Zoho Desk for Salesforce CRM Integration
Salesforce is a popular solution for customer relationship management software primarily due to its flexible configuration, cloud accessibility and easy integration of data between a business' other software systems. The Zoho Desk for Salesforce integration paves the way for delivering great customer experiences. It taps into your most important asset—customer information, to create a unified database across both products. This implies that your customer support team can see a complete Salesforce customer profile right next to their Zoho Desk ticket.
Features
The Salesforce for Zoho Desk integration brings with it the following features to add value to your business:
- Sync your accounts and contacts information between Salesforce and Zoho Desk. The sync can be set as bidirectional or choose Salesforce to be the master source of data.
- View key Salesforce data - such as potentials, notes, and activities on the same window as that of the support ticket.
- See the customer profile pulled in from Salesforce, within a contact or an account in Zoho Desk.
Integration Requirements
Make sure that you meet the following integration requirements in Zoho Desk and Salesforce:
- Your Zoho Desk organization must be on the Standard, Professional or Enterprise edition.
- Your Salesforce organization must be on the Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, Professional (if API is enabled), or Developer edition.
Getting Started
Here is the overall process involved in integrating Salesforce with Zoho Desk.
- Enter your Salesforce authentication credentials
- Choose between one-way or two-way sync
- Map the fields for Accounts and Contacts
- Run the sync process to sync the accounts and contacts
Configuring Salesforce CRM Integration
Configuring the Salesforce integration can be split into 2 steps. Please note that you must have access to administrator credentials in Salesforce.
Step 1 - Setting up Salesforce Integration
- Log in to your Zoho Desk account with Administrator privileges.
- Click the Setup icon (
) > Integrations > Others.
- On the Others page, click Salesforce.
- On the Salesforce Integration page, click Integrate.
A new window opens up prompting to enter the Salesforce credentials. - Enter your Salesforce administrator username and password and click Log In.
The Zoho Desk screen will transition to the next procedure as in Step 2.
Step 2 - Selecting Sync Type and Mapping Fields
The next step is to select the sync type and map the Zoho Desk fields with those of Salesforce. To begin with, the standard fields in the Contacts and Accounts module will come pre-mapped for your convenience.
Follow the steps below to complete the integration:
- Select a Sync Type. By default, two-way sync is selected. You may choose a one-way Salesforce to Desk sync if required.
- Associate the fields under Zoho Desk Fields column header with the corresponding fields in Salesforce.
You can choose the appropriate field from the drop-down menu. - Click Start Sync.
The Salesforce integration is completed. You can click 'Edit' under Configuration Details to edit the sync type or the field mapping.
Important:
- During your first sync session, the system will perform a bulk import and export of data. Depending on the size of your database, this might take anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour to complete.
- The duplicate check for Contacts and Accounts is primarily based on the Email ID of the contacts and the Account Name respectively.
- All Contacts irrespective of whether they have an email address or not will be synced.
- The sync will kick-start when you create, update, or mass update records either in Zoho Desk/Salesforce.
Syncing Deleted Records
When some contacts or accounts are deleted from Zoho Desk, their corresponding records will not be deleted from Salesforce and vice versa. This will make the syncing experience smoother and prevent test or junk records from syncing between databases. However, please make sure that you delete the records from the recycle bin of the respective application. Else, the deleted records will be put back during subsequent syncs (read, record updates).
Note:
- When you update a Salesforce record which was previously deleted from Zoho Desk, a sync event will add the record again in the latter.
Setting Profile-level Permissions
The administrator can modify each Zoho Desk profile to grant and remove certain privileges concerning contacts and accounts in Salesforce. For example, if the light agents are to be restricted from viewing opportunities information, simply disable the Opportunities option. Now, all agents with a 'Light Agent' profile can see contact information, notes, and activities but cannot view the opportunities information from Salesforce.
To set permissions:
- Go to Setup > Integrations > Others > Salesforce.
