Salesforce is a robust, cloud-based CRM system that helps companies forge and sustain customer relationships. While it helps companies in all aspects of their business, such as sales, marketing, service, commerce, and analytics, most companies use other software to run their businesses.
On the Salesforce AppExchange alone, there are over 4000 apps and add-ons that you can integrate with your Salesforce account. However, thousands of other tools may require Salesforce integration or custom middleware solutions to connect systems and add-ons.
That’s where Salesforce integration comes in. Navigating the complexities of Salesforce integration can be daunting for beginners.
This post will serve as a guide for Salesforce Integration. It will give you a simple overview of the process, integration methods, and best scenarios.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is the world’s leading cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that helps you build and improve customer relations. It gives your team a centralized location to store, track, and manage customer information.
For instance, teams across an organisation can connect and share a single view of customer data using the Salesforce application.
According to Salesforce, over 150,000 companies–from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies use its secure and scalable cloud platform.
Since Salesforce has the highest share, 21.8%, in the CRM market, it’s also used in literally every sphere, from non-profits to real estate, agriculture, and others.
What is Salesforce Integration?
Salesforce is in the process of connecting Salesforce with other internal or external software business applications, services, and data sources. This extension allows you to extend functionality, share data systems, and improve visibility between integrated systems.
Some examples of Salesforce integrations are:
- ERP (SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics): Sync customer orders, invoices, and inventory for seamless sales-to-finance workflows.
- E-commerce (Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce): Automatically capture online orders in Salesforce to manage customer data and personalize marketing.
- Financial & Accounting (QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks): Track payments, invoices, and financial health alongside customer records.
- Marketing Tools (HubSpot, Marketo, Mailchimp): Enable personalized campaigns by syncing lead and campaign data.
- Customer Support (Zendesk, Slack, Microsoft Teams): Provide service agents real-time access to customer history for faster resolutions.
- Analytics & BI (Tableau, Power BI, Google Analytics): Visualize real-time sales performance and customer insights.
For instance, Advancing Eyecare, a leading provider of ophthalmic instrumentation, used the APPSeCONNECT connector (BigCommerce → Salesforce → SAP Business One connector) to automate the entire order-to-invoice cycle and create seamless order and inventory management.
Why integrate Salesforce?
With the right integration capabilities, businesses can improve their efficiency and customer experience extensively. According to a Salesforce report, integrations can deliver an average revenue growth of up to 20% and enhance ROI by as much as 50% within the first year.
Besides this, here are some benefits of using Salesforce integration:
- Eliminate data silos: Integrating Salesforce with other systems helps consolidate information and minimize data silos. It ensures that all relevant data is synced across apps and teams.
- Enhance customer experience: Poor customer understanding can lead to misguided marketing campaigns and inappropriate product development efforts, wasting resources and time. Salesforce integrations efficiently gather and analyse customer data from diverse sources to explain customer behaviours and needs.
- Accurate data: Information transferred between Salesforce and external systems is automatically validated and standardized for accuracy, ensuring accurate and consistent data.
- Workflow automation: When you integrate Salesforce with other business applications, you can easily automate processes that span multiple systems. For example, by integrating Salesforce with an e-commerce platform, customer orders can automatically sync into Salesforce, reducing manual work and potential errors.
Salesforce integration methods
Salesforce integration combines two or more applications that allow users to streamline different processes. Every Salesforce integration aims to ensure that users are not stuck with siloed workflows and can experience the benefits of integrations.
Below are some common types of Salesforce integrations:
1. Point-and-click integrations
A point-to-point system integration, or one-to-one integration, connects two separate software applications directly to exchange data without intermediaries. For instance, sales applications send order confirmation to a billing, shipping, and tracking system separately.
Point-to-point integration works through custom coding APIs (typically via REST, SOAP, OData, or SAP BAPIs) or a combination of both. In this approach, custom code establishes these direct connections. Such integrations usually do not use APIs, with relevant data flowing from one tool to another.
The second way to achieve point-to-point integration is through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Usually, SaaS apps like Salesforce offer multiple APIs so that their customers can easily integrate other apps with them.
These API approaches can take you fairly far in terms of integration. However, one must have a deep technical knowledge of SAP and Salesforce API.
2. Middleware of the iPaaS platform
Using a third-party as a central hub means no custom code, just a clean setup and automation.
It’s best for:
- Mid to large enterprises seeking automated and dependable integrations.
- Teams focused on scalability, proactive monitoring, and reusable solutions.
- Non-developers or hybrid teams needing flexibility without code.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) or middleware stands between the two systems and integrates them. It doesn’t just connect them; data mapping, intelligent data transformation, and real-time data ingestion create a synergy between them.
Whether you are connecting your CRM to your email marketing tool or your finance software to your customer service platform, this reduces setup time because users don’t have to configure APIs manually.
For instance, APPSeCONNECT has ready-made templates for everyday use cases (like syncing leads from a CRM to an email marketing tool). This lets users set up integrations in minutes without starting from scratch.
Data import and export
Using data import and export in Salesforce is one of the simplest ways to move information between Salesforce and other systems. It is particularly useful when real-time synchronization isn’t necessary, such as during one-time migrations, scheduled updates, or data backups.
Here’s how you can import data from Salesforce:
- The Data Import Wizard is built into the platform and is designed for smaller, less technical uploads of up to 50,000 records. It supports standard and custom objects and lets users map CSV columns directly to Salesforce fields.
- The Data Loader is a desktop application available for larger or more complex imports. It supports millions of records and provides additional functions like insert, update, upsert, delete, and export.
Here’s how you can export data from Salesforce:
- The Data Export Service allows users to perform manual or scheduled exports, typically weekly or monthly, with results delivered in CSV files bundled into ZIP archives.
- The Data Loader also provides export functionality, including filtering data with SOQL queries and exporting archived records.
No matter how simple this looks, manually importing and exporting data becomes challenging as you scale. Doing it occasionally is manageable, but repeating the process regularly, say daily or weekly, becomes time-consuming and error-prone. It also lacks real-time synchronization, meaning your Salesforce instance may not always reflect the latest data from other systems.
Salesforce Integration Scenarios
Salesforce can be connected with external applications in different ways to streamline workflows, centralize information, and create a unified customer experience.
Whether you’re a Salesforce amateur, an IT professional, or a business leader looking to optimize your workflow with Salesforce, this integration scenario would help.
1. ERP systems
ERP and CRMs are both used by businesses to improve efficiency and streamline operations.
While CRM provides businesses with consolidated views of their customers and their preferences, ERP includes functionality like production, inventory management, supply chain management, and finance. Integrating them gives businesses a complete view of their customers and their financial performance in one place.
For instance, APPSeCONNECT simplifies CRM integration by offering prebuilt connectors for popular CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM, and others. This helps businesses integrate CRM with ERPs without any coding.
- Bi-Directional Sync → always-accurate stock, eliminating overselling.
- Prebuilt Workflows → cut order-to-cash cycle by 70%.
- No-Code Setup → Ops team saves 90+ days of dev work.
- ERP Integration Coverage → connect finance, logistics, and sales seamlessly
2. Marketing automations
The benefits of marketing automation tools can hardly be overestimated. However, when you connect Salesforce with them, the value increases even more. Its goal is to generate more leads, nurture prospects through personalized engagement, and drive them smoothly into the sales pipeline.
These marketing automations allow marketers to:
- Automate repetitive tasks like email campaigns, follow-ups, and lead nurturing.
- Segment audiences based on behavior, demographics, or engagement level.
- Personalize communication through targeted content and messaging.
- Track customer journeys across multiple touchpoints (email, social, web, mobile, ads).
- Measure ROI with real-time analytics and campaign performance reports.
For instance, APPSeCONNECT simplifies Salesforce integration with marketing tools by offering prebuilt connectors for platforms like Mailchimp, Marketo, HubSpot Marketing Hub, ActiveCampaign, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This allows businesses to automate lead synchronization, campaign tracking, and customer segmentation across systems without writing a single line of code.
3. Ecommerce platforms
Any ecommerce business maintains its operations through an online marketplace or its website. However, maintaining website operations while using Salesforce can be tricky and time-consuming. The reps end up spending a lot of time switching between tabs, thus losing time to core activities.
