To successfully integrate data between Salesforce .com and NetSuite, there are four key areas to consider. If you do not have a technical background, you will need to enlist either a technical consultant or internal resource to help you. This technical individual will need to have database background and be able to understand how data is structured in both Salesforce.com both Salesforce and in NetSuite. If you are in a leadership or administrative role, the following strategic-level points are important for you to understand so that you can work with your technical resource to share data between solutions.
Key topics to explore:
- Salesforce.com Platform Salesforce Platform instance/Configuration
- What data are you trying to share? Data Models and Field Mapping
- Accounting/Fundraising Database Strategy and Integration Directionality
- Integration: automation or manual
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The first step in considering NetSuite data integration is to know which “version” of Salesforce.com of Salesforce your organization uses. Salesforce.com Salesforce is highly customizable platform. The Salesforce.com The Salesforce Foundation and other vendors have created a variety of “managed packages” that once installed in your Salesforce.com your Salesforce instance affect how data are stored. Understanding the effect of managed packages and customization is critical to NetSuite integration. To determine which version of Salesforce and which managed packages have been installed in your instance of Salesforce, navigate to the Setup menu, and click “View Installed Packages” from the left side navigation under “App Setup. There are multiple options:
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Data models refer to how information is stored in a database. To be able to share data between Salesforce.com between Salesforce and NetSuite, you must understand in Salesforce how the Accounts (sometimes used as Household), Contacts, and Opportunities (transactions) have been modeled. Based on the platform instance that you have determined from above, that is where to begin field and object mapping. Field mapping determines which data will be integrated between NetSuite and Salesforce.
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You and your technical resource will need to determine which objects in Salesforce will map to which objects in NetSuite. If you are only integrating people and organizations (not any monetary transactions), your field mapping will be relatively straightforward. If you are integrating financial data (such as donations), your task will be more complex as the way in which transaction data is stored in Netsuite NetSuite has a different logic based on how it maps transactions to organizations and individuals. Last, although most nonprofit organizations have not done this, if you use the products feature of Salesforce.com of Salesforce which allows you to map items to opportunities, you will need to consider a more complex field mapping endeavor.
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Do you use Salesforce as your fundraising and marketing database? If so, you are likely using the Campaign object of Salesforce with a third party email tool such as Vertical Response. You may also be capturing online donations through forms that map into Salesforce. Conversely you may plan to use NetSuite to sell items and manage inventory, in which case the transaction data is set up to be pushed directly into NetSuite. The use of Salesforce.com of Salesforce and NetSuite for business processes points to the WHY. WHY must be determined before HOW.
Key integration decisions address the issue of WHY you are using Salesforce and WHY you are using NetSuite leading to which solution is going to have the primary transaction detail for what reason. Generally speaking, Salesforce.com Salesforce is used to manage fundraising and marketing efforts and NetSuite is used to account for and manage financial operations.
You will need to work with your technical resource to determine if you will be pushing data from Salesforce.com from Salesforce to NetSuite or NetSuite to Salesforce.com to Salesforce (uni-directional) or both (bi-directional). If you plan to integrate bi-directionality a challenging set of integration issues are introduced – how will you uniquely identify an existing contact? What happens when one contact has two email addresses or changes their address? How do you plan to keep data synchronized?
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To successfully import .csv files you will need to determine how you will relate those primary keys in both systems (a custom field with the identical alphanumeric key), and the method by which you will be introducing data, i.e. which data source comes first – will you be exporting form Salesforce.com form Salesforce into NetSuite or vice-versa? You can find more information in SuiteAnswers and the NetSuite Help documentation by typing in “CSV Import” in the search field.
Automating an integration between NetSuite and Salesforce.com and Salesforce is possible through web services, and you can use integration solutions and partners to assist you with the automation. Check out partner details. A short list of integrators is below:
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- Documentation is important however ownership and accountability is even more important. An internal resource or an external consultant to own the process.
- Understand the WHY before the HOW: Why do you use Salesforce and NetSuite?
- Level of investment: For most small organizations, uploading and downloading a csv file weekly might the most cost effective approach.
- Database skill sets: we can’t emphasis enough how important it is to have the right skill sets. If there is no database administrator within your organization and you can’t get external support, we do not recommend to attempt an automated integration.
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