Do you use Salesforce and NetSuite in your company? You don't want to part with Salesforce as your leading CRM system? Then it makes sense to create an integration between the two systems.
At the beginning: we must decide which data should be synchronized and which system should lead for various data tables. As the first step, you could consider products, customers and orders for synchronization. However, this will vary by use case. It should also be considered whether you need a two-way synchronization.
Using the two systems together in a meaningful way can involve a lot of manual efforts. For example, if you would like to have your orders entered in Salesforce and also in NetSuite, you can simply “re-type” them. However, even with a manageable number of orders, this is not an efficient solution and creates high chances for potential human errors.
It is of course also possible to import the data into NetSuite as a CSV file, which is certainly an acceptable solution for many scenarios. But it still means a lot of manual effort. Master data maintenance must also be considered if several systems are used. Even with the slightest discrepancy in the name, you may no longer find the right customer record, for instance. Efficient integration is therefore of great benefit.
Alta Via can help you connect your two leading cloud systems in an automated, seamless, efficient, stable and flexible way. We have many years of experience in various projects where we developed such integrations.
Generally speaking, there are two broad ways of connecting the two systems:
What exactly should the integration achieve and cover?
This leads to further detailed questions:
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email newsletter tools on the market.
The usability is very much appreciated by many marketing managers around the world.
Naturally we are looking for ways to transfer data from NetSuite to MailChimp.
Common questions we have when we look for options to integrate:
Here, Alta Via has developed a simple approach. No middleware is needed. Only the email address is pushed from NetSuite to Mailchimp and then synced going forward.
The solution is very basic but customizable to the needs of our customers.
In this process, NetSuite is considered to be the leading system for master data (customer’s email address), whereas the email newsletter subscription status is managed in mailchimp.
After installation and configuration of the bundle, and as a first step you need to define your relevant customers, which shall become part of campaigns in mailchimp, through a saved search. The definition is important, as your customer data is precious and you might not want to share all of them.
The name of that search has to be entered in the general settings of your NetSuite account.
Note: Not all customers that you defined to be relevant will be replicated, but only the ones that have the appropriate opt-in status.
NetSuite has four status for email newsletters:
Your relevant customers then can be synchronized to the mailchimp account. If the status is one of Soft Opt-In or Soft Opt-Out then the customer email is synced to mailchimp in the status of "pending", meaning that the customer will receive an email from mailchimp to subscribe to a campaign.
If the customer opted-in (Confirmed Opt-In), then the customer’s email is synced to mailchimp in the status of "subscribed", so no additional subscription email will be sent to the customer.
Note: Still in all mailchimp emails you should ensure that the customer can unsubscribe from a campaign.
Customers are added as members to the configured mailchimp member list.
When customer synchronization is started, then NetSