Spring 10 Release - FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide

FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide

Spring ‘10 release

© Copyright 2000-2007salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce to Salesforce FAQ

Salesforce to Salesforce Overview.......................................................5

What is Salesforce to Salesforce?.......................................................................................5What’s New with Spring ’10?...............................................................................................5What’s New with Winter ’10?...............................................................................................5What’s New with Summer ’09?............................................................................................6What’s New with Spring ’09?...............................................................................................6What’s New with Winter ‘09?...............................................................................................6Can I use Salesforce to Salesforce today?..........................................................................6What objects are supported?...............................................................................................6What objects are not supported?.........................................................................................6What fields are supported? Not supported?.........................................................................6Does the service support Lookup/Reference fields, such as Owner ID?.............................7When will the service support other objects not currently supported?.................................7Do you support sharing related objects when sharing a parent (e.g. sharing invoices on an Account)?.............................................................................................................................7Should I use the Partner Portal or Salesforce to Salesforce to work with my partners?......7Can I use Salesforce to Salesforce to share information with another division or subsidiary?...........................................................................................................................8

Salesforce to Salesforce Nomenclature...............................................8

What is a Connection?.........................................................................................................8What is the Connections tab?..............................................................................................8What is the Manage Connection profile permission?...........................................................8What are Salesforce to Salesforce (S2S) licenses?............................................................8

Steps you need to take to provision this service................................9

Is there an additional charge for Connections?....................................................................9Are there special terms that I need to sign before purchasing Salesforce to Salesforce licenses?..............................................................................................................................9I would like to trial the service. Is there a way to do that?....................................................9Can I trial in Sandbox?.........................................................................................................9I am an EE customer and need to share data with a partner that is using Group Edition. Is that possible?.......................................................................................................................9Which editions can send invitations to other companies?....................................................9What editions can accept invitations?..................................................................................9What editions can share records?........................................................................................9My company has accepted an invitation from a partner. Can my company share records and send/receive updates on shared records?..................................................................10Is there a system setting that needs to be enabled prior to sending or accepting invitations?.........................................................................................................................10Can I disable Salesforce to Salesforce once it’s turned on?..............................................10I would like to self-implement. What resources are available?..........................................10

How do I send & receive invitations?.................................................10


How do I find out which of my partners is using Salesforce CRM?...................................10What is the Connection Finder?.........................................................................................10How do I send an invitation to another company?.............................................................11Can I send branded email invitations?...............................................................................11How do I know if a Contact is an existing Salesforce.com customer?...............................12Is the email address required when selecting a contact?..................................................13If the contact does not have the necessary privileges to accept the invitation, can the contact forward the invitation on to an admin?...................................................................13What might happen if that invitation is forwarded to someone who has their own org and the user accepts the invitation? Is this a potential security breach?.................................14How can a user distinguish the invitation email from a phishing email?............................14

Customizing the data integration relationships.................................14

Can I customize the objects and fields shared per connection?........................................14What does it mean to publish objects/fields?.....................................................................14Is it possible to pre-define the Publish rules before sending the invitation?......................14What does it mean to Subscribe to objects/fields?............................................................16Can I auto-map fields that my partner has published to my company?.............................16Can I publish an object/field without subscribing to the same object/field?.......................17Can I map the Lead object from another company to a Custom Object in my Salesforce instance?............................................................................................................................17Company A has just set up the connection with Company B and the Lead object is both published and subscribed. Does this mean that all Company A lead records are automatically shared with Company B?.............................................................................18How do we deal with the situation where two companies have different opportunity stages?...............................................................................................................................18

Sharing records with connections......................................................18

Can my company set up rules to automate the sharing of records with connections? Which objects support this and which objects do not?.......................................................18How can we share Tasks and other related records with connections?............................19Can I automate the sharing of related records with connections?.....................................21What are the different ways to share records with a connection?.....................................21If I share a record with a connection, does that mean that my internal users no longer have visibility into that record?...........................................................................................25Can multiple connections accept a shared record?...........................................................25Does my administrator need to accept all incoming records or can he delegate this to someone else in my company?..........................................................................................26Can my admin customize the views to accept records from other companies (connections)?....................................................................................................................28Can I automatically accept leads and other objects that I’ve subscribed to from another company?...........................................................................................................................28My customer would like to automatically accept Contacts when accepting Accounts. Do I need to check the ‘Auto-Accept’ option on Contacts?........................................................29How can my partner accept all the related records (e.g. tasks) associated to the account I’m sharing with them?.......................................................................................................29


Can I run assignment rules when accepting leads from another company?.....................29Company A has subscribed to over 20 lead fields from Company B. When an internal user accepts a record from Company B do all these fields get populated on record creation?.30How are newly accepted records assigned record types?.................................................30Can record updates be bi-directional?...............................................................................31When I accept a record from another company, do I need adhere to the other company’s profile and page layout restrictions?..................................................................................31What happens if the other company deletes a shared record?.........................................31What happens if the other company converts (for leads) a shared record?......................31How do I stop sharing a record with another company?....................................................31What if a connection and an internal user are updating a field at the same time? Which update wins?......................................................................................................................32Is there an option to require manual approval before an update from another company is committed in my org?.........................................................................................................32

Reports, Validation Rules and Workflow............................................33

Will my existing opportunity forecast reports still work with this service?..........................33Does this service support my validation rules?..................................................................33Is there a way to circumvent validation rules when a record is accepted from a connection or an update is received from a connection?.....................................................................33What is the impact on reports with this new service?........................................................33Does Salesforce to Salesforce support Custom Report Types?........................................34Can I trigger workflow or Apex triggers based on updates received from another company?...........................................................................................................................34Who performs the cross-org updates? Do I need to create a user record for the other company to update my records?........................................................................................34Can I track the updates made by other companies? Can I report of these updates?........34

TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE........................................35

