Top 5 Salesforce WHITEPAPER Integration Patterns

Best practices for integrating SalesforceW HITEPA PERTop 5 Salesforceintegration patterns

ContentsIntroduction3Top 5 Salesforce integration patterns4Pattern No. 1Migration5Pattern No. 2Broadcast6Pattern No. 3Aggregation8Pattern No. 4Bidirectional sync10Pattern No. 5Correlation12Get startedAnypoint Templates for Salesforce integration14Better together: MuleSoft Salesforce16About MuleSoft17

T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N SIntroductionThe challenge many businesses face is howto connect Salesforce with their core systemsand applications such as databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems,and custom applications. Though everyintegration scenario is unique, there areseveral common requirements and issuesthat developers must resolve. This whitepaper describes the strategies, in the formof patterns, that many developers use tointegrate with Salesforce. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MAs the world’s No. 1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce enables companies to seamlesslyconnect customer experiences across everytouchpoint in the business: sales, service,marketing, and more.3We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. Ninety-seven percentof businesses have joined the race to deliver connected customer experiences.Delivering these experiences requires more than just providing products andservices in a timely manner. It requires creating organic connections with realpeople at every touchpoint of their journey.

T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N STop 5 Salesforceintegration patternsIntegration plays a critical role in creating seamless customer experiences acrosschannels, departments, and systems. To speed up Salesforce integration,organizations typically apply integration applications based on five patterns.These patterns are the most logical sequence of steps to solve specific types ofintegration problems, documented from real-world use cases.When thinking about the format of a simplepoint-to-point, atomic integration, one canuse the following structure:Application(s) A to application(s) B –object(s) – patternTo templatize common Salesforce integration needs, it must first be established tomake integrations atomic, reusable, extensible, and easily understandable. The essenceof a pattern includes some combination ofat least one of the following elements: The criteria which determines the scopeof data to be.4 A source system where data resides priorto execution. Transformation from one format toanother. A destination system where the data willbe inserted. Results capture which compares the finalstate with the desired state.The five most common integration patternsare migration, broadcast, aggregation, correlation, and bidirectional synchronization. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MAn integration application includes apattern and a business use case. Thepattern is the use of the generic process fordata movement and handling. The businessuse case is comprised of the value obtainedfrom an integration.

T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S015MigrationData migration is the act of moving a specific set of data at a point in timefrom one system to another. A migration pattern allows developers to createautomated integration services for functionality that will be shared acrossmultiple teams. Developers can set configuration parameters to pass into an APIcall so that the migration application can dynamically migrate scoped Salesforcedata in or out of Salesforce either on command or in the form of an API. Creatingreusable services for frequent migrations can save an exceptional amount of timefor development and operations teams.process many records in batches, and have tofail gracefully in case of error(s).Migrations are essential to any data systemand are executed extensively in any organization that has data operations. Migrationskeep data agnostic from the tools used tocreate it, view it, and manage it and ensurethat data is not lost when tools are changed. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MThere are numerous Salesforce integration scenarios that may require a migrationpattern including, migrating data from alegacy CRM system to Salesforce or from oneSalesforce organization to another, backingup a master data set, consolidating CRMsystems, populating Salesforce product datafrom SAP, and more. Migration patternsare tuned to handle large volumes of data,

6T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S02BroadcastIn contrast to the migration pattern, thebroadcast pattern is transactional. It executeslogic only for items that have been recentlymodified and is optimized for processingrecords as quickly as possible. Broadcastpatterns are highly flexible and used to keepdata up to date between multiple systems,across time. A broadcast pattern should behighly reliable to avoid losing critical data intransit. Reliability is also necessary to employintegrations with low human oversight acrossmission-critical applications as broadcast 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MBroadcast is the act of moving data from a single source system to manydestination systems in real time, near real time, or on an ongoing basis.Essentially, it is one-way synchronization from one to many. Typically “one-waysync” implies a one-to-one relationship; however, the broadcast pattern can alsobe a one-to-many relationship.

