Certain Signal Connector: Salesforce Native Integration Guide (Part 1 of 2)

This guide continues in Part 2, starting with the Create/Update Contact setup.

This document is a guide to using Certain Signal Connector to integrate with Salesforce. Signal Connector also integrates with other products, including Marketo and Eloqua via native integrations and others via Webhooks or Advanced Webhooks. Separate guides cover those other integrations.

This product is not included with Certain Platform by default. Email features@certain.com to request access after reading this document. Include your account name.

What is Signal Connector? How does it work?

Certain Signal Connector processes data from events in real time. Certain Signal Connector passes that data from Certain Platform to your instance of Salesforce. This real-time integration empowers sales and marketing teams to take intelligent, prompt action on the right event data.

Almost everything is set up at the account level. Signal Connector processes information from the events in your account.

Event-level information is based on custom tags you attach to data such as Registration Statuses. This guide explains the tag setup.

Signal Connector processes information from Certain and sends it to Salesforce.

Prerequisites

Data-Flow Considerations

• Do you capture data in registration questions that will be synced to Salesforce?
• If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those questions: see page 5.
• Do you have different data mappings based on registration status, or attendee type?
• If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those items: see page 4.
• Will you use Signal Connector to add Leads/Contacts to Salesforce Campaigns, or update campaign members?
• If so, you’ll need to add an Event Question to record each event’s Campaign ID: see page 5.

Salesforce Credentials

To set up a Connection in Signal Connector, your Salesforce administrator must create an OAuth2 app in Salesforce. The setup path is App Manager > New Connected App. The Connected app must be a “Connected App”.

The Salesforce administrator then needs to provide the following details:

• Consumer Key.

You use the Consumer Key for the “Client Id” in the Connection.

• Consumer Secret.

You use the Consumer Secret for the “Client Secret” in the Connection.

Overview of Setup Steps

On Certain Platform In Certain Signal Connector

1. Add tags in the account. See page 3. 2. Apply those tags. See pages 3 & 4. 3. Add Event Question for Campaign ID. See page 5. 4. Answer that question in events. See page 5. 5. Add a Connection. See page 6. 6. Configure a Flow. See page 8.

Setting up Tags

What Are Tags?

Tags are a way of identifying event-level data using labels you set at the account level. You can apply those tags to generic items in events.

Tags are especially relevant for custom registration statuses. Tags are also relevant for custom registration properties. Certain Signal Connector uses those tags.

Tags can also be used for other purposes. This guide does not cover those other purposes.

For example, events may have several custom registration statuses in addition to the standard ones. You can apply the same Tags to more than one status. You can also give each status its own Tag.

When you set up a Flow in Certain Signal Connector to send data to Salesforce when an attendee’s Registration Status changes, you specify the tags applicable to those statuses. You do not specify the statuses themselves.

That setup means the flow can apply to any event in your account.

Setting Tags Up for an Account

1. As an Administrator, go to Account Settings > Management >Tags. 2. Enter a Name and a Label for the tag. 3. Select the Object(s) to which the tag can apply. For example: ‘Registration Statuses” and/or “Custom Registration Properties”. 4. Click Add. 5. Repeat as required for as many tags as you need. 6. Important: Add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in flows. See page 10. 1. Registration Statuses 2. Custom Registration Properties 7. Also add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in filters for flows. See page 10. 1. Attendee Types 2. Events

Applying Tags in an Account

In each event from which you want information to flow through Certain Signal Connector, apply tags to the relevant information. Apply tags to Registration Statuses and Registration Custom Properties.

You can also tag Attendee Types and Events to filter registration records. See Filters on page 10.

Default Registration Statuses apply to all events. An Administrator applies the tags at the account level.

1. Go to Account Settings > Management > Registration Statuses. 2. Select one or more Tags for each status.

It is essential to tag at least the ‘ New ’ status.

Certain uses that status “behind the scenes” when first processing each registration.

If you do use standard reg statuses, it’s essential that you tag them all. Tagging standard reg statuses ensures the Flows configured in Signal Connector can use them.

Applying Tags in an Event

Custom Registration Statuses

1. If any of the Flows configured in Signal Connector will watch or activate for changes of Registration Status, see page 9. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Statuses. 2. Select at least one tag for each status.

Custom Registration Properties

If any of the Flows configured in Signal Connector will watch or activate for Custom Reg Properties, see page 9:

1. In each event, go to Plan > Configure. 2. Under Custom Registration Properties, select at least one tag for each custom reg property in the event.

Standard Registration Properties

Standard Registration Properties tags are set up for you automatically. These tags use names identical to the properties themselves.