I don’t see the Salesforce to Salesforce option in Setup|Customize..................................35I can see the setup preference for Salesforce to Salesforce, but cannot enable the service...........................................................................................................................................35I don’t see the Connections tab despite enabling the Salesforce to Salesforce service....35My admin doesn’t see the Connections tab as an option (as shown above).....................36I can’t access the Connections tab....................................................................................36I would like to publish a Custom Object on a connection, but I don’t see an option to select this object...........................................................................................................................37I would like to send updates on a custom field available on the Leads objects to my partner, but I don’t see the custom field?...........................................................................38I would like to map (subscribe) my partner’s Custom Object to Object A in my org, but I’m unable to select Object A?.................................................................................................39I don’t see the option to forward a record to one or more connections?............................39I don’t have the option to selectively share tasks on a shared related record...................40My company has published Opportunity Products to our partner connections, however we’re unable to share Opportunity Products......................................................................42


Why do reports and the history related lists only track history on certain fields?...............42My admin who happens to be the Connection owner is receiving emails about validation errors when my partner tries updating the record. Why is this happening?.......................42My company has created an Apex trigger to automate the forwarding of Accounts and related records with multiple connections. However, we’re getting an ‘Invalid PartnerNetwork status’ exception. What could be the reason for this?.............................43If I have additional questions around the Salesforce to Salesforce service, who should I contact?..............................................................................................................................44

FAQ

Salesforce to Salesforce Overview

What is Salesforce to Salesforce?Salesforce to Salesforce allows customers to share data with other companies on the salesforce.com platform and receive near real-time updates on shared records. The benefit of this service is that using point-and-click integration customers may now collaborate in a real-time fashion with other companies and leverage the strong reporting, workflow and business integration capabilities available on the platform.

What’s New with Spring ’10?Starting Spring ’10, for opportunities only; Name, Close Date and Stage are no longer required to be subscribed. The subscribing org has the option either not to subscribe to these fields or map these fields to other standard/custom text, date, picklist fields (respectively). Customers already subscribing to opportunities will need to update their subscription mapping for this change to take effect. Here’s how the sharing of records will work with this change

a) For new opportunities: if the field (s) mapped into the required field(s) are available and/or are not empty then the system will insert the mapped value into these fields. If the incoming mapped field is empty (or not-available) then the source orgs Name, Close Date and Stage will be used to populate the target orgs Name, Close Date and Stage values. The same behavior applies if the fields are not mapped at all

b) For updates to opportunities: if the field mapped into these fields has a value then the update will proceed as usual. If the incoming field has no values then the target field (i.e. Name, Close Date and Stage) will not be updated. The rest of the record will be updated

What’s New with Winter ’10?With Winter ’09 customers can:

1. Share attachments (only when related to shared parent record)2. Log Errors in Connection Audit (any validation or apex errors encountered during

updates/inserts will be logged in the connection audit and emails will be sent to the connection owners providing additional detail)

3. Connection Finder: customers can send customized surveys to their partner contacts to figure out which of the contacts uses Salesforce CRM. Customers can then use this information to connect via Salesforce to Salesforce


4. Auto-accept now works for orgs that have B2C enabled (Person Accounts)

What’s New with Summer ’09?With Summer ’09 customers can:

1. Automatically accept ‘parent’ records (e.g. Account)2. Share Cases and public Comments3. Auto-Map subscribed fields4. Share Auto-Number field type

What’s New with Spring ’09?With Spring ’09 customers can now:

1) Share Product Catalog and Opportunity Products 2) Share the same record with multiple companies (1:Many)3) Share formula and roll-up summary fields4) Programmatically forward and stop sharing records using the Salesforce.com API5) Define Invitation Templates that may be used to pre-configure the connections, thereby

making it easy to setup and configure connections

What’s New with Winter ‘09?Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all customers, including Group Edition customers. We’ve also released some enhancements including the ability to share lookup/reference fields, share related lists on leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts and custom objects, the ability to send invitation to 100s of contacts and share 1000s of records using list view actions.

Can I use Salesforce to Salesforce today?Salesforce to Salesforce is generally available. Salesforce to Salesforce was officially launched December 5th 2007, to learn more about the launch click here

For press details click here

Additional details may be found here: s2s blog

Salesforce to Salesforce is free for ALL customers including Group Edition customers. Customer’s, who purchased licenses prior to October 2008, should speak to their Account Rep about exchanging with other licenses of equal or greater value. Customers may configure the service using the guides that can be found on our blogs.

What objects are supported?Leads, Opportunities, Accounts, Contacts, Tasks, Products, Opportunity Products, Cases, Case Comments, Attachments and any custom object (e.g. projects, claims, orders) are supported

What objects are not supported?Following are the objects not supported: Solutions, Contracts, Content, Ideas & Campaigns. No support for the following related list: Notes & Events


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http://blogs.salesforce.com/prm/salesforce_to_salesforce/index.html

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What fields are supported? Not supported?We support almost all standard and custom fields. The following fields are not supported: audit fields such as last modified by/date, last activity date etc

Does the service support Lookup/Reference fields, such as Owner ID?Yes, we now support lookup/reference fields such as owner id and campaign id on leads and opportunities. Lookup/reference fields can be mapped to Text fields of size >= 80. When the record is updated we bring over the name of the reference field.

For example, if a partner maps the vendors Owner ID field to its ‘Partner Rep’ field then when the vendor updates his record, the full name of the owner of the vendor’s record will show up in the partner’s ‘Partner Rep’ field.

Does the service support Auto-Number fields?

Yes. Auto-number fields may be published and mapped by the subscriber to any text field of size>=30. Customers cannot map a field to an Auto-number field

When will the service support other objects not currently supported?We will support these objects/fields over the next 6-18 months

Do you support sharing related objects when sharing a parent (e.g. sharing invoices on an Account)?Yes, customers can share child/related records when sharing the parent entity. For example: a vendor could share a list of accounts with related opportunities, contacts, orders, tasks at one go with a partner and once the partner accepts the accounts, the child records are automatically related to the parent Account record in the partners org (no accepting of child records is required)

Should I use the Partner Portal or Salesforce to Salesforce to work with my partners?Customers now have more options to choose from. The Partner Portal and Salesforce to Salesforce are complimentary solutions. As a general rule of thumb – if your partner uses Salesforce CRM then you should use Salesforce to Salesforce. If your partner doesn’t use Salesforce CRM or is not interested in purchasing Salesforce CRM then use the partner portal. Since Salesforce to Salesforce is free you can always use it along with the Partner Portal without any additional cost (besides the cost of the portal licenses). For example: you can transact pipeline and other processes using Salesforce to Salesforce, and use the partner portal for content and community building initiatives.

