Unlock the Power of Seamless SharePoint to Salesforce Integration

Say goodbye to tab switching and manual link sharing with the possibility of linking, viewing, and even organizing SharePoint assets right on Salesforce records. 

Highlights 

• Bring everything in one place by linking SharePoint assets to Salesforce records. 
• Leverage a custom file viewer to access and review SharePoint document contents in Salesforce.
• Automatically upload Salesforce Files to a designated SharePoint folder.  
• Standardize and link your SharePoint folder structure with Salesforce Flow.  

With file management still being a prevalent process in most organizations regardless of their size, chances are that your company is either using SharePoint or Google Drive alongside other solutions to manage and share assets. When it comes to Salesforce, this is usually done using files, but the daunting thought of running out of storage probably keeps most admins on their toes. What if you no longer had to worry?  

Appiphony’s newest product has just hit the market and it will fundamentally change how you work with both Salesforce and SharePoint in your organization. Share Connect aims to make Salesforce records become your window into SharePoint-related documents and files while helping you offer a more seamless experience to your teams, regardless of their department and use case.

This in-depth review will showcase the main Share Connect features, ideal use cases, and setup effort, as well as how fast your users can (and will) adopt this new solution.

Features

Before we dive in, note that while this review will focus specifically on Share Connect, Appiphony has been offering a similar solution for Google Drive for a long time now, hence if your company is using the Google Workspace, make sure to check out our Drive Connect review.

That being said, let’s go through the functionalities that Share Connect brings to the table and how you’ll never run out of Salesforce file storage space again!

Link and Upload SharePoint Assets

The main Share Connect functionality is swiftly packaged in one multifunctional component, which you can embed on the Record Page of any Standard or Custom Salesforce object you’d like to relate different SharePoint files to. Once this is set, it’s only a matter of exploring all available options hidden behind the “New” button. 

Link Existing SharePoint Files and Folders

Chances are that your team already has quite a few assets neatly organized in SharePoint by the time Share Connect came into play. But even if these items are scattered around different folders, now would be a good time to group them according to their purpose, topic, or even Account or Opportunity. This all depends on the strategy you’ll choose to apply, as within the component you can rapidly link either individual files or whole folders in a matter of seconds. Having them easy to find in SharePoint will just make the process that much faster.  

Keep in mind that the first linked folder will also become the default record folder, unless you decide differently. 

SharePoint is exposed in Salesforce through an interactive iframe, meaning that you can search, navigate, and even create new folders or upload new documents directly without having to go back and forth between Salesforce and SharePoint.  

Upload Local Files

There will be situations where certain files will be on a user’s device, hence the need to upload them will arise. Instead of them going to SharePoint to upload first, they can quickly choose the File Upload option, select all files, then choose where they’ll be uploaded: to the default record folder (generally the first folder linked), another existing folder, or even OneDrive. 

Even more so, they’ll have the possibility to rename each individual file before uploading, as well as choosing if the file will be directly linked to the record or not. In the example below, I only chose to link the PDF to the record, while the other two files won’t be directly linked but will be in the default folder, which, of course, is already related to the Account in this case.

View Documents Without Leaving Salesforce

Although the linking and uploading features are already a game-changer, Share Connect also allows users to access the documents directly in Salesforce rather than just clicking a link to open them in SharePoint only. Be it Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, or even images, they’ll pop up and your users will be able to quickly navigate through the pages, download the asset, rename the file, or even send it as an email – all from within the file viewer. 

If edits are to be made, the file will have to be opened in SharePoint, but thanks to the direct link, any changes will also be available to see when opening the record from Salesforce as well. 

When choosing to send files over email, you can add up to 10 files in various formats, either from the record, directly from SharePoint or even from your device if needed. Similarly to how you would send any other email from a Salesforce record, you can include the Subject, recipients, and a message. 

Security and Access

Both Salesforce and SharePoint permissions are respected to ensure you can still maintain full control despite the connection established between the two. The SharePoint files linked to records are still stored as a Content Document Link too, but, of course, the user will be redirected to SharePoint when clicking it. 

In order to grant folder access, users need to have SharePoint access roles such as Owner, Editor, Manager, or Content Manager. Users can request access if they have SharePoint access roles like Commenter, Viewer, or Contributor. From Salesforce, folders can be shared via a Share button available under the options dropdown, where users will have the option to add all users who need access. 

Fully Automate Folder Structure

When working with multiple folders and files related to various companies, deals, or products, consistency is key – that’s where the next Share Connect feature comes into play! The managed package includes a custom Apex Action called Automate SharePoint, which will empower you to predefine a folder structure, link existing files and folders, or even move or rename them, all from a simple Salesforce Flow. 

While it remains up to you and your stakeholders how the automation will be triggered and the Salesforce object aimed at, the Automate SharePoint action offers a variety of options to choose from and configure. Additionally, for each operation, you can choose to publish a platform event on its completion which will contain the results in JSON format and include data such as the ID and URL of a created SharePoint file or folder.

