This article provides an overview of the functionality offered by the Salesforce User Metadata integration and how it works. For instructions on how to set up the integration, see Set up the Salesforce integration for Pendo.
The Salesforce User Metadata integration is a one-way integration that pulls metadata from the User object in Salesforce and sends it to Pendo as visitor metadata. This integration is designed for Pendo customers who use Pendo on one or more Salesforce applications, allowing you to pull in key metadata from your internal users.
This integration is different from the standard Salesforce integration with Pendo, which is designed for Pendo customers who use Pendo on their customer-facing applications and connects to different Salesforce objects. For more information, see Salesforce integration with Pendo.
Prerequisites
- An active Pendo subscription.
- Admin user permissions in Pendo. For information, see Roles and permissions.
- Access to the Salesforce User Metadata integration, which you already have if you're using Pendo on Salesforce for your employees. If you have any questions, contact your account manager.
- An active enterprise Salesforce account that has:
- API Enabled turned on.
- Read access turned on for the User object fields that you want to pull into Pendo. For guidance on checking these permissions, see the Troubleshooting section in Set up the Salesforce User Metadata integration with Pendo.
This integration doesn't support sandbox instances.
We recommend creating a dedicated Salesforce user record for Pendo instead of using a user record that's tied to an individual employee. This protects you from having the Salesforce user deactivated if the employee leaves the company.
Use cases
If you use Pendo for your employees on one or more Salesforce applications, this integration allows you to use metadata pulled in from Salesforce to use for your segmentation, guide targeting, and visitor analytics in Pendo. By pulling Salesforce user metadata into Pendo, you can:
- Report on product usage and target guides in Salesforce based on critical employee details, such as role, department, and location.
- Sync metadata into Pendo on a nightly basis for the most up-to-date information.
How it works
The Salesforce User Metadata integration involves creating a connection before setting up a pull from Salesforce to Pendo. Both creating a connection and setting up a pull involve selecting fields belonging to the Salesforce User object, but for different purposes:
- To create a connection, you select one Salesforce User field with values that match one-to-one with Pendo Visitor IDs.
- To set up a pull, you select one or more Salesforce User fields to add to Pendo as visitor metadata.
After creating a connection and setting up the pull, you must enable the integration to start automated daily syncs. For more information and instructions, see Set up the Salesforce User Metadata integration with Pendo.
Creating a connection
This integration involves a one-way connection between a Salesforce user and a Pendo visitor. For each Pendo visitor that you want to connect with Salesforce, you must map the individual fields of the Salesforce User object to the corresponding Pendo visitor. This is the "Join Key".
The Pendo Visitor ID field should map to the matching Salesforce User field. For example, if you've set the Visitor ID in Pendo to be an email, choose the "Email" field under the User object in Salesforce.
At this point, you're only setting up the connection between unique identifiers, not a pull. The unique identifiers are used for setting up the pull functionality, but the fields themselves aren't involved in a pull. Rather, the values of the fields that belong to the Salesforce User object, chosen during the pull setup process, are pulled.
Setting up a "pull"
Pulling Salesforce user data into Pendo involves selecting fields belonging to the Salesforce User object to add as metadata to visitors in Pendo. You can include any metadata pulled into Pendo in Pendo segments Include any metadata that would be valuable to include in a Pendo segment for personalized targeting and product usage analytics.
Handling duplicate salesforce users
If multiple Salesforce users map to a single visitor in Pendo, we remove all versions of the duplicate from the sync. This means that neither the Pendo visitor nor the Salesforce user is updated.