- In the Salesforce Integration page, click Permissions.
- Under the Permissions tab, do the following:
- Uncheck the 'Visible' checkbox (
) corresponding to a profile to hide the Salesforce integration.
- Click the toggle corresponding to Accounts or Contacts. This option allows you to choose to display either one of them for a specific profile.
- Click the Permission-level link (i.e., Full Access or Restricted Access) to allow or deny access for the following items:
- Contact/Account Information
- Opportunities
- Notes
- Activities [Select or unselect Events, and Tasks individually]
Viewing Sync History
Maintaining a log of the activities performed in your Zoho Desk account is always useful. You know when a ticket was edited, or who added a ticket. Similarly, a log of the synchronization activities is helpful in knowing when and what kind of records were imported. The Sync History in Zoho Desk provides a clear picture of the recently synced records over the last 7 days.
You can see the following details under the sync history:
- Date of sync
- Source of the sync and the target, i.e., from Desk to Salesforce or vice versa
- Imported record type, i.e., Contacts or Accounts
- Details on the number of records that are added, updated or failed
To view sync history:
- Go to Setup > Integrations > Others > Salesforce.
- In the Salesforce Integration page, click Sync History.
Viewing Failure Logs
The Failure Log is a chronological sequence of entries, each resulting from the failure of the sync actions in Zoho Desk. The logs are helpful to determine the reason behind the failure of a sync event and also to identify the records associated with the event. Given below in the table are some of the common error messages behind the failure of a sync event:
| Error Messages | Description |
| CRM ID is already mapped with another Support Entity | The record seems to be a duplicate. Its original entity is already mapped with its counterpart in the other database. |
| Text value is given for an Integer field | You have incorrectly mapped a Text type field with an Integer field in the Desk— Salesforce field mapping. |
| Mandatory Field Missing (Extremely Rare) | You may have failed to map the mandatory fields that are required for Contacts and Accounts. |
| Missing Parameter (Extremely Rare) | This may occur when an API parameter was missed out during a back-end operation. |
| Incorrect API parameter or Parameter Value (Extremely Rare) | This may happen when an incorrect API parameter was called, or its value seems incorrect during a back-end operation. |
To view failure logs:
- Go to Setup >Integrations > Others > Salesforce.
- In the Salesforce Integration page, click Failure Log.
- Under Failure Log section, click on a record type to view the details.
The individual records that could not be synced will be displayed. You can view the failure time and the reason for their failure alongside a record. Click Try Again to re-sync the record.
Pausing/Resuming Sync
Zoho Desk allows you to pause and resume syncing as and when required.
To pause an active sync:
- Go to Setup > Integrations > Others > Salesforce.
- In the Salesforce Integration page, click Pause Sync.
The data sync will be paused. During this time, no data exchange or update will happen between your Zoho Desk and Salesforce accounts. You can return here to Resume syncing when you're ready.
Deleting Integration
You can delete Salesforce Integration at any time. On deleting:
- No further data sync will take place between Salesforce and Zoho Desk.
- You will no longer be able to view customer information from Salesforce.
To delete Salesforce integration:
- Go to Setup > Integrations > Others > Salesforce.
- Click the More icon (
) in the upper-right side of the Integration page.
- Click Delete Integration from the menu.
- In the Confirmation dialog box, click Delete.
The Salesforce integration is deleted in your help desk.
Viewing Salesforce Information
Agents can view the Salesforce information of the requestor alongside their ticket in Zoho Desk. For example, they can identify the subscription type, view the open opportunities or read the notes left by the sales reps.
To view Salesforce information on a ticket:
- Open a ticket to view its details.
- On the Ticket Details page, click the
Salesforce label alongside the customer information on the left pane.
The contact's information is displayed as in Salesforce.
You can also click the View in Salesforce icon ( 
) to directly view the information in your organization's Salesforce account. In the same manner, you can see a Salesforce customer profile from within a contact or account details page in Zoho Desk.
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