While choosing to link an existing SharePoint File or Folder are self-explanatory, the possibility to automatically create folders is the true advantage of this automation. The folder Name can combine merge fields from the Object as well as related records with free text, and you can choose the exact destination of each of these folders. Even more so, upon creation, the folder can be automatically linked to the record, and you can also determine if this will become the default record folder or not. 

The possibility to update SharePoint folders and files comes to the rescue especially when having to archive these assets, for example, when an Opportunity is closed, but these choices would be dependent on your archiving strategy.

Child Operations

As you might have already noticed above, after determining the main operation(s), you have the possibility to start creating one or multiple child operations for each of them, which will allow you to automatically create or link an entire multi-layer SharePoint folder structure from the get-go. Child operations also support other child operations, meaning that you can pick and choose exactly where each folder will go and how they’ll be linked. 

Additionally, if everything will be under one parent folder initially, there’s no need to link all folders directly to the record, as they’ll be available when clicking on the parent folder linked to the record. On top of the folder creation option, you can choose to link an already existing folder based on its name or update a record field with folder data.

What Manual Migration?

After going through the features above, the question of what to do with existing Salesforce Files might have already crossed your mind. If you thought you would either have to move them manually or have users do so, that’s not the case with Share Connect.

Folder creation is not the only available automation, as the team has already accounted for both the migration as well as the transition period, offering organizations the option to seamlessly move the files in their designated SharePoint folders with no manual intervention. This is also a great option if your organization is using third-party tools that are creating Salesforce Files.

As long as the document size is below 11 MB, the above Flow will be triggered to upload the asset to SharePoint into the record’s default folder and delete it from Salesforce. This happens as soon as the Salesforce File is uploaded. The Content Document Links will remain, but the file itself will live exclusively in the SharePoint folder.

Roadmap

The functionalities you have seen in this article are only the beginning for Share Connect.

In upcoming releases, a new flow action will be launched for the purpose of supporting one-time or recurring Salesforce file migration to SharePoint utilizing Salesforce scheduled flow – imagine just how easy bulk file migration will be! 

To help viewing the SharePoint assets even faster, Share Connect will soon ship a new Lightning Component that will display a SharePoint file in preview mode on a Salesforce record. This feature will make it easy to highlight critical documents on a Salesforce record, such as a signed agreement on an Account record. 

On top of the above Share Connect-specific enhancements, Appiphony is in the process of developing a Microsoft-centric stand-alone document generation solution that will seamlessly integrate with Share Connect. This feature will allow users to generate documents in Salesforce and save them directly to SharePoint while also linking them back to a Salesforce record. 

Use Cases

Share Connect can be as versatile as both Salesforce and SharePoint are, and while it’ll surely fit into your tech stack just right, it’s worth exploring a couple more specific use cases to serve as inspiration for your own implementation. 

Share Connect is by no means limited to only one team, as in a real-life scenario probably the entire organization uses some sort of assets and documents which they need to collaborate on. For example, since the SharePoint Links component is available for all Standard and Custom objects in Salesforce, there’s nothing stopping the Marketing team from enjoying its features as well. When working on a Campaign, venue pictures, maps, seating charts, or entire decks can be exposed directly on the Campaign record in Salesforce. 

Additionally, Share Connect is not limited to one specific industry either, as the automations can be quickly adapted to the needs of your organization. Another example of its extended use can be a scenario where manufacturing companies need to relate User Manuals to different line items when they’re added to the Opportunity. This way, in case there are questions about one specific product, everyone who’s collaborating on said Opportunity will know for sure where the extra details about the product can be found and shared from.

Setup

Setting up Share Connect can easily be a matter of minutes, as long as you know who the users are who should access the component, where the component should be placed, and, of course, the clear criteria for the automations.

The package can be found on the AppExchange listing, and similar to any other managed package, the recommendation is to install it in a sandbox first in order to test and build out the functionality in accordance with your business requirements. There’ll be a few quick steps to go through as part of the configuration, which includes adding your domains, deciding the default folders, as well as the automation user for SharePoint. Anything else will highly depend on your processes and desired automations. 

Once the initial setup is completed, you can easily add the custom SharePoint Links component on any Record Pages it’s needed on and control visibility through filters just like you would with any other out-of-the-box components.

Support

If the extensive documentation available on the Appiphony website, blog, or in-app feature details page doesn’t answer your questions, you can quickly reach out to the support team directly from the Salesforce setup page by submitting a request containing the details of your inquiry.

Pricing

The pricing structure for Share Connect is not only as transparent as possible but you also have the option of choosing a monthly or annual subscription. Of course, if you decide to commit to an annual subscription from the get-go, the monthly cost will drop to only $6/user/month for the file-linking solution and $12/user/month for the pro version which includes the custom action that will supercharge your SharePoint folder management right from Salesforce.

Since there’s no minimum license requirement, you can choose the option that works best for your organization.

Summary

With the possibility of including SharePoint assets within your team’s flow of work right in Salesforce, Share Connect is sure to be a game-changer when it comes to overall file management efficiency, standardization, as well as user experience. Allow your users to forget about switching tabs, searching for assets, or sharing links back and forth when everything can be managed in one place.

Give Share Connect a go in our own sandbox or developer edition with a no-strings-attached 14-day trial, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!