The Salesforce integration for Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) leverages the Salesforce Partner API. The steps for enabling the integration are below.
Create a User
Create the Thrive Marketing Professional Integration user in Salesforce with the following permissions:
- API Enabled
- API Only User: If you are using an existing user license (not one specific to the integration), make sure API Only user is unchecked. If it is checked, the the user cannot log into Salesforce. Remember, Salesforce allows for user licenses to be cross-used. However, the best practice recommendation from Salesforce and Thrive Marketing Professional is that the API user not be used for multiple integrations.
- Modify All Data
- Password Never Expires: If the Password Never Expires permission is unchecked, the integration won't work. The system settings in Thrive Marketing Professional must always have the valid password and token for this API user. If either of these is changed, Thrive Marketing Professional must be updated.
The email address must be valid - it would be the only way to receive the Security Token for the account. If you are also integrated with the Higher Logic community product, let your Higher Logic Project Manager know.
Make Personalization Fields from Salesforce Visible
Each Salesforce object has a set of default fields and up to 500 custom fields. Thrive Marketing Professional supports the default and custom fields that are relevant to email marketing as personalization fields. The fields are available in Thrive Marketing Professional to personalize mailings sent to a Salesforce target group. However, they first need to be visible in Salesforce.
To make these fields visible in Salesforce and enable them for the User created in the previous step, you'll have to confirm that the field's visibility is accessible by the User.
Enable "Email Opt Out" in Salesforce to Allow Unsubscribe Writebacks
Contacts and Leads both have an Email Opt Out flag that is used to unsubscribe subscribers. This field may be hidden by default or otherwise unavailable to the API. To show these fields and enable them for the API, follow these steps:
- Navigate to [Your Name] > Setup..
- Navigate to App Setup > Customize > Contacts and click Fields.
- Click Email Opt Out.
- Click View Field Accessibility.
- Select the type of user you are using (it probably says “Hidden” for all users). Check Visible and click Save.
Repeat the steps above if you are using Leads (begin by navigating to App Setup > Customize > Leads and click Fields).
Determine the Partner API URL and the Metadata URL for the Bridge Connection
For Thrive Marketing Professional to access Partner API calls, we need a Web Service Description Language (WSDL) file. The WSDL file defines the web service that is available to Thrive Marketing Professional.
Generate the Partner WSDL file in Salesforce:
- Log into your Salesforce account. You must log in as an administrator or as a user who has the Modify All Data permission.
- Navigate to [Your Name] > Setup.
- In the left sidebar, navigate to Develop > API and click Generate Partner WSDL.
- Save the XML that is generated (this can be done by pressing Ctrl + S in most browsers). Be sure you save the document as an XML document. Some browsers default to web pages.
- Open the file in Notepad or a text document like Notepad++ and save the value for (address location) you'll need this when implementing Thrive Marketing Professional.
The WSDL URL can be found near the bottom of the XML file. Open the file in a text editor and search for the URL. An example of a Partner Service Address is: https://test.salesforce.com/services/Soap/u/33.0 (this type of URL should always end with alpha-numerics and contain /u/)
Generate the Metadata WSDL file in Salesforce
- Log into your Salesforce account. You must log in as an administrator or as a user who has the Modify All Data permission.
- Navigate to [Your Name] > Setup.
- In the left sidebar, navigate to Develop > API and click Generate Metadata WSDL.
- Save the XML that is generated (this can be done by pressing Ctrl + S in most browsers). Be sure you save the document as an XML document. Some browsers default to web pages.
- Open the file in Notepad or a text document like Notepad++ and save the value for (address location) you'll need this when Implementing Thrive Marketing Professional.
An example of a Metadata Service Address is: https://cs13.salesforce.com/services/Soap/m/33.0 (this should always end with a version number and contain /m/).
Excluding Blank Emails from Contacts Report Syncs
When Thrive Marketing Professional queries Salesforce, it retrieves everything from the Informz Contacts report folder, including anything with a blank field name. To avoid pulling records with blank emails (which ultimately draws from your API call quota), you must set the system to exclude blank email records.
Create the Informz Report Folder
When configuring Salesforce, you must create Informz Report Folders so that Thrive Marketing Professional has a place to pull reports (reports become target groups in Thrive Marketing Professional). All reports must reside in one of two folders: Informz Contacts or Informz Leads. Thrive Marketing Professional cannot use a report that isn’t in one of these folders. If one of these folders is renamed in Salesforce, Thrive Marketing Professional becomes unable to pull from that folder.
The folder must be made public.
Excluding Blank Emails from Contacts Report Syncs
When Thrive Marketing Professional queries Salesforce, it retrieves everything from the Informz Contacts report folder, including anything with a blank field name. To avoid pulling records with blank emails (which ultimately draws from your API call quota), you must set the system to exclude blank email records.