The standard registration properties are: Complete, Badge Printed, On To Do List, Invoice Generated, and Test. You only see these tags in Signal Connector.

Signal Connector can activate Flows for these tags. See page 9.

There is nothing to edit on Certain Platform.

Attendee Types (Optional– for use with filters – see page 10.)

1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types. 2. Select one or more Tags for each attendee type on which you may wish to filter registrations. See Filters on page 10.

Events (Optional– for use with filters – see page 10.)

1. In each event you may wish to include in a filter. For example: ensure that only registrations for that event are passed to Salesforce. 2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Details. 3. Select one or more Tags for the event.

Registration Questions (Optional– for use with mapping Certain fields to Salesforce fields – see page 14.)

1. In each event in which you use registration question to capture data from attendees, and wish to pass those answers and/or questions to Salesforce: 2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Questions. 3. Select just one Tag for each question. Selecting more could result in duplicate data in Salesforce.

Recording an Event’s Campaign ID

If your Flows in Signal Connector will add Leads/Contacts to Salesforce Campaigns, or update campaign members, set up an event question to record the Campaign ID for each event.

1. As an Administrator in Certain Platform, go to Account Settings > Management > Event Data. 2. Add an Event Question, such as ‘Salesforce Campaign ID’.

In each event:

1. As an Event Planner or Administrator in Certain Platform, go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Event Data. 2. Enter the Salesforce Campaign ID for that event in the custom question field.

Opening Certain Signal Connector

When Signal Connector is activated for your account, the Account Settings > Implementation menu includes an extra option. This menu is available to Administrators.

• Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration

Click that link to open Certain Signal Connector in a separate window. Certain Signal Connector runs separately from Certain Platform.

Setting up a Connection

What are Connections?

A Connection in Certain Signal Connector specifies how to connect to your instance of Salesforce. Salesforce is the Target application.

Multiple connections are possible. You might use Salesforce and another application.

Other target applications are covered in separate guides.

Each Flow requires a Connection. Multiple flows may use the same Connection.

You can set up a Connection before configuring your first Flow. You can also configure a Connection while configuring a Flow.

This guide assumes you’re setting up the Connection first.

Adding a Connection

As an Administrator, set up one or more Connections for your account. Set up Connections once. After setup, you can use Connections in the Flows you set up.

1. Go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration. 2. Certain Signal Connector opens in a separate window. 3. Click Connections in the left navigation panel. 4. Click Add A Connection in the Connection List page that opens. 5. Enter the details in the Connection Setup screen that opens.

• Target: Select Salesforce as the third-party app to connect to.
• Connection Name: Enter a name of your own choice.

This could be just ‘Salesforce’ or ‘Salesforce Connection’.

• Service URL: Enter the beginning of the Salesforce URL to which you are redirected when you log in to Salesforce.

Use the part starting with “https://” and ending with “salesforce.com”.

For example: https://na8.salesforce.com

• Authentication Type: Select the authentication type to be used.

For Salesforce this is currently OAuth2, an industry-standard secure method of authentication.

• Grant Type: Select ‘Authorization Code’
• Client Id and Client Secret: Enter the values from the OAuth2 app that your Salesforce administrator set up.

Salesforce terms are ‘Consumer Key’ and ‘Consumer Secret’.

• Authorization URL: This depends on your Salesforce environment.
• The default value may be correct for a production environment.
• See this topic in the Salesforce Developers Documentation:

• Access Token URL: Use the default value.
• Refresh Token URL: Use the default value.
• Scope: Use the default value if there is one.
• Test Connection URL: Use the default value.
• Force Update: If selected, then if Salesforce already has a record for the Contact/Lead whose data is being sent, Salesforce updates that record with details from Certain if the details differ.

For example: the phone number.

• Is this a primary connection: Select only if previously you imported Registrations from Salesforce via Manage > Registrations > Import Salesforce Members.

The Signal Connector connection takes precedence.

6. Click Save & Test. 7. If the test is successful, click Close. If it’s not successful, check that the values in step 5 are all correct.

Setting Up Flows

What is a “Flow”?

A flow is a configuration to manage the flow of data from Certain to Salesforce.

You create Flows from the landing page in Signal Connector. See Configuring a Flow, below.

You can configure several flows for an account. Those flows might all use the same Connection.

You only need to configure a flow once at the account level.

When a flow is complete, it starts picking up data for each event in that account within about a minute. The delay happens because Signal Connector runs independently from Certain Platform.

If you edit a flow, the same slight delay occurs before the change takes effect in the processing of the registrations.

The Flow List

As an Administrator in Certain Platform, go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration.

Certain Signal Connector opens in a separate browser window. The main screen in Signal Connector is the Flow List.