Choose Salesforce to Salesforce if:

Your partner uses Salesforce CRM (any edition)

You need to collaborate on leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts, tasks, opportunity products, products, cases, attachments and/or custom objects (e.g. projects, funds, claims)

Choose the Partner Portal if:


Your partner is not using Salesforce CRM

Partners need to access Documents/Content/Ideas

Contact your Account Executive if you want additional details or help in making your purchasing decision.

Can I use Salesforce to Salesforce to share information with another division or subsidiary?Absolutely! Salesforce to Salesforce can be used in a number of situations including intra-company collaboration. Salesforce to Salesforce is the perfect solution in such situations where groups/companies need to collaborate but without necessarily giving full-access to their data to the other party.

Salesforce to Salesforce Nomenclature

What is a Connection?An active integration between two salesforce.com instances is reflected in a connection. Most customers have one instance though there are some customers that have multiple instances. In salesforce.com we call an instance an org (short for organization). Customers may use the Connections object to define the objects and fields shared with another instance. A connection may be terminated by either side at any time.

**Going forward the assumption in this document is that one salesforce.com instance corresponds to one company.

What is the Connections tab?The Connections tab is a new standard tab available with the Salesforce to Salesforce service. Customers may use this tab to manage all their relationships; including sending and accepting invitations, with other companies (or divisions) that also use Salesforce CRM. Only users with Manage Connections profile permission may access this tab.

What is the Manage Connection profile permission?The Manage Connection profile permission is available to Standard User profiles. This permission is made available once the customer enables the Salesforce to Salesforce service for their company. Users with the Manage Connections profile permission may send invitations, accept invitations from other companies and access the Connection’s tab.

Profiles with Modify All Data automatically get this permission; all other profiles need to be enabled by the System Administrator.

Portal profiles (i.e. partner and customer portal) do not have access to this permission (and the Connections tab)

What are Salesforce to Salesforce (S2S) licenses?We have discontinued the use of Salesforce to Salesforce licenses. Salesforce to Salesforce is FREE for all customers, including Group edition customers. So all customers can send and receive invitations and share data free of charge. Finally, for customers who have previously


purchased S2S licenses – speak with you Account Rep to swap S2S licenses for other licenses of equal or greater total dollar value.

Account Executive should work with the Sales Operations rep to figure out the options available.

Steps you need to take to provision this service

Is there an additional charge for Connections?No. Salesforce to Salesforce is FREE for all customers including Group Edition customers. All customers can send and receive invitations and share data free of charge. Finally, for customers who have previously purchased S2S licenses – speak with your Account Rep to swap S2S licenses for other licenses of equal or greater total dollar value.

Account Executive should work with the Sales Operations rep to figure out the options available.

Are there special terms that I need to sign before purchasing Salesforce to Salesforce licenses?No special terms – now that Salesforce to Salesforce is free

I would like to trial the service. Is there a way to do that?Yes. Now that S2S is free, customers are free to pilot the service with some of their partners or test the service in sandbox (details below) before deploying in production. Customers may use the ‘Implementation guide’ to configure the service and test the business case with their partners. All self-help guides can be found here

Can I trial in Sandbox?Yes. Now that S2S is free customers can immediately test the service out in sandbox. Customers may use the ‘Implementation guide’ to configure the service and test the business case. All self-help guides can be found here

Please note: if you have an active connection in sandbox and you refresh your sandbox instance then the customer needs to deactivate their existing connection and set up a fresh one from scratch. The reason for this is that the orgid is no longer valid (refresh changes the OrgId) and we use the orgid internally to manage which companies are connected.

I am an EE customer and need to share data with a partner that is using Group Edition. Is that possible?Yes, any edition can connect with any other edition – no limitations. Only Personal edition cannot use the service currently.

Which editions can send invitations to other companies?All editions (except Personal) can send invitation FREE of charge

What editions can accept invitations?All editions (except Personal) can accept invitations FREE of charge




What editions can share records?ALL editions (besides Personal) can share records

My company has accepted an invitation from a partner. Can my company share records and send/receive updates on shared records?Yes, once a connection is established, both sides may share records and send/receive updates on shared records.

Is there a system setting that needs to be enabled prior to sending or accepting invitations?Yes. Your administrator needs to turn on the Salesforce to Salesforce system setting that’s visible in Setup|Customize|Salesforce to Salesforce|Settings|Enable

Can I disable Salesforce to Salesforce once it’s turned on?No. Once enabled, the Salesforce to Salesforce system setting cannot be disabled. If you need to stop sharing all records with another company, then the corresponding ‘Connection’ needs to be deactivated. Nothing really happens if you turn on Salesforce to Salesforce until you establish an active Connection and start sharing records– so don’t worry!

I would like to self-implement. What resources are available?All self-help guides are available here.

How do I send & receive invitations?

How do I find out which of my partners is using Salesforce CRM?There are a number of ways to find out if your partner uses Salesforce CRM (any edition is ok)

1) The best option is for the customer to ask the partners whether or not they use salesforce CRM by running a simple campaign.

2) Current Salesforce.com customers who have authorized Salesforce.com to share their name can be found here: All Customer Profiles. If your partner is not on this list it could be because they have not authorized salesforce.com to make their name public

3) Customers can use the ‘Connection Finder’ feature to run a customized survey where the partner contacts can indicate whether they use Salesforce CRM. This information may then be used by the customer to connect using Salesforce to Salesforce

What is the Connection Finder?Connection Finder is a new feature we’ve released with Winter ’10. It may be enabled at: Setup|App Setup|Customize|Salesforce to Salesforce|Connection Finder.

Once the feature is enabled the admin may add the ‘Find Connections’ button to the appropriate page layouts as well as the ‘Uses Salesforce’ contact field (need to turn on FLS on relevant profiles once the feature is enabled). Customers should also make sure to upload their companies logo in the setup section – this logo will be used on the survey page for branding purposes


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Customers can use this feature to send a personalized email with the survey URL to their partner contacts. The partner contact can provide details on whether their company uses Salesforce CRM or is looking to use the service. The response is captured on the contact record (customers can report of this info). The customer can then use this information to decide whether to connect using Salesforce to Salesforce.

