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

• 6 days ago
• Updated

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 – see separate guides.)

This product is not included with Certain Platform by default. If you’re interested in it after reading this document, email features@certain.com, including your account name.

What is Signal Connector? How does it work?

Certain Signal Connector processes data from your events in real time, passing it 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. For event-level information, information is based on the custom tags you attach to data such as Registration Statuses, as explained in this guide.

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

For you to set up a Connection in Signal Connector (see page 6), your Salesforce administrator must first create an OAuth2 app in Salesforce (by going to App Manager > New Connected App ).

Your Salesforce administrator then needs to provide you with the following details:

• Consumer Key (which you’ll use for the ‘ Client Id ’ in the Connection)
• Consumer Secret (which you’ll use 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 then apply those tags to generic items in events. Tags apply especially to custom registration statuses and custom registration properties for use in Certain Signal Connector.

(Tags can be used for other purposes as well. This guide does not cover those other purposes.)

For example, your 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 choose to 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 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 relevant information. Relevant information includes:

• Registration Statuses
• Registration Custom Properties

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

These apply to all events. An Administrator applies the tags at the account level.

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

If you do use standard reg statuses, it’s essential that you tag them all. Those tags are required so that you can use them in the Flows you configure in Signal Connector: see page 9.

Applying Tags in an Event

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

If any of the Flows you configure 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.

These tags are set up for you automatically. Names are identical to the properties themselves:

• Complete
• Badge Printed
• On To Do List
• Invoice Generated
• Test

You only see them in Signal Connector. In Signal Connector, you can activate Flows for them (see page 9). There’s nothing to edit on Certain Platform.

1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types.

2. or more Tags for each attendee type on which you may wish to filter registrations. (See Filters on page 10.)

1. In each event you may wish to include in a filter (for example to ensure that only registrations for that event are passed to Salesforce):

2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Details.

3. or more Tags for the event.

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, as described in Create/Update Lead, you need to 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—available to Administrators—includes an extra option:

• Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration

Click that link to open Certain Signal Connector in a separate window; it 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 – your Target application.

You can have multiple connections. You may have connections for Salesforce and another application. (Other target applications are covered in separate guides.)

Each Flow (see page 7) requires a Connection. Multiple flows may use the same Connection.

You can set up a Connection before configuring your first Flow. You also have the option to set up a Connection while configuring a Flow.

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

Adding a Connection

As an Administrator, you may set up one or more Connections for your account. You need only do so once. You then use Connections in the Flows you set up (see page 7, below).

1. Go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration.

2. As noted above, 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 that is currently OAuth2, an industry-standard secure method of authentication.
• Grant Type: Select ‘Authorization Code’
• Client Id and Client Secret: These two long strings of characters are unique to the OAuth2 app your Salesforce administrator has set up, as explained under ‘Salesforce Credentials’ on page 2. The Salesforce terms for them 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: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/intro_understanding_oauth_endpoints.htm
• 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, that Salesforce record will be updated with details from Certain if they 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 will take precedence.

6. Click Save & Test.

7. If the test is successful, click Close. If it’s not, 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 may configure several flows for an account. Those flows might all use the same Connection (explained above).

You only need to configure a flow once at the account level. When a flow is complete, it will start picking up data for each event in that account within about a minute.

The minute’s delay occurs because Signal Connector runs independently from Certain Platform. If you edit a flow, the same slight delay occurs before that 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.

As noted above, 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.

Click 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 page 9.)
• Filters: Optional filters to narrow down that information. (See page page 10.)
• Destination: Where and how that information goes into Salesforce. (See page page 10.)

A Live Flow will pick up all live registrations in live events. The Live Flow will ignore 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 any registrations marked as ‘Test’ in live events.

Flow Data Source

Next, specify the Source of data for the flow (optionally applying Filters).

The Source of a Flow is what the Flow will watch for in your data in Certain. The Source determines when the Flow will activate.

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

Available sources

You 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.

Activate for …

Choose what the flow should activate for by selecting one or more tags in each appropriate object’s drop- down list.

As shown in the screenshot, you can activate 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 it’s watching for Session Registration Status Change, you must activate for Session Registration Statuses.

The tags available for selection are those set up for that object; see page 3.

For example, the tags for Registration Statuses include Registration Status tags. Those tags can be applied 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:

• Event fields
• Profile fields
• 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 (e.g., Event Code)
• custom event fields
• event tags
• Profile Available fields:
• standard profile fields (e.g., Position)
• custom profile fields
• Attendee Type Tags Available fields:
• tags that can be applied to Attendee Types

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.

• Note: You can instead click New Connection to add a connection. The process to set one up is the same as described on page 5.

3. Select the action for this connection from those listed as available:

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

4. Your choice of action determines the other configuration options.

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

If you configure two Salesforce Destinations for the same flow, configure the Create Contact destination before the Create Lead destination. Contacts need to be created before Leads. Signal Connector evaluates its Contact check correctly.

1. Select one of the three Add to Campaign Options: 1. Add to Campaign & update Member Status 2. Update Existing Campaign Members Only 3. Do not update Campaign 2. Add to Campaign Options are available for both options a and b. 3. Then select further sub-options.

• Add to Campaign & Update Member Status
• Select Campaign ID based on Event Question
• Select the Event Question configured for this purpose. (See page 5 about adding that question.)
• Campaign Statuses
• 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.)
• Update Existing Campaign Members Only
• Select Campaign ID based on Event Question
• Select the Event Question configured for this purpose. (See page 5 about adding that question.)
• Campaign Statuses
• 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.