That’s where Salesforce e-commerce integration comes into play. It helps:
- Manage all your sales channels through a single platform.
- Forecast inventory before running out.
- Track the entire order return process
- Provide a unified platform where businesses can manage their commerce process.
For instance, Josie Maran Cosmetics managed thousands of orders per week and automated business processes with APPSeCONNECT’s seamless integration capabilities. The SAP Business One + Shopify Plus Connector by APPSeCONNECT delivered a complete end-to-end automation solution to automate bulk everyday business processes seamlessly.
How does APPSeCONNECT help in Salesforce integration?
APPSeCONNECT is a leading iPaaS integration solution provider for Salesforce integration. It offers multiple pre-configured templates, 100+ ready connectors, and multiple integration endpoints for a smooth integration process.
Our salesforce crm integration solution handles:
- Contacts & Leads: Synchronize names, emails, phone numbers, and lifecycle stages in both directions.
- Accounts & Opportunities: Maintain consistent account details and deal stage updates across systems.
- Quotes, Orders & Invoices: Automatically generate ERP sales orders and return invoice details to Salesforce.
- Custom Objects & Tables: Integrate any Salesforce object or custom ERP table seamlessly through REST APIs.
- Support Tickets & Activities: Ensure cases and tasks are synced between Salesforce and your service desk.
APPSeCONNECT’s Enhanced Security & Compliance Measures:
- Role-based access
- 2-Factor authentication
- SOC2-level monitoring
- Secure authentication
- GDPR and CCPA compliance
- APPSeCONNECT also provides HIPAA and CLOUD ACT-compliant integration solutions for handling sensitive data in the US.
APPSeCONNECT also has a 4.7 rating on Capterra. Thousands of brands trust it from all across the world:
Frequently Asked Questions
Salesforce integration is the process of connecting Salesforce, the leading cloud-based CRM system, with other business applications, such as ERP systems, eCommerce platforms, and marketing automation tools. This integration helps synchronize data across systems, enabling seamless workflows and improving operational efficiency.
Salesforce ERP integration allows businesses to connect Salesforce with ERP platforms like SAP, Oracle NetSuite, or Microsoft Dynamics. This integration ensures that customer orders, invoices, and inventory data sync automatically between the systems, improving data accuracy and streamlining order-to-cash processes.
Salesforce integration with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce enables businesses to automatically capture online orders, sync customer data, and personalize marketing campaigns. This leads to improved customer experience, real-time data synchronization, and better inventory management.
Salesforce integration with marketing tools like HubSpot, Marketo, or Mailchimp enhances marketing automation by syncing lead and campaign data in real-time. This enables businesses to segment audiences, automate email campaigns, track customer journeys, and measure ROI, all from a unified platform.
There are several Salesforce integration methods:
- Point-and-click integration for simple, no-code solutions.
- Custom API development for more complex integrations.
- Middleware and iPaaS platforms for scalable and flexible integrations.
- Data import and export for migrating or syncing large datasets.
Common challenges in Salesforce integration include data silos, manual data entry errors, and complexities in real-time data syncing. Businesses may also struggle with ensuring compliance with security standards and managing multiple third-party integrations simultaneously.
APPSeCONNECT offers pre-built connectors and no-code integration templates for Salesforce, enabling seamless connections with ERP systems, eCommerce platforms, and marketing tools. With real-time data sync and automated workflows, it simplifies the integration process and reduces the need for complex coding or development.
Salesforce integration with email and calendar applications like Outlook and Google Calendar helps streamline communication and scheduling. By syncing these tools with Salesforce, you can ensure that customer interactions, appointments, and follow-ups are captured in real-time, improving team collaboration and productivity.
Middleware platforms like iPaaS act as a bridge between Salesforce and other systems, enabling seamless data flow without custom code. They simplify complex integrations, allow for scalable solutions, and make it easier for businesses to connect Salesforce with multiple third-party applications in a flexible, no-code environment.
Best practices for successful Salesforce integration include choosing the right integration method (e.g., point-and-click or APIs), ensuring bi-directional data sync, implementing security and compliance measures, and regularly testing integrations to monitor performance. It’s also important to choose a solution like APPSeCONNECT that supports real-time data synchronization and automates workflows.