Just like Salesforce to Salesforce, Connection Finder is available in all editions at no additional charge. Additionally, customers can use this feature without enabling Salesforce to Salesforce.

How do I send an invitation to another company?Customers looking to send invitations need to enable the Salesforce to Salesforce system setting available in the Setup tree. Once this is done, users with the Manage Connections profile permission have the ability to send invitations to contacts with valid email addresses. This may be done by selecting the ‘New’ option available on the Connections tab or the ‘Invite to Connect’ button available in the Contact tab (action available on the list views).

Once the contact receives the email invitation, the contact can accept the invitation by logging into its own salesforce.com instance. In cases where the contact is not a salesforce.com customer the ability exists to sign-up for a trial account before accepting the invitation.

Only authorized users (administrators and users with Manage Connection profile permission) may send or accept invitations and both sides need to make sure that the ‘Salesforce to Salesforce’ setup option has been enabled (Setup|Customize|Salesforce to Salesforce|Enable)

Can I send branded email invitations?Yes, you have the option to customize the email templates available in Setup|Customize|Salesforce to Salesforce|Settings. Customers may also create html templates with complete branding. Make sure you include the Connection URL (merge field) in the branded invitation email.


How do I know if a Contact is an existing Salesforce.com customer?The best way is by using the Connection Finder feature (details above in a separate question).

However, the invitation process has been built such that customers do not need to know whether the contact is a salesforce.com customer. When the customer sends out the invitation, the contact will receive a branded email invitation which contains a unique Connection URL. On clicking this URL the contact is taken to the salesforce.com homepage where the contact may accept the invitation by logging into its own salesforce.com instance.

Only users with the Manage Connections profile permission may send or accept invitations. If the contact is not an existing salesforce.com customer, there is the option to sign-up for a trial account and then using the same Connection URL complete the invitation process.


Is the email address required when selecting a contact?Yes, only contacts with an email address are shown in the contact lookup when sending an invitation.

If the contact does not have the necessary privileges to accept the invitation, can the contact forward the invitation on to an admin?Yes. If the contact does not have the Manage Connections permission, they may forward the invite to an admin to accept the invitation. System administrators and profiles with Modify all Data automatically get the Manage Connections permission. This is assuming the accepting org has turned on the Salesforce to Salesforce system setting (found in Setup).


What might happen if that invitation is forwarded to someone who has their own org and the user accepts the invitation? Is this a potential security breach?When a connection is accepted, the initiating org has full audit on who accepted the invitation (user and org name), time, date etc. Additionally, either side may terminate the active connection at any time. Finally, just because a connection has been established, does not mean records are automatically shared. No data is passed through until records are explicitly shared. Therefore, there will NOT be any security breach when establishing a connection

How can a user distinguish the invitation email from a phishing email?There are a couple of ways that a customer can be sure that the email is from a valid salesforce.com customer.

On clicking the Connection URL, the user will see www.salesforce.com at the top of the browser. Additionally, the Connection url itself has www.salesforce.com in it

Customers should use branded email templates to send invitations. This will help the recipient verify the source of the email

Best practice is for the customer who knows the contact to send the email. We include who sent the email in the body; this is another way for the recipient to verify the source.

The Connection URL is encoded providing an additional level of security around the invitation process

Customizing the data integration relationships

Can I customize the objects and fields shared per connection?Yes. Using publish and subscribe model, customers may customize both at the object and field level what to share with another company. Additionally, with the flexible point and click interface, customers may change the sharing relationship at any time to reflect evolving business relationships. Either side may customize the objects or fields shared which truly democratizes the sharing relationship

What does it mean to publish objects/fields?A customer may choose to differentiate what object and field updates are sent to the other company.

For example: Company A might want to send updates on leads to Company B while leads and opportunities to Company C. Additionally, on leads: Company A might share lead status and first Name with Company B while lead status, email, first Name and Industry with Company C.

The ‘Publish’ feature in the above example allows Company A to customize the sharing relationship that defines the ‘updates sent’ to Company B & C.

Is it possible to pre-define the Publish rules before sending the invitation?With Spring ’09 customers may define templates that have the Publish object and field rules pre-defined. These templates can then be applied to new invitations or existing connections by using the ‘New’, ‘Invite to Connect’ mass option or editing a connection. When applying a


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template to a connection, be aware that the connection automatically inherits all the rules of the template and if there are any fields that were previously on the connection that are not on the template, then the system automatically un-publishes these fields. The customer still needs to complete the subscribe objects/fields process to set-up the connection.

1) Set-up a template with Publish objects and rules

2) Apply to connections


What does it mean to Subscribe to objects/fields?A customer may choose to differentiate what object and field updates are received from other companies.

For example: Company A might want to receive updates on leads and claims from Company B while leads and opportunities from Company C. Additionally, on leads: Company A might want to receive updates on lead status and Phone from Company B while lead status, email, first Name and Industry from Company C.

The ‘Subscribe’ feature in the above example allows Company A to customize the sharing relationship that defines the ‘updates received’ from Company B & C.

Can I auto-map fields that my partner has published to my company?Yes, using the Auto-Map feature on the subscribe fields page you can auto-map fields. When the checkbox is selected the system will look at unmapped fields and compare the API names and then the labels to see if there is a match. If there is a match the field(s) will be mapped on the UI. However, changes are not committed until the user saves the page. The user may undue the mapping by de-selecting the Auto-Map checkbox (before saving the page). Un-checking behaves like undo for any fields mapped by the system.


Can I publish an object/field without subscribing to the same object/field?Yes, the publish/subscribe model has built-in flexibility that allows customers to publish an object without subscribing to it with another company (and vice a versa).

For example: Company A might publish the lead object to Company B but not subscribe to the lead object from Company B. What this signifies is that Company A is willing to send updates on leads to company B but is not interested in receiving updates.

The same flexibility also exists at the field level.

Can I map the Lead object from another company to a Custom Object in my Salesforce instance?No, as part of the object subscribe feature, Lead can only be mapped to Lead, Opportunity to Opportunity, Account to Account, Task to Task, Contact to Contact and custom object to any custom object.

