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Salesforce Connector Custom Solution FAQ

  • Updated

This solution is no longer available for new clients from 2024. See Integrate GoFundraise to Salesforce through MoveData

 

 

Here are the answers to some common questions regarding our Salesforce Connector Custom Solution:

 

Why use the GoFundraise connector?

Currently to get GoFundraise data into Salesforce you are required to perform many complex steps. You run your report from GF to get all of your data. You run a report from SF to get all of your unique account, contact and campaign ID's. You then vlookup your GF data with your SF data to add the unique ID's. You then need to Create any new accounts, create new contacts linked to the new accounts, create all the donations linked to the account. This can take anywhere from 1.5 - 2 days every fortnight. On top of this you are only importing GF data once every 2 weeks making your report in SF 2 weeks behind. The sync tool can import the donations in near real-time (ideally scheduled to twice a day).

 

How does it work?

We use a Salesforce batch API connection to upsert data into SF. This allows us to bundle up donations and send them across to SF anywhere from every minute to whatever schedule the organisation requires.

 

What limitations does it have?

The sync map must abide by set rules. It cannot make judgment calls on data like a person can looking at a spread sheet of donations to notice that e.g. John Smith makes two donations of the same amount.

 

How often can it sync?

It uses a cron schedule, so anywhere from every minute to once a year, however any less any less than an hour is not reccomened. Standard is usually a few times a day.

 

What is involved with setting up the sync tool?

Because Salesforce is so customisable a full understanding of how the organisation uses it along with what custom fields they have needs to be recorded first.

  • New fields for the sync tool need to be created in SF. Edit the sync map to use the organisation’s custom fields and record types.
  • Test, review and refine.
  • Sign off sync map.
  • Update current Salesforce Accounts, Contacts and Campaigns with corresponding GoFundraise unique ID's.
  • Build any workflows, alerts or reports around the organisations requirements.
  • Finally switch the sync tool to live mode.

 

What is the Salesforce connector? An App? A plugin? How does it link my CRM to my GoFundraise account?

The GoFundraise – Salesforce connector is an API (Application Programming Interface) software connection from GoFundrasie to Salesforce. It links GoFundraise to Salesforce not Salesforce to GoFundraise. It is software on GoFundrasie that connects and talks to Salesforce.

 

How does it connect?

It connects using an Admin account with marketing rights (so that it can create Campaigns) through an API batch call. This account needs to have a password that never expires.

 

How are invoicing and GST components reflected in Salesforce when using the Salesforce connector?

All transactions through the Salesforce Connector will appear as Gross totals i.e. inclusive of GST/merchant rates/service rates. The GST component can be set to appear as a separate field in Salesforce if this has been included in the initial setup.

 

How many API calls does the sync tool use?

The sync tool uses a bulk API call. This limits the number of calls to about 8 calls for each batch of donations it syncs with Salesforce. The sync will use the same amount of calls regardless of how many donations it is syncing in each batch.

 

How many API calls do I get?

You will need to check in your own System Overview, but an Enterprise Edition of Salesforce will normally have 10,000 calls per rolling 24 hrs. You may also get an additional amount of calls per license you have.

 

Will our Salesforce workflows still run for the imported donations?

Yes, as long as the workflow criteria is still met. If a certain check box needs to be ticked, then it can be added to the sync map to make or prevent workflows from running.

 

How do we distinguish between imported Go Fundraise donations and other donations?

How do you currently distinguish between them? Most likely you use the Opportunity Source set to GoFundraise. This can be set in your sync map.

 

Regarding transactions, how much of the info can be moved to Salesforce? For example, which level of the details will be transferred to Salesforce for a given transaction? (type of transaction: credit card/Mastercard/PayPal, etc)?

Information filled out on the fundraising page can be pushed into Salesforce.

e.g. Stage, Amount, Fundraiser page (as a Campaign), Account the Opportunity is linked to, Product, Close Date, Fundraiser and Donor links for soft credits.

 

How will soft credits be reflected in the system?

In native NPSP the contact roles are populated for hard and soft credits

In Clouding Around/CauseICan The Fundraiser and Donor lookup is used to allocate soft credits. These lookup fields are populated with the corresponding Fundraiser and Donor.

 

Do we have any release notes that we could share?

We're currently working on release notes to share.

 

How does the integration with Good2Give work in combination with the Salesforce connector?

The Good2Give integration is currently separate from the Fundraising page connector. However, this is on our product roadmap for future development.

 

Do campaigns (fundraising pages, team fundraising pages & events) need to be created in Salesforce beforehand manually?

No, they do not. The sync tool will create a Campaign and Child Campaigns for Events and Fundraising Pages when they are created in GoFundraise. This will allow an email alert to be created in Salesforce so that the new Campaign can be checked and linked to any parent Campaign that is being used. Fund Allocations can also be added at this stage.

 

Are donations linked to a Campaign?

Each Fundraising Page/Event in GoFundraise is treated as a Campaign in Salesforce. Each donation made to a page will be added to the corresponding Campaign.

 

How does the system handle contact duplication? How do you prevent duplicates?

GoFundraise tags each contact with its own unique ID. GoFundraise uses email address de-duping. This requires some initial set up to import the GoFundraise ID into Salesforce before turning on the sync tool.

 

Who would be able to change the current schedule of integration (I understood it's real time, but you can set up a specific schedule) - does it have to be us at GoFundraise or can they do it on their end?

Currently the schedule is set in the Admin section of the sync tool. During setup a sync schedule will be agreed upon. Normally set to twice a day e.g. 8am and 2pm

 

How does the sync schedule work?

The sync schedule is driven by a crontab file. There are 5 sections to the cron schedule, minutes, hours, day of the month, month and day of the week.

# ┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)

# │ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)

# │ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1 - 31)

# │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)

# │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday to Saturday;

# │ │ │ │ │ 7 is also Sunday on some systems)

# │ │ │ │ │

# │ │ │ │ │

# * * * * * command to execute

If you wanted 15 minutes past every hour you would use: 15 * * * *

For 6:15am every day : 15 6 * * *

For 6:15am and 1:15pm every day: 15 6,13 * * *

 

What's the level of customisation of the tool? If fields have to be added in Salesforce at a later stage, who can map them with the connector?

The structure of the sync will not change. Household Accounts and Contacts are created. Parent Campaigns are created from Events and Child Campaigns from Fundraiser pages. Opportunities are created linked to the relevant Campaign. Customisation can be made on what fields are populated in each object. Currently our admins will have to make customisation updates to the sync. The road map might eventually have a user interface for the sync map.

 

Who will be the direct contact person for support?

Once the GoFundraise-Salesforce Connector has been successfully setup, contact our Customer Care Team on support@gofundraise.com if any issues develop after the initial setup has been signed off on.

 

When creating a new Contact, a new Account is created (example Wayne Household):

How does it work if you have several families with the same family name for example? How will it be reflected in the system?

If there were 5 different Wayne's it would create a new Household for each of them. Reports would have to be used to determine if any of the Wayne's were part of the same household.

 

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