Can you integrate Salesforce and Office? Yes!
Integrating Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365 is a powerful tool for improving sales efficiency. The seamless connection allows you to quickly update your leads, customers or opportunities in the cloud with just one click on any device with access.
In this blog, you will find:
Your Integration Strategy: What You Need to Consider
Three Options for Executing Integration
Key Considerations on Change Management
ProServeIT Academy: Microsoft & Salesforce Integration
In this blog, A Complete Guide to Microsoft & Salesforce Integrations Part 1, you can learn the things you need to consider for your integration strategy, three options for executing integrations and critical considerations for change management.
You may be interested in these blogs:
3 Tips to Effectively Implement Enterprise Integration to Optimize Your Business Operations
3 Benefits of Having a Business Application Integration Strategy –And Tips to Develop It!
Your Integration Strategy: What You Need to Consider for a Successful Integration
Deciding to integrate your business systems is a big one, and you need to consider all your options and make sure that you have a plan in place before you begin. We will discuss integration strategies around these important aspects: guiding principles and integration approach. We'll also provide tips on choosing the right integration partner for your business.
Four Guiding Principles for Ensuring a Successful Integration 🧾
Successful integrations are essential for businesses in today’s digital economy to create a more efficient and effective organization. Four guiding principles, including data governance, security, user experience and maintenance, can help you succeed.
🕹️ Data Governance: Data governance is integral to your technology stack. It helps you understand how everything works together and having that data flow in place will be key for your technical needs.
🛡️ Security: Security is one of the most critical aspects when considering integrating a system with another company's plans. You must maintain the minimum required security standards to ensure your data stays encrypted seamlessly during the entire integration process.
😀 User Experience: Integrating with other services is a great way to improve user experience. The goal of integration should be to reduce complexity and simplify things for end users.
🛠️ Maintenance: You need to define a strategy for updates and changes and ensure that your changes are sustainable and will continue to provide value for your business.
Integrating Approach: Office 365 & Salesforce🔗
Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce can be seamlessly integrated. Since many users already equip two platforms with their businesses, this integration enables you to take advantage of the rich feature set of Office 365 while still being able to access Salesforce data.
The integration between Office 365 apps and Salesforce provides several benefits for businesses, including:
🔎 Microsoft Active Directory is a centralized identity management and authentication system to manage network resources, authenticate users, and authorize access to network resources. With a simple process, you can manage Salesforce security settings using Active Directory to spin up new users.
📧 Outlook and the Salesforce connection can save time by automatically syncing your CRM with all the data from any email client. This way, there's no need to input anything manually into either system – automatically enter each message as it arrives.
📄 Microsoft SharePoint/OneDrive and Salesforce can access your documents from your computer or laptop directly in the cloud, which makes remote collaboration much simpler since anyone can view any document anytime, regardless of logging onto their account locally.
🤝 Microsoft Teams integration with Salesforce is a great way to collaborate, especially around projects.
📱 Microsoft InTune integration with Salesforce provides Mobile Device Management (MDM) for corporate devices, which allows you to manage settings such as allowing users access when located within the company's network boundaries or restricting what data can be taken from devices without user consent.
📝 Microsoft Planner with Salesforce integration is an excellent project management tool, giving visibility into your tasks and deadlines. It's also perfect if you work on complex structures like asset reallocations.
🏭 Azure Data Factory and Salesforce integration is a vital part of data governance, ensuring that the information in the cloud system is trustworthy and clean and allowing you more confidence when making decisions based on this new influx of analytics data.
Three Options for Executing Integrations: Microsoft and Salesforce
Integrating Microsoft and Salesforce is a streamlined process that requires minimal work on your end. You can choose from one of three options depending on what type of solution best meets your needs:
Microsoft & Salesforce Standardized Integration 💪
The Microsoft/Salesforce Standardized Integrations offer the highest security standard and are developed and maintained by Salesforce/Microsoft directly. Active Directory (AD), InTune, Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams have this integration option.
☑️ Active Directory can be set up quickly and easily, leveraging Microsoft as an identity provider for Single Sign-On. Additionally, some Salesforce security settings can be managed directly from Active Directory.
☑️ Outlook Microsoft/Salesforce has a standardized integration for Outlook. There is a free and paid version of the Outlook integration; the paid version adds open email tracking and scheduling tools. The integration does not auto-sync and does not work on the Outlook Mobile app, but it allows you to manage some Salesforce security settings in AD.
App Exchange/AppSource Packages 📦
Many third-party apps integrate with Salesforce and Microsoft products. These apps can add more functionality, but they can also add an unnecessary security or maintenance layer. Functionality typically relates emails to multiple records in Salesforce. Some popular Outlook options include Cirrus Insight and Revenue Grid, and SharePoint options include sFiles, Q!365, and Egnyte.
Custom Development 📈
Custom development might be the right option if you're working with a large budget. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, Salesforce frequently updates its integrations, suggesting your custom solution may need to be reworked within a few years. Second, many potential roadblocks can delay or prevent your project from being completed on time and within budget.
Key Considerations on Change Management when Integrating new software
When integrating new software into business processes, there are a few things to consider for change management:
🖇️ Need to tie these integrations to business processes and train in your context: When deploying new integrations, it is important to consider how they will fit into existing business processes. Users will need to be trained on how to use the new integrations in the context of their work.
🤖 Will IT auto-deploy, or what configuration do users need to do: your IT team will need to configure the new integrations for auto-deployment, or users will need to be given instructions on how to do so.
🧑💻 Who is responsible for answering user questions? Decide if IT or a designated support team will be responsible for answering user questions about the new integrations.
📱Mobile versions: Mobile versions of the new integration should be considered for users who need access while on the go.
ProServeIT Academy: Microsoft & Salesforce Integration
Our Microsoft & Salesforce Integrations Course is designed for IT leaders and professionals. Matthew Maingot from Brightmark, will show you how the Azure and Salesforce integration can drive your business forward. View the recording to hear how other organizations have utilized both platforms and ask any questions you might have.
Register for the Microsoft & Salesforce Integration course here to view the recording.
Content from: ProServeIT Academy 2022 Microsoft & Salesforce Integration Course 1 by Matthew Maingot & Eric Sugar
Edited by: Betty Quon & Hyun-Jin Im
Comments