Salesforce Integration

We live in a world where even the smallest organisations have multiple systems in their IT Footprint / Technology stack. To share information across other systems for accounting, order management, and warehouse management and also to get a 360-degree view of the business across these systems we need integrations. In addition to internal integration, we also need integrations with external systems such as vendor systems, regulatory systems, etc. These integrations may need to be bi-directional and each of the systems needs to read from other systems as well.

In addition to seamless functioning, integrations to increase customer and employee experience and productivity are also important. Salesforce seamlessly integrates with Office 365 and emails can be sent from Salesforce. Other tools such as messaging systems, Outlook, document signing, networking like LinkedIn, Facebook, and many more can be integrated seamlessly with Salesforce.

For Salesforce Integrations there are different methods used to access data (like Salesforce platform events, Salesforce SOAP API, REST API, Metadata API, Bulk API, Streaming API, Apex web service, and more). In all cases, the Salesforce platform always requires the remote system trying to access to authenticate. The remote system can use OAuth or user login and password authentication. Salesforce uses the logged-in user’s access rights (like profile settings, sharing rules, permission sets) to provide only authorized data.

Salesforce has the capability to adhere to additional security as per the organisation’s architecture. Furthermore, Salesforce integrates with on-premise commercial encryption gateways (CipherCloud, IBM DataPower, etc) and cloud-based Salesforce Shield platform encryption options.

SCloud a Salesforce partner was established in 2017 and has been one of the leading integration partners of Salesforce. SCloud has certified and experienced developers and architects to assist clients with integration issues. Salesforce consultants have experience with integrating using different middleware systems. SCloud is also a pioneer in integrating Salesforce with the Repco warehouse management system. SCloud project delivery system has different delivery models such as onshore delivery, offshore, and hybrid delivery models. Each client is unique and hence each delivery model is client specific.

There are three main different approaches for integration. The approaches have been detailed below along with architecture considerations. Additionally, salesforce architecture ensures that all integrations are secure and only certified systems are allowed to integrate with your Salesforce environment.

1. Point-to-Point Custom API Integration

   In this approach code specific to the requirement is developed using APIs. The API from Salesforce and the other platforms are consumed and interact with each other. SCloud has experienced and certified consultants to provide such tailored solution and has been pioneers in integrating Salesforce with Repco warehouse management system using this approach. In SCloud’s experience this approach is best suited for integration when future changes would be minimum or completely absent. Any future changes would involve modifying existing code. In this approach there is no initial license cost for integration tools however there could be a rise in cost when the integration in complex with multiple systems being integrating. Hence when the technology stack is complicated, then use of integrations systems such as MuleSoft is the better option.

   

2. Appexchange and other Pre-built Integrations

   This includes Apps like DocuSign, RingCentral, and many other apps which can be download from AppExchange. While most of these apps are licensed, there are fair amount of free of cost apps. The advantage of this integration approach is that the development cost is nil, the security is certified by Salesforce. Clients can also compare different applications and can try these applications free of cost for a certain duration. The most important consideration is the data center of the apps, most of the apps are native to Salesforce and hence data is stored within Salesforce while there are some apps which store data in their own private cloud. Please read how Deliveroo has used AppExchange for it success.

   

3. Middleware Based Integration

   In this approach an middleware integration platform integrates Salesforce and the other platforms that need to be integrated like MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, Jitterbit, Celigo etc. These integration middleware platforms are focused purely on integrations and typically have pre-built “connectors” to common platforms like Salesforce and Oracle and make integrating these systems simple in a “drag and drop” low/no code approach. Their out-of-the-box features provides a real time log of all the integrations, failures and exceptions in a graceful and user-friendly way making it much easier for support teams to identify and resolve issues. One does not have need to have developer or coding skills to configure these platforms or view the logs. These integrations tool have an license cost and a lower operational cost compared to other approaches. MuleSoft is Salesforce integration platform and is the leading middleware technology.

   Advantage Salesforce MuleSoft

   MuleSoft leading player in the Middleware market for the past several years. Since the acquisition of MuleSoft by Salesforce it is the most popular choice when we look for a middleware for Salesforce Integrations.

   Some advantages we can look forward to would be increased number of pre-built out of box connectors to Salesforce, seamless experience using Salesforce flows for integrations and easier scalability with changes in future releases.