The broadcast pattern allows for theimmediate transfer of customer databetween systems, whether from twoinstances of Salesforce or between Salesforceand other systems. For example, the patterncan broadcast update to a customer recordbetween Salesforce organizations or canenable an action in Salesforce to immediatelytranslate into order fulfillment processing.“The broadcast patternallows for the immediatetransfer of customer databetween systems, whetherfrom two instances ofSalesforce or betweenSalesforce and othersystems.”T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N Spatterns are usually initiated by a push notification or a scheduled job. A sales order in SAP should be createdwhen an opportunity is marked asCLOSED WON in Salesforce.7Use cases for the broadcast pattern includethe following: Real-time data needs to be synchronizedfrom Siebel to Salesforce. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O M Insert/update to a Salesforce record tobe reflected in other adjacent enterpriseapplications.

8T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S03Aggregation is the simplest way to extract and process data from multiplesystems into one application or report in real time. The alternative to aggregationis to run multiple migrations on a daily basis, which requires manual maintenanceto keep data accurate, synchronized, and up to date. Broadcasting data frommultiple systems, though real time, does require maintaining a database tostore replicated data to be queried. By using an integration template built on anaggregation pattern, developers can easily query multiple systems on demandand merge data sets to use data however and whenever needed. This way, onecan create or store reports in .csv or other formats of choice. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MAggregation

Building APIs that collect and return datafrom multiple systems, or report acrossmultiple systems.Since the aggregation pattern allows developers to extract and process data from multiplesystems and merge them into one application, data is always up to date, does not getreplicated, and can be processed or mergedto produce any desired data set or report.This avoids the need to have a separate operational database for merged content andmakes reports available in any format orwithin any repository.The aggregation pattern is particularly helpfulin the following scenarios: When creating orchestration APIs thatget data from multiple systems to“modernize” legacy systems by processingdata into one response.When using the aggregation pattern tointegrate data and applications, key considerations include collecting data, the scopeof the source data and insert data, mergingmultiple data sets, formatting data, and anyadditional destinations. For example, whencollecting data, there are two ways to do so:either create an application — that listens formessages from multiple systems and aggregates them in real time, or create an application — that is triggered by an event. Whencombining multiple data sets, it is importantto consider how to merge them and how topresent the data in the final report or destination system.T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S Updating Salesforce with data frommultiple back-end systems such as ERPand issue-tracking systems. When systems used for compliance orauditing purposes need to have relateddata from multiple systems. With theaggregation pattern, compliance data canbe collected from multiple systems, but behoused in a central, compliant repository.9 Creating a dashboard that pulls datafrom multiple Salesforce instances, whileensuring data consistency. When creating reports or dashboardswhich have to pull data from multiplesystems and create an experience withthat data. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MExamples of uses for the aggregation patterninclude the following:

10T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S04Bidirectional syncEnterprises can use bidirectional sync integration to: Optimize organizational processes. Closely align data representations to realityin both systems. Reduce the compound cost of manuallyaddressing inconsistencies, lack of data,or the impact on business as a result ofinconsistencies. Hand pick and customize a suite of toolswith best-of-breed applications usedcollectively for specific organizational aims. 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MBidirectional sync is the act of uniting two or more data sets from two or moredifferent systems to behave as one system that recognizes the existence ofdifferent data sets. This type of integration is useful when different tools ordifferent systems must accomplish different functions on the same data set. Usingbidirectional sync to share the data set enables the use of both systems, whilemaintaining a consistent real-time view of the data across systems.

Bidirectional sync is a pattern that can unifythe most relevant and best performing applications to enhance Salesforce functionalitiesand result in overall growth in sales.T O P 5 S A L E S F O R C E I N T E G R AT I O N P AT T E R N S11Bidirectional sync integration enables eachsystem to perform optimally while maintaining data integrity across both synchronizedsystems. It can provide flexibility to modularlyadd and remove two or more systems thatsubspecialize inside a domain as storage. Andsync is particularly advantageous when objectrepresentations of reality must be comprehensive and consistent.“Applied to Salesforce,bidirectional syncsupports examples suchas integration of multiplesystems that contributeto operational efficienciesand a streamlined quoteto-cash flow. ” 2021 M U L E S O F T — M U L E S O F T . C O MApplied to Salesforce, bidirectional syncsupports examples such as integration ofmultiple systems that contribute to operational efficiencies and a streamlined quoteto-cash flow. Salesforce can play the role ofthe primary system of records or a secondarysystem where all data are synchronized to.