For custom objects the only caveat is symmetric mapping is enforced per connection.


For example: Company A has a connection with Company B. If Company A publishes the ‘Fund’ object and Company B maps (subscribes) this object to its ‘Request’ object and in turn publishes the ‘Request’ object then Company A can only map (subscribe) its ‘Fund’ object to Company B’s ‘Request’ object. This mapping is enforced even if Company B were not to publish the Request object (i.e. the ‘Fund’ object could not be mapped to any other object from Company B).

Company A has just set up the connection with Company B and the Lead object is both published and subscribed. Does this mean that all Company A lead records are automatically shared with Company B?No, records need to be explicitly shared with a connection. Records may be shared in a number of ways as described in another question below. In this scenario, Company A needs to explicitly share a lead record with Company B either using the ‘Forward’ option, assignment rules or workflow/queues.

How do we deal with the situation where two companies have different opportunity stages?The picklist value mapping feature allows customers to map incoming picklist values to their own values so as to maintain data and process integrity. This mapping is done as part of the subscribe fields functionality and is applicable for both picklists and multi-select picklist fields. For example: if Company B has a custom stage named ‘Competitive Analysis’, Company A has the option to map this custom stage value to either an existing stage value or to a new stage value. Picklist value mapping realizes the dream of cross-company process integration

Sharing records with connections

Can my company set up rules to automate the sharing of records with connections? Which objects support this and which objects do not?Customers may automate the sharing of leads, cases and any custom object using queues that can be used in combination with workflow and assignment rules. For example: using the lead status and record type field on leads, a customer may farm out leads to one or more connections by assigning the lead(s) to a queue with active connection(s) as members. Customers cannot share related records when sharing the lead or custom object in this manner. The only caveat is around sharing public case comments. If the customer has published case comments and the partner has subscribed to case comments then once the case is accepted, public comments will automatically be shared with the partner.

With Spring ’09, customers may also use the Salesforce.com API to create triggers that automatically forward or stop sharing records with connections, based on specific business criteria. These triggers may be used on any of the supported objects and can be used in the following scenarios:

1) Forward parent

2) Forward parent with related records (e.g. tasks, Opportunity on Account)

3) Forward child related to shared parent


4) Send email notification

The new API tables that should be used for this are: PartnerNetworkConnection and PartnerNetworkRecordConnection

Finally, customers may share 1000s of records manually using the ‘Forward to Connection’ list view action in the applicable object tab. This feature is only available to System admins and users with the manage connections permission. Customers may share related records when using this feature.

How can we share Tasks and other related records with connections?Tasks and related records can be shared when forwarding the parent (e.g. share all open/closed tasks when sharing the contact record). Additionally, the related record may be shared individually after sharing has been established on the parent record. This applies whether the record(s) are being shared manually or via the API.

Share related records when sharing parent


Share individual related records on shared parent


Can I automate the sharing of related records with connections?Customers may use the Salesforce.com API to automate the sharing of related records. Additionally, when a related record is shared manually either when the parent is shared or individually using the ‘Manage Connections’ link on the ‘Sent Connection’ column in the object related list, the child record is automatically shared without any need to accept the record on the target org. This assumes the related record has only one relationship to the parent and does not have multiple ‘master’ relationships.

What are the different ways to share records with a connection?There are four ways to share records with connections.

1. Use the ‘Forward this xx’ option on the External Sharing related list on individual records. This related list needs to be added to object page layouts. By using this option, customers avoid making any changes to the record owner. Additionally, this gives the option to share individual records.


2. Using Queues with connections as members: only applicable to leads, cases and any custom object. This allows the customer to automate transfer of one or more records to one or more connections. Queues can be used in association with Workflow and lead assignment to automate the sharing of leads, cases and custom objects. Related records (besides Case Comments) will not be automatically shared when this option is selected. The customer will have to manually share the related records.


3. Mass Share using List View Forward: customers can now mass share 100s of records and child/related records using the Mass Share feature. This feature is only available to profiles with Modify All Data or Manage Connections profile permission.


4. Forward using the Salesforce.com public api

As mentioned earlier, the customer can forward the record automatically using the PartnerNetworkRecordConnection object available in the public API.

Following is an example of a simple trigger to share related Opportunities, Products and Tasks when the Billing Country on an Account is United States


If I share a record with a connection, does that mean that my internal users no longer have visibility into that record?No. Keep in mind that the record is being shared – it’s not leaving your org or database. The basic model is once a company shares a record (whether by forwarding or through ownership change to Queues) and the target company accepts the record, a copy of the source record is created in the target org; limited to the fields subscribed to by the target org. So internal users, especially system administrators will still have full access to the local record that will also show up in reports.

Can multiple connections accept a shared record?Yes, with Spring ’09 multiple connections can accept a record by default. We have done away with the ‘Shark tank’ or first-come-first-serve model based on customer feedback.


Does my administrator need to accept all incoming records or can he delegate this to someone else in my company?There is a new view section on Leads, Opportunities, Accounts, Contacts and any custom object that is visible only if the object in question has been subscribed to by at least one connection. Additionally, the user needs to have Read and Create/Edit access on the object to see this section.

Users with the Manage Connections profile permission may create any number of views and assign the same views to one or more internal users. This feature decouples the administration of connections from accepting and working a record.

For Example: on leads there is the “Leads from Connections” section (available right below the Recent Leads section). An admin or user with Manage Connections perm may create a custom view and assign using groups or roles to one or more internal users. John Doe is a member of one of these roles. When John next accesses the Leads tab, and assuming he has both Read and Create on Leads, he will see this view right below Recent Leads section. John may now accept records from other companies as defined by this view.