The Flow List lists all flows.

The Status column shows whether a flow is completely set up. The Active column shows whether the flow is running.

Use the toggle button to change a flow from Active to Inactive, or vice versa.

Configuring a Flow

Click ADD A FLOW to start setting up a new flow.

The configuration consists of:

• Name
• ‘ Live ’ or ‘ Test ‘ status.

See immediately below.

• Source: What information the Flow will look for and what it will activate for in your events.

See page 9.

• Filters: Optional filters to narrow down the information.

See page 10.

• Destination: Where and how that information goes into Salesforce.

See page 10.

‘Live’ or ‘Test’

The Live toggle switch determines whether your Flow is Live or Test.

A Live Flow picks up all live registrations in live events. A Live Flow ignores test registrations, even in live events.

A Test Flow picks up all test registrations. Test registrations include all registrations in test events. Test registrations also include registrations marked as ‘Test’ in live events.

Flow Data Source

Specify the Source of data for the flow. Optionally apply Filters.

The Source of a Flow is what the Flow watches for in your data in Certain. The Source also determines when the Flow activates, based on that data.

For example, a flow might watch for any change to a Registration Status. The flow activates if an attendee’s status changes to a status tagged as ‘Registered’.

Available sources

Set a flow to watch for any one of the following:

• Registration Create Update: When a registration is created or updated.
• Registration Status Change: When a registration’s status changes.
• Session Registration Status Change: When a registration’s session registration status changes.

After a flow is complete, the flow starts picking up data after the usual minute’s delay.

Activate for …

Choose what the flow activates for by selecting one or more tags in each appropriate object’s drop-down list. The screenshot above shows activation options for tags applied to Registration Statuses and/or Registration Properties.

Other options may be added depending on what the Flow is watching for:

• If the Flow is watching for Registration Status Change, you must activate for Registration Statuses.
• If the Flow is watching for Session Registration Status Change, you must activate for Session Registration Statuses.

The tags available for selection are the tags set up for that object. See page 3.

For example, tags for Registration Statuses include Registration Status tags. You can apply those tags to:

• standard registration statuses at account level.

See page 4.

• custom registration statuses at event level.

See page 4.

Flow Filters

You can filter the data going into a flow by selecting fields in any of these three filter types. The filter types are Event fields, Profile fields, and Attendee Type tags.

The flow includes a registration only if the registration meets the rule(s) specified in the filter.

• Event Available fields:
• standard event fields. For example: Event Code
• custom event fields
• event tags
• Profile Available fields:
• standard profile fields. For example: Position
• custom profile fields
• Attendee Type Tags Available fields:
• tags applied to Attendee Types

Enumerated questions have pre-configured answers.

Enumerated question types are Select, Multi-select, Checkbox, or Radio.

Flow Destination

Select Salesforce from the integrations set up by Certain for your account.

Setting up a Destination

1. Give the Destination a name of your choice.

2. Select the Connection to use.

The setup process is the same as described on page 5.

3. Select the action for this connection from the available options:

• Create/Update Lead (see Action: Create/Update Lead)
• Create/Update Contact (see page 12)

Your choice of action determines the other configuration options.

Action: ‘Create/Update Lead’

The steps for the alternative action, ‘ Create/Update Contact ’, are described on page 12. Much of the detail is the same for both actions.

One destination can use a Create Contact action.

The other destination can use a Create Lead action.

If you configure both destinations, configure the Create Contact destination before the Create Lead destination. Contacts need to be created before Leads. Signal Connector evaluates its Contact check correctly only after that ordering.

4. Select one of the three Add to Campaign Options:

• a) Add to Campaign & update Member Status

See the sub-options described in step 5 below.

• b) Update Existing Campaign Members Only

See the sub-options described in step 5 below.

• c) Do not update Campaign

No sub-options are displayed.

5. ‘Add to Campaign Options’ are available for both options a and b. Select one option and then select its further sub-options.

• Add to Campaign & Update Member Status

See the sub-options described next.

• Update Existing Campaign Members Only

The sub-options for this option are the same as the sub-options for the previous option:

• Select Campaign ID based on Event Question

Select the Event Question configured for this purpose.

See page 5 about adding that question.

• Campaign Statuses

Select one of the two further sub-options:

• Same as Registration Statuses per event
• Use Registration Status Tags

For each Registration Status tag, enter the Status Name to be applied in Salesforce.

The screenshot overleaf shows examples.

• Do not update Campaign

No sub-options apply.

This guide continues in Part 2 of 2 beginning with the Create/Update Contact setup. Part 2 continues with Mappings, the Metrics Dashboard, and the Retry Queue.