Important Information about the Salesforce Integration

Overview

Integrating Salesforce with Apollo enables you to access and keep your data synchronized within both platforms.

Before you integrate Salesforce with Apollo though, there are several important details to remember that can help you streamline the setup process and reduce the risk of unnecessary errors when integrating Salesforce.

Check out the following sections to learn more about the Salesforce integration.

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Understand Salesforce Pull Settings

Pull settings relate to how Apollo pulls data from your connected Salesforce CRM. Apollo must always pull your leads, contacts, and accounts from Salesforce. This allows Apollo to remove any matches from the Apollo database. It also prevents your team from accidentally prospecting records in Apollo that already exist in Salesforce.

After connecting the integration for the first time or triggering a manual pull, the sync process may take several hours to complete, depending on the number of records in your CRM. After that, Apollo automatically syncs any new or updated records from Salesforce every 30 minutes.

When Apollo identifies a lead and a contact for the same person in your Salesforce instance, Apollo always pulls the contact, not the lead. This is the only form of deduplication that Apollo runs against your Salesforce instance.

You can't disable the automatic pull feature for leads, contacts, and accounts, but you can hide them from view in Apollo. For more information, follow the steps in Configure Salesforce Pull Settings. To update the pull settings for Salesforce opportunities, check out Map Apollo Deals to Salesforce Opportunities.

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Understand Salesforce Push Settings

Push settings relate to how Apollo pushes data from Apollo into your Salesforce CRM. Unlike pull settings, you can enable or disable Salesforce push settings for leads, contacts, and accounts.

Once enabled, Apollo syncs saved records and updates to Salesforce in real time.

If you choose to push records from Apollo to Salesforce, use push settings to configure how Apollo records sync to Salesforce.

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Avoid Duplicate Records

There are several key duplication rules to keep in mind before connecting Salesforce.

When you integrate Salesforce, Apollo mirrors the data in your Salesforce instance. If you have duplicate leads, contact, or accounts in Salesforce, these same duplicates reflect in Apollo too. To avoid duplicate records post-sync, clean and deduplicate your Salesforce instance before you integrate the 2 platforms.

If Apollo pulls a duplicate from Salesforce, Apollo displays a potential duplicate message on the contact or account's profile page to notify you. You can also identify the record creation source from the activity log.

When you manually create a duplicate record in Salesforce, Apollo automatically creates the same record. Likewise, if you enable the Salesforce push settings and create a duplicate record in Apollo, Salesforce creates the same record within your Salesforce instance.

Apollo does not automatically delete or merge the duplicates that you manually create. If you decide to delete or merge any of these records, you must do so manually.

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Remove Duplicate Records

If duplicate records have already been synced from Salesforce to Apollo, you have 2 options for removing them:

• Delete: If you enable the appropriate settings in Apollo, you can delete duplicate records in either Apollo or Salesforce and the deletion will sync for both.
• Merge: If you enable the appropriate settings in Apollo, you can merge duplicate records in Salesforce and the changes will sync to Apollo. Once you merge a duplicate, Apollo will only sync information for the remaining record with Salesforce.

To change these settings:

1. Launch Apollo and click Settings > Integrations.
2. Click View next to the Salesforce integration.
3. On the Salesforce integration page, select from Contacts, Leads, Accounts, or Deals, then click Sync.
4. Click the checkboxes to enable deletion sync or merge sync.

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Map Fields and Set Data Writing Rules

In order for Salesforce and Apollo to sync correctly, you need to map your contact, lead,and account fields to the fields in Salesforce and configure whether Apollo overwrites or auto-fills the data in your CRM fields.

Keep the following in mind when deciding whether to auto-fill or overwrite Salesforce field data:

• When you enable Auto-fill, Apollo automatically uses information within the Apollo database to fill in the field from Salesforce. This only happens if a field is empty and Apollo has relevant information available.
• When you enable Overwrite, Apollo automatically overwrites the existing information in the field from Salesforce with the information within Apollo. This only happens if the information differs between the 2 platforms and Apollo has relevant information available.

Check out Map Apollo Fields in Salesforce to learn more about field mapping and configuring auto-fill and overwrite settings.

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View Errors

Leverage the error log in Apollo to view any sync errors that Apollo receives from your Salesforce instance.

The error log only displays errors that Apollo receives when pushing information to Salesforce. These errors are responses from Salesforce, and they usually indicate a restriction on Salesforce's side, such as hitting a custom validation rule or rate limits for your connected instance.

If you are still unsure whether your data is syncing correctly, you can gain a more granular view of error sync history at the contact or account level.

Auto-Map Deal Stages

When you integrate Salesforce, Apollo automatically creates a pipeline for deals with the same stages as your Salesforce opportunity stages and deactivates the creation of new deal stages in Apollo.

Check out Map Apollo Deals to Salesforce Opportunities for more information about the automatic stage mapping between Apollo deals and Salesforce opportunities, and manual field mapping between deals fields and Salesforce opportunity fields.

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Use Apollo on Salesforce

If you spend most of your prospecting cycle in Salesforce, you can use Apollo directly on Salesforce. After you connect the integration and configure sync settings, add the integration directly into Salesforce:

To use Apollo on Salesforce:

1. Log into Salesforce and create a Visualforce page.
2. Name the page and the label Apollo.
3. Paste the following snippet into the Visualforce markup.

<apex:page standardController="Account">
    <apex:iframe src="https://app.apollo.io/#/embedded-crm/account?crm_object_id={!account.id}"/>
</apex:page>

4. Save the Visualforce page, and navigate to an account in Salesforce.
5. Click Settings > Edit Page.
6. Click a tab, then add a tab to the page. Change the tab type to Custom. Enter Apollo for the name.
7. Drag the Visualforce component into the tab's empty space.
8. Select the Apollo page you just created, and set the height to 450.
9. Click Save.
10. Navigate back to an account page, and click Apollo. Apollo shares prospects from the selected account.

You can save contacts to Apollo, email them from Apollo, add to them to a sequence, add them to a list, export to Salesforce, and assign owners or accounts.

You have now used Apollo on Salesforce.

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