Can my admin customize the views to accept records from other companies (connections)?Yes, within certain limits, your system admin or user with Manage Connections permission may customize the views to accept leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts, cases and custom objects. However, we limit the number of fields available to customize these views – this will also affect the fields available to define the filter criteria for these views. Following are the fields available by object to define view filter criteria:

All: Connection Name & Sent Date

Lead: Title, Industry, Source, State, Status, Email, Phone & No. of Employees

Opportunity: Name, Stage, Closed Date, Amount, Account: Name, Account: Billing City, Account: Billing State, Account: Billing Country

Account: Name, Billing: city, Billing: state, Billing: country, type

Contact: name, title, email, phone, Mailing: City/State/Country, Account: Name, Account: Billing City/State/Country

Custom object: Name

Product: Connection Name, Sent Date, Product Name, Product Code & Product Family

Cases: Connection Name, Sent Date, Case Number, Subject, Status, Priority, Account Name, Asset Name, Contact Name and Type

Tasks, Case Comments and Opportunity Products do not need to be manually accepted. These records come over once the parent record has been accepted.

Can I automatically accept leads and other objects that I’ve subscribed to from another company?Yes, using the Auto-Accept feature (available with Summer ’09) customers can pick and choose, by connection and by object which records should be automatically accepted. This only applies to records shared as a ‘parent’ since child records are automatically inserted and related to the shared parent. For example if the customer would like to auto-accept leads from a partner then the connection owner should check the ‘Auto-Accept’ checkbox next to the Leads object mapping on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe objects UI. When the partner shares leads, the records will be automatically inserted into the customer’s org. Finally, on insert the system will trigger active assignment rules, if available.


My customer would like to automatically accept Contacts when accepting Accounts. Do I need to check the ‘Auto-Accept’ option on Contacts?No, the auto-accept option does not need to be checked for objects accepted as child/related records. Child/related records are automatically inserted and related to the parent record (e.g. Account) without requiring manual acceptance. Auto-accept applies to records accepted without any parent relationships. For example if you wanted to accept the Contact without automatically associating it to the shared account parent record, then by selecting the Auto-Accept option on Contacts, the contact records will be automatically created within the target org.

How can my partner accept all the related records (e.g. tasks) associated to the account I’m sharing with them?When you share a record (e.g. Account) and its related records (e.g. Opps, Contacts, Tasks and orders) with a business partner, as soon as the partner accepts the parent record the related records will automatically get shared and related to the parent record in the partner’s org. There is no acceptance process required for related records. This assumes that the partner has subscribed to the related objects. We only share the 100 related records per related object. Beyond that the sender needs to manually share each related record. Customers can get around this limitation using apex triggers to automatically forward child records.

Can I run assignment rules when accepting leads from another company?Yes. The user has the option to run assignment rules when accepting the leads manually. If assignment rules do not exist then the leads are assigned to the user accepting the records.


If the lead is being inserted without user intervention either using the Auto-accept option or when the lead is shared as a child of another shared parent record then active assignment rules are automatically triggered.

Company A has subscribed to over 20 lead fields from Company B. When an internal user accepts a record from Company B do all these fields get populated on record creation?If the lead (or any object) is manually accepted using the views on the respective tabs (e.g. Leads from Connections that is visible under the Recent Items section) then the basic model is that a subset of fields is inserted (populated) during the record creation process while the rest of the fields come in during the next update (approx 2mins). Here are the fields that are populated during create (assuming the target org has subscribed to the fields):

Lead: Status, Last Name, First Name, Company, Title, Industry, Lead Source, State, Email, No. of Employees and Phone

Opportunity: Name, Stage, Closed Date & Amounto If a new Account is created then the following fields are populated on the

Account: Account Name, Billing City, Billing State, Billing Country Contact: Name, title, email, phone, Mailing: City/State/Country

o If a new Account is created then the following fields are populated on the Account: Account Name, Billing City, Billing State, Billing Country

Account: Name, type, Billing: City, Billing: State, Billing: Country Custom object: Name Product: Product Name, Product Code & Product Family Case: Case Number, Subject, Status, Priority and Type

However if the record is being accepted as a child of another record or the Auto-Accept option has been selected then we create the record with all the fields subscribed by the target org (for child records it assumes the parent has already been accepted).Note: the above will impact your workflow, assignment and validation rules. For example if you have a validation rule that looks at another standard field (not listed above) or a custom field, then it will fail and the record will not be created in the org.

How are newly accepted records assigned record types? When a record is manually accepted the following applies:For leads, customers have the option to create a workflow rule that assigns the relevant record type to the accepted lead. The default behavior is to assign the accepting user’s default record type to the new lead. The same process works for custom objects and cases.

For Accounts, Opportunities, Products and Contacts the user has the ability to assign a record type when accepting the records.

When a record is automatically accepted (either Auto-Accept is enabled or record is a child of a shared parent) then the only option is to have a workflow rule or apex trigger to specify the record type. If the record type is not specified then this value will not be populated on the record.


Can record updates be bi-directional?Absolutely! Using the Publish and Subscribe model, customers may decide what objects/fields to send updates (publish) and what objects/fields to receive updates (subscribe) on explicitly shared records.

When I accept a record from another company, do I need adhere to the other company’s profile and page layout restrictions?No, only the data is being shared. We do not share page layouts, profile definitions or any other security/setup information. Users adhere to page layout as defined within their respective orgs (by the system admins). Therefore, two orgs sharing a record might have very different page layouts and profile definitions and only the shared data (based on publish and subscribe rules) is synched cross-org.

What happens if the other company deletes a shared record?If Company A is sharing a record with Company B and B deletes their copy of the record, then two things will happen

1) The connection owner in Company A will receive an email notification stating that Company B has deleted their copy of the record

2) The sharing status visible in the Company A record against Company B’s name in the External Sharing related list now shows ‘Inactive (deleted)’ thereby letting the record owner know that Company B has deleted their copy of the record.

Company A may report on records previously shared with Company B that have since been deleted by that company.

However, under no circumstances will Company A records be deleted.

What happens if the other company converts (for leads) a shared record?If Company A is sharing a lead with Company B and B converts their copy of the lead record, then two things will happen

1) The connection owner in Company A will receive an email notification stating that Company B has converted their copy of the record

2) The sharing status visible in the Company A record against Company B’s name in the External Sharing related list will now shows ‘Inactive (converted)’ thereby letting the record owner know that Company B has converted their copy of the record.

However, under no circumstances will the record in Company A be converted automatically. If Company A were to convert the lead into an Account, Contact and opportunity, they now have the option to share these records back with Company B, thereby tracking pipeline updates in a real-time manner.

