Salesforce Field Configuration Overview

Your Salesforce Field Configuration defines how data exchanges between Salesforce and the SalesLoft platform. While "field configuration" may sound daunting, it really means picking and choosing the SalesLoft fields that will map to a Salesforce field (and vice versa). We call this process field mapping. 

Field mapping gives you control over which fields share information between SalesLoft and Salesforce. By completing your field mapping (and enabling Salesforce Sync), Lead, Contact, Account, and Opportunity records will update as changes are made in either platform. 

In this article, we will walk through Salesforce Field Configuration and field mapping, including:

• Things to Know About Salesforce Field Configuration
• Set Salesforce Field Level Security
• Field Mapping
• Understanding Field Mapping Direction and Merge Behavior 

Things to Know About Salesforce Field Configuration

Before you begin mapping fields left and right, review your Salesforce account and follow these guidelines:

Salesforce Field Types

SalesLoft supports the following types of Salesforce fields:

• Text fields
• Date fields (on the Lead or Contact level)
• Single picklists
• Checkboxes (use "true" or "false" in all lowercase letters)
• Number fields (for mapping SalesLoft metrics only)
• Formula fields (the value displayed in the field is not a static value but determined by a formula)
• Fields Requiring Validation: if a specific value is entered into the controlling field, a separate field must be populated before the update can be saved.

Permission Sets/Roles/Accessibility

• Make sure all of your team members have access to edit the standard or custom field.
• Fields must be set as "Read & Edit" or "Visible."
• Fields cannot be "Read-Only" or "Admin Only."

Field Location

Any customized Salesforce fields must be located on the object page layout (e.g., Lead, Contact, or Account records).

Lead Assignment Rules

SalesLoft automatically instructs Salesforce to ignore (or bypass) triggering Lead Assignment Rules when we update any field on a lead. However, if a particular team wishes to trigger Lead Assignment Rules when a field is updated, send a request to our SalesLoft Support team.

Set Salesforce Field Level Security

Your Salesforce Field Level Security restricts your user's access to view and edit specific fields. As we mentioned above, your team members must have access to edit fields in order for field mapping to function properly. If any fields are restricted, it's highly likely that you will run into some Salesforce errors that you can read all about in our Salesforce Troubleshooting Guide.

To prevent these errors from happening, a Salesforce admin must enable Field Level Security for different field types. There are two options to enable Field Level Security.

Follow these steps to enable via the Task Fields:

1. From Salesforce, click Setup in the top right corner.

2. Go to the Administer panel on the left. Search for Task Fields OR scroll to the Build section. Select the arrow to the left of Customize. Select the arrow to the left of Activities and then click Task Fields.

3. On the Task Fields page, find and select the Type field label.

4. Click the Set Field-Level Security button located above the Field Information section in the upper right corner of the page layout.

5. Check the box next to Visible to enable visibility for all of the roles.

Follow these steps to enable Field Level Security via Field Accessibility:

1. Navigate to Administer.
2. Click the security controls arrow.
3. Select Field accessibility.
4. Then select which object and either field of profile you would like to set security for.

Field Mapping

Your Salesforce Field Configuration allows you to map SalesLoft fields to an equivalent Salesforce field. For a complete walk through of the SalesLoft field type mapping, check out the following articles:

• Person Field Configuration
• Account Field Configuration
• Activity Field Configuration
• Opportunity Field Configuration

Understanding Field Mapping Direction and Merge Behavior 

Person, Account, and Opportunity fields allow you to select the direction that says how the fields will update information. There are three direction options:

• SalesLoft ⇋ Salesforce: This indicates that you want your data to stay in sync between SalesLoft and Salesforce. Click Show Advanced Configuration to edit the field’s Merge Behavior. For more information on Merge Behavior, see the explanation below.
• SalesLoft ← Salesforce: This indicates that you only want to bring Salesforce data into SalesLoft. With this option, we will never send SalesLoft data back to Salesforce.
• SalesLoft → Salesforce: This indicates that you only want to bring SalesLoft data into Salesforce. With this option, we will never send Salesforce data back to SalesLoft.

Merge Behavior allows you to control what data will be used when a Salesforce record and a SalesLoft record merge together. If the values in the fields are different or one of the fields is null (aka blank), the merge behavior decides which data will be selected. You can choose one of the following merge behavior options:

• Use recent value unless blank (default): Fields will sync based on whichever system was last updated. For example, if you update a Contact's phone number in Salesforce, their phone number will update in SalesLoft and vice versa. 
• Use Salesforce value unless blank: If there is data in that Salesforce field, changes in SalesLoft will not update the field.
• Use SalesLoft value unless blank: If there is data in that SalesLoft field, changes in Salesforce will not update the field.