation, paired with an external action in Engagement Studio. The Flow is the engine behind the scenes, and the Engagement Studio action will instruct the Flow to trigger at the right time for the individual prospect in their journey.
Note: External actions are configured within a Marketing App Extension, which also comes included with the Record Create app.
- Once installed, you will find pre-built, auto-launched flows in your Salesforce org. Customize the logic of these to fit your needs. In the example below, you can see decision paths that will account for duplicate contacts, and existing accounts that should be considered before new record/s are created.
- From any Engagement Studio program, add an action step, where you will find a list of the external actions available to you.
- Next, a mapping window will open where you can specify which prospect fields should be used for the required fields on the Salesforce side. This uses HML, which dynamically pulls in the field data for that specific prospect.
“Record Create” Use Cases
The use cases covered in the demo video are:
- For prospects who fill out a demo request form, the sales team would like to automatically launch an opportunity (while simultaneously converting the lead to a contact and new account/association to an existing account).
- For prospects to create a case from an Account Engagement form, and automatically create a case.
- For orgs that use one of the industry clouds, there’s a myriad of other objects you’re working with, for example, in higher education or nonprofits.
I wanted to also highlight opportunity contact role creation (as ensuring salespeople add these records while working with opportunities is notoriously difficult).
Check out the demo video below:
Summary
The “Record Create” app is one of the apps that was born from the Salesforce team identifying gaps that they’ve encountered in their many years’ experience. With this tool, you can extend your connector’s capabilities while maintaining control in your setup – plus the team are on hand to support!
