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Integrate with Salesforce

Last Update: Oct 2024 • Est. Read Time: 5 MIN
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Salesforce is a major CRM platform used by sales teams and businesses worldwide. Kustomer can integrate with Salesforce Sales Cloud to allow your customer support and sales team to gain a more complete picture of your clients through the use of a Salesforce Insight Card.

Who can access this feature?
User typesAdmins can install and manage the Salesforce integration. Available to Salesforce plans that include API access: Enterprise Edition, Professional Edition with API access, Unlimited Edition, and Performance Edition.


In this article

Prerequisites

Before you set up Salesforce integration, your Salesforce Sales Cloud data should be in an optimized state. Kustomer uses email addresses as a unique identifier and retrieves data in Salesforce matching that email. We strongly recommend that your Salesforce Sales Cloud administrator set up matching/deduplication rules and resolve duplicate records before you attempt to set up integration on the Kustomer end. Salesforce offers recommendations for optimizing data quality on their help site here: Managing Duplicate Records

Kustomer will connect to Salesforce Sales Cloud using OAuth 2.0. You'll need to have access to a Salesforce account that has the requisite permissions to access API. This can be any Salesforce admin account, or you can create a dedicated user for this integration if you plan to Monitor API calls in Salesforce.

How does Salesforce work with Kustomer?

This integration adds a Salesforce Insight Card that appears automatically when looking at a Customer or Conversation in the timeline. Administrators can use the App Settings to choose from several Salesforce Sales Cloud objects to be shown to admins in the Salesforce Insight Card.

Kustomer will use email addresses as a unique identifier, and retrieve data in Salesforce Sales Cloud matching that email. The Salesforce Insight Card displays Salesforce Account, Contact, Opportunity, and Lead information associated with that address to agents working in the Kustomer timeline.

After the initial Salesforce integration is configured through this article, you can continue on to set up one-way directional sync from Kustomer to Salesforce to create cases and view Kustomer conversations. Learn more in Create cases in Salesforce and View conversations in Salesforce.

Note: Due to Salesforce API limitations, there is a cap to the volume of API calls that Kustomer can make to Salesforce Sales Cloud. If the API rate limit is exceeded, Kustomer will locally cache Salesforce data in the event that up-to-date data cannot be retrieved. This cache includes any Customer or Conversation objects viewed by any agents within the 24-hour period prior to the API rate limit.

Installing the Salesforce app will add a Salesforce Settings page under Apps > Salesforce in the sidebar, which is used to manage the various options related to this integration.

Install the Salesforce app

To begin integrating Salesforce with Kustomer, install the Salesforce app from within the Kustomer App Directory.

Note: The Salesforce integration must be installed on a production environment. Please do not install it in a sandbox.

  1. Go to Apps ,  search for Salesforce in the App Directory, and then select Install. This will bring up a Connect modal where you'll authenticate using your Salesforce account. If the Salesforce app is already installed in your org but not configured, select the Add Connection button to access the authentication screen.
  2. In the Initial Information step, enter your Salesforce subdomain, then click Next to confirm and proceed. 


    Tip: Your Salesforce subdomain is is the entire prefix before the .salesforce.com portion of your Salesforce domain, and will be formatted like salesforce-org-name or salesforce-org-name.my. Depending on which Salesforce view you're using, this can be located in either the URL field of your browser (in Salesforce Classic), or by selecting your profile icon (in Salesforce Lightning).

  3. In the Authorize step, click Connect to Salesforce to sign in to Salesforce using your OAuth 2.0 credentials.
  4. On the login page that appears, enter your Salesforce account credentials and select Log In.
  5. In the Allow Access prompt, select Allow to confirm access.
  6. The Connect modal in Kustomer should now say the app has been successfully connected. Select Install to complete app setup.

Salesforce app settings overview

After installing and connecting Salesforce, you can visit Apps > Salesforce to access the Salesforce app settings. Here is where you'll make adjustments to the various features offered within the Salesforce integration.

In the View Options tab, you can adjust the Data Visibility settings where you'll select which objects your agents have access to view in the Salesforce Insight Card. Access for all objects is activated by default. These settings can be mixed and matched to your team's preference — however, note that Contacts must be turned on to view Leads.

In the Data Sync tab, you can set up features that add one-way directional sync from Kustomer to Salesforce to create cases and view Kustomer conversations. Learn more in Create cases in Salesforce and View conversations in Salesforce.

In the Connection tab, you can manage the account used to connect this integration, and modify the subdomain in case your Salesforce URL changes.

Manage access policies in Salesforce

Next, you'll install the Kustomer connected app in Salesforce. This step will allow you to manage access policies for the connected Kustomer app. Learn more about managing connected apps on the Salesforce site here: Salesforce: Connected Apps

To install the Kustomer connected app in Salesforce:

  1. Sign in to Salesforce Sales Cloud as an administrator.
  2. Go to Setup > Apps > Connected Apps > Connected Apps OAuth Usage. This page may take a few minutes to load.
  3. Locate Kustomer Connected App in the list and use the Install button to activate it, if it's not already installed.
  4. To manage policies for the Kustomer app, go to Setup > Apps Connected Apps > Manage Connected Apps.
  5. Locate Kustomer Connected App in the list, and use the Edit link to open its properties.
  6. Set the IP Relaxation setting to Relax IP restrictions.
  7. Set the Refresh Token Policy setting to Refresh token is valid until revoked.
  8. Press Save at the bottom of the window.

Monitor API calls in Salesforce

If you plan to monitor API calls in Salesforce, you may wish to set up a dedicated Salesforce account. While you can configure the Salesforce integration with any account that has appropriate permissions, monitoring API calls on that user will show a mix of all API calls in aggregate across all authorized applications.

As a best practice, you can create a unique account for the Salesforce integration which would allow you to see only the Salesforce app attributed calls. This would help you isolate traffic associated with Kustomer to monitor costs associated with this app integration.

To create a Kustomer API user in Salesforce:

  1. Create a user in the Salesforce org for this API account, with a name like Kustomer API User or other illustrative name.
  2. Give the new user the appropriate User Permissions to allow API access. 
  3. Install the Salesforce app. When authenticating with OAuth 2.0, use the credentials associated with the Kustomer API User

You can now monitor API calls attributed to that user from within Salesforce. For more information, see the Salesforce help article: Monitor or report on API use

Modify Data Visibility settings

Access to all Salesforce Sales Cloud objects is activated by default. If you need to adjust which objects appear to agents in the Salesforce Insight Card, you can make these changes in the Data Visibility settings.

To modify access to Salesforce objects:

  1. In Kustomer, go to Apps > Salesforce.
  2. Select the View Options tab.
  3. Use the toggles next to the Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, and Lead options to adjust agent access as desired.

Note: Contacts must be turned on in order to view Leads. It isn't possible currently to show Leads while hiding Contacts.

If necessary, you can also deactivate this aspect of the Salesforce app integration altogether and hide the Salesforce Insight Card and custom object views. This setting can be toggled off without impacting other Salesforce app functionality.

To turn off the Salesforce Insight Card:

  1. In Kustomer, go to Apps> Salesforce.
  2. Select the View Options tab.
  3. Use the toggle in the Data Visibility header to activate or deactivate this feature.

Case creation in Salesforce

After the initial Salesforce integration is configured through this article, you can continue on to set up one-way directional sync from Kustomer to Salesforce. Learn more in Create cases in Salesforce.