Note: Company A may report on records previously shared with Company B that have since been converted by that company.

How do I stop sharing a record with another company?If the record is a parent then use the ‘Stop Sharing’ option in the External Sharing related list for that specific connection. If the record is a child (related record) then if sharing needs to be


terminated with the connection that sent you the record – use the ‘Stop Sharing’ link found near the connection name on the Received Connection column. If sharing needs to be terminated with the connection you sent the record to then use the ‘Manage Connections’ link on the ‘Sent connection’ column and move the connection from the right hand column to the left hand columns using the dueling list box. Users with edit rights on the record can stop sharing the record at any time. If a connection is deactivated, then sharing of all records with that connection is immediately terminated.

Note: For Tasks, Opportunity Products and Comments if sharing is terminated on the parent record then sharing is automatically terminated on these records

1: Stop sharing parent

2: Stop sharing related record (sent and/or received)

Sharing may also be terminated automatically using the API by applying the delete operation on the PartnerNetworkRecordConnection object (passing the record id)

Note: Each company retains access to their local copy of the record but can neither send nor receive any further updates without sharing the record again. No record is deleted!

What if a connection and an internal user are updating a field at the same time? Which update wins?Last update wins. All updates are reflected in reports (assuming the fields are tracked in history)

Is there an option to require manual approval before an update from another company is committed in my org?No, if a field has been subscribed to by your company and if the other company updates that field, your copy of the record is automatically updated. There is no option to request manual intervention before committing the update. However, there is the option to map the other company’s field to another internal field and create a task for the record owner when that field is updated. An apex trigger or workflow rule may be written to set the master field once the manager has ‘approved’ the cross-org update.


Reports, Validation Rules and Workflow

Will my existing opportunity forecast reports still work with this service?Yes, since there is no ownership impact on opportunities, the existing forecasting reports will continue to work as before with the additional insight that the opportunity is being shared with another company (connection) using the special Opportunity with Connections report or Custom Report types.

Does this service support my validation rules?If Company B has special validation rules, and:

1. If a user in Company B is trying to accept a record from Company A and the record fails to meet Company B’s validation criteria, then the record copy will not be created in Company B and the user will see a message that ‘0 records accepted’. No reason will be shown since we currently do not differentiate the inability to accept a record due to failure to meet validation criteria vs. other reasons (e.g. system is down, another company has accepted the record etc)

2. If the record is being actively shared and an update comes in from Company A that fails the validation criteria then the update will fail – no fields will be updated. No messages will be displayed on the record giving the reason for the failure

If an error occurs due to a validation or apex rule (or any functional reason) and the system cannot update or insert the shared record a couple of things will happen

a) The error with message will be logged in the Connection Audit

b) The Connection Owner in both organizations will receive an email notification with details on the error and the reason why it occurred.

Is there a way to circumvent validation rules when a record is accepted from a connection or an update is received from a connection?Yes. Customers can use the information in this blog entry: http://blogs.salesforce.com/prm/2009/02/impact-of-sales.html to circumvent validation rules.

Additionally, with Winter ’09 we’ve released the Log Errors in Connection Audit that logs errors due to validation rules, apex rules and/or other functional errors in the target orgs connection audit as well as sends an email notification to the connection owners in both orgs.

What is the impact on reports with this new service?All existing reports will work as designed. There are a few custom reports available with the new service including:

Connections with Accounts: “show me the accounts with whom my company has active connections”

Leads and Connections: “show me all the lead records that my company is sharing with connections”


http://blogs.salesforce.com/prm/2009/02/impact-of-sales.html

Lead History (update): “show me the field updates made by connections – limited to fields tracked in history”

Opportunity and Connections: “show me all the opportunity records that my company is sharing with connections”

Opportunity History (update): “show me the field updates made by connections – limited to fields tracked in stage history”

Custom Object and Connections: “show me all the custom object records that my company is sharing with connections”

Custom Object History (update): “show me the field updates made by connections – limited to fields tracked in history”

Case History (update): “show me the field updates made by connections – limited to fields tracked in history”

Does Salesforce to Salesforce support Custom Report Types?Yes, we support CRT’s. Customers should use CRT’s to create reports though the reports described above will remain available. For example customers will need to use CRT’s to see which Accounts are being shared with connections

Can I trigger workflow or Apex triggers based on updates received from another company? Yes, we have added one field to the API that can be used with workflow and apex triggers on supported objects: Received Connection Name. These fields are populated once the record is actively shared (i.e. not until the record has been accepted). Customers can also use the PartnerNetworkConnection and PartnerNetworkRecordConnection objects to run rules on shared records. For example: Company A has sent a lead record to Company B who is now working the lead to completion. Company A wants to assign a task to an internal user Joe Manager if Company B updates the lead status field from Open to Qualified. The workflow criteria could be as follows:

Sent Connection Name contains Company B AND Lead: Last Modified By contains Connection User AND Lead Status equals Qualified then:

o create a workflow task and assign to Joe Manager

Who performs the cross-org updates? Do I need to create a user record for the other company to update my records?Once the Salesforce to Salesforce service is enabled by the org administrator, a new system user is created: Connection User. This user does NOT count towards the user license limit. The service uses this user to perform all cross-org updates without user intervention.

Can I track the updates made by other companies? Can I report of these updates?Yes, we have modified the history related list and the reports to add a new Connections column. Any time an update is made by a connection this column is populated with the connection


name. Additionally, we use a special user to do the cross-org updates called ‘Connection User’. This user can be used while defining the filter criteria.

The premise is that history tracking is on for the field in question (i.e. we do not track history on a field that has history tracking turned off)

Troubleshooting Guide

I don’t see the Salesforce to Salesforce option in Setup|CustomizeOnly Unlimited, Enterprise, Professional and Group edition customers will see the Salesforce to Salesforce link in the setup tree. This link will also be available on trial, demo instances. If you are a personal edition customer, you will not see this option

I can see the setup preference for Salesforce to Salesforce, but cannot enable the serviceOnly profiles with Modify All Data can enable and edit the Salesforce to Salesforce setup preference. Portal profiles may not enable this feature

I don’t see the Connections tab despite enabling the Salesforce to Salesforce service.There are a couple of steps required to make the Connections tab visible to the end user.


