Overview
While Salesforce provides many out-of-the-box fields that you can use to sync your data back and forth between Apollo, there may be data that is important to your business that you can't track with traditional metrics. For this reason, Salesforce and Apollo allow you to create custom fields to store that data.
In order to leverage bi-directional sync between Apollo and Salesforce, you must first create a custom field in Salesforce and then link that field to a custom field in Apollo.
Please note, you need to create custom fields in Salesforce for each object type (Contacts, Leads, Accounts, or Opportunities) before you can link them to to the corresponding object and field type in Apollo.
Refer to the sections below for detailed instructions about each part of the process.
Create a Custom Salesforce Field
Please note, Salesforce provides a software suite that is under constant active development. For the most up-to-date explanation of how to create a custom field in Salesforce, please see the Create a Custom Field article on the Salesforce Trailhead knowledge base.
Launch Salesforce and then click Setup.
Click Object Manager.
Apollo supports custom fields for Account fields, Contact fields, Lead fields, and Opportunity fields. Depending on how you configured your Salesforce integration, click the appropriate option.
With the object, click Fields & Relationships.
Click New to create a new custom field.
Click the "Data Type" you want to use for your custom field and then click Next.
Please note, to prevent any data sync or mismatch errors, you should select the same (or similar) data type in both Salesforce and Apollo.
Fill in the required and optional fields for the new custom field and then click Next.
Configure the security details for the custom field and then click Next.
Select the page layouts that should include the new custom field and then click Save.
The new custom Salesforce Contact field is ready to link to a custom Apollo Contact field.
Link a Custom Apollo Contact Field to a Custom Salesforce Field
Please note, the procedure below assumes that you have already created a custom contact field in Apollo. For additional information about creating custom contact fields, please see the "Create Custom Contact Fields" articles.
Launch Apollo and then click Settings.
Click Contacts.
Click Custom Fields.
If you did not already configure synchronization between the custom account field and Salesforce when you created it, click the Additional Options (...) button next to the account field that you want to edit.
Click Edit.
Click the Map to Salesforce Contact Field drop-down and/or the Map to Salesforce Lead Field drop-down and then click the Salesforce custom Contact field that you want to link to the current Apollo custom account field.
Please note, Apollo supports linking your custom contact field to either a Salesforce Contact Field or Salesforce Lead Field depending on what option makes the most sense for your integration. You can also sync to both object types at the same time. If you decide to sync to both object types, the Apollo custom contact field automatically becomes "Read Only." You can disable the "Read Only" setting by removing one of the mapped objects.
Click the checkbox below the drop-down if you only want the Apollo custom contact field to read data from Salesforce rather than bi-directionally syncing. This is a useful option if you have a fixed piece of data in Salesforce that should not change.
Click Save.
Your Apollo custom contact field is now ready to sync with Salesforce.
Link a Custom Apollo Account Field to a Custom Salesforce Field
Please note, the procedure below assumes that you have already created a custom account field in Apollo. For additional information about creating custom account fields, please see the "Create Custom Account Fields" article.
Launch Apollo and then click Settings.
Click Accounts.
Click Custom Fields.
If you did not already configure synchronization between the custom account field and Salesforce when you created it, click the Additional Options (...) button next to the account field that you want to edit.
Click Edit.
Click the Map to Salesforce Account Field drop-down. Then, click the Salesforce custom field that you want to link to the current Apollo custom account field.
Click the checkbox below the drop-down if you only want the Apollo custom account field to read data from Salesforce rather than bi-directionally syncing. This is a useful option if you have a fixed piece of data in Salesforce that should not change.
For more on bi-directional syncing, read the Bi-Directional Sync Overview.
Click Save.
Your Apollo custom account field is now ready to sync with Salesforce.