1. Admin needs to turn on the Salesforce to Salesforce system setting

2. Add the Connections tab to one more apps using Setup|Build|Apps|edit

My admin doesn’t see the Connections tab as an option (as shown above)If your admin has turned on the Salesforce to Salesforce org preference but still cannot see the connections tab (as shown above) it’s probably a cache problem. Do the following:

Navigate to Setup| Admininstrative Setup| Manage Users| Profile

Select the edit (existing profile) or Create New option

Make a couple of changes and Save the page

The above should refresh the cache and you should now see the Connections tab as shown above. You should now see the ‘Connections tab’ – go ahead and delete the profile.

Revert back the changes you made above (to the existing profile or the new profile)

I can’t access the Connections tabOnly users with the Manage Connections profile permission may access the Connections tab. While system administrators and profiles with the Modify All Data permission are automatically


given this permission, all other profiles need to be enabled explicitly. Once the profile has this permission enabled, then all users assigned to this profile may access the connections tab.

Please note: this permission is not available to portal profiles

I would like to publish a Custom Object on a connection, but I don’t see an option to select this object. For a user to be able to publish any object, the user would need Read and Edit access on the object. Users without this level of access cannot publish the object to connections


I would like to send updates on a custom field available on the Leads objects to my partner, but I don’t see the custom field?In this scenario, it seems the user has Read and Edit rights on the Lead object (as defined in the profile) but either does not have edit rights on the custom field or the custom field is not API updatable. Additionally we do not support auto-number and system audit fields.


I would like to map (subscribe) my partner’s Custom Object to Object A in my org, but I’m unable to select Object A?For a user to be able to subscribe to another company’s object and map that object to an internal object, it is necessary that the user have Read and Edit access on the internal object. Another requirement is that the internal object not be already mapped to another object from the other company. In the above scenario if Object A is either mapped to another object from the other company or the user does not have Edit rights on Object A then this object will not be available for selection in the object mapping UI.

I don’t see the option to forward a record to one or more connections?Make sure to add the External Sharing related list to the selected Page Layouts. Without this related list, the user with edit rights on the record cannot manually forward a record to one or


more connections. The only option (only on leads and custom objects) is to use queues and workflow to forward one or more records to connections.

I don’t have the option to selectively share tasks on a shared related recordMake sure to include the following 2 columns to the Open Activities and Activity History related list (available on the objects page layout) so that your users can forward individual tasks – limited to the active connections on the parent.

You need to do the same steps for other related objects you want to share with the connection (e.g. Opportunity Products, Contacts on Accounts)


My company has published Opportunity Products to our partner connections, however we’re unable to share Opportunity ProductsThere are a number of conditions that need to be met before Opportunity products can be shared with one or more connections. The conditions are as follows

Parent Opportunity must be shared with connections Related Product catalog must be shared with connections Related Product catalog must be in price book of connection(s) opportunities and price

book entry must be active Sender’s opportunity currency must be active in price book of target’s opportunity

Additionally, here are some additional facts around sharing Opportunity Products Price book should be selected when accepting the parent opportunity. This is a must

especially when opportunity products have been shared along with the parent opportunity

Sales Price and Quantity are required fields • If connection has schedules enabled on product then Quantity and Sales Price

will not be updated• Total price may be published but not subscribed to (can be mapped to another

currency field)

Why do reports and the history related lists only track history on certain fields? Only fields designated by the system admin for history tracking are included in the reports and history related list. History may be tracked on leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts and custom objects

My admin who happens to be the Connection owner is receiving emails about validation errors when my partner tries updating the record. Why is this happening?With the new Log Errors in Connection audit feature anytime there is an error that prevents update or insert of a record the system will log the error in the connection audit of the target connection and send an email notification to the connection owners for both accounts. This feature only checks for functional errors (e.g. bad data, validation errors, apex errors)


My company has created an Apex trigger to automate the forwarding of Accounts and related records with multiple connections. However, we’re getting an ‘Invalid PartnerNetwork status’ exception. What could be the reason for this?When sharing records using Apex triggers customers need to make sure of the following

The object being shared is both published and subscribed with the selected connections If the ParentRecordId is set in the trigger, the associated parent record must already be

shared with the selected connections If the RelatedRecords field is set, the objects must be published and subscribed with the

selected connections Cannot set the Send Open and Closed tasks for objects such as Opportunity Products If you’re dealing with a list of records the best practice is to add each

PartnerNetworkRecordConnection object into a list and insert the list at one go outside the for loop (example below using Cases)

Example of Apex Trigger – forwarding record with associated parent and child records

trigger autoForwardCase on Case(after insert, after update) { String userName = UserInfo.getName(); String orgName = UserInfo.getOrganizationName(); List<PartnerNetworkConnection> connMap = new List<PartnerNetworkConnection>( [select Id, ConnectionStatus, ConnectionName from PartnerNetworkConnection where ConnectionStatus = 'Accepted']); System.debug('Size of connection map: '+connMap.size()); List<PartnerNetworkRecordConnection> prncList = new List<PartnerNetworkRecordConnection>(); for(Integer i =0; i< Trigger.size; i++){ Case cse = Trigger.new[i]; String uId = cse.Id; System.debug('Value of caseId: '+uId); for(PartnerNetworkConnection network : connMap) { String cid = network.Id; String status = network.ConnectionStatus; String connName = network.ConnectionName; PartnerNetworkRecordConnection newrecord = new PartnerNetworkRecordConnection(); newrecord.ConnectionId = cid; newrecord.parentRecordId = cse.AccountId; //associate to parent account on target that is also shared newrecord.LocalRecordId = uId; newrecord.RelatedRecords = 'Case, Order_Case__c'; //share related cases and orders newrecord.SendClosedTasks = true; newrecord.SendOpenTasks = true; newrecord.SendEmails = true;


prncList.add(newrecord); } } //Start Auto share if (prncList.size() > 0) { insert prncList; }}

If I have additional questions around the Salesforce to Salesforce service, who should I contact?Your primary point of contact should be your AE or premier support representative. Additionally you have the option to submit a question to the product management team using the following email address: [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

Spring 10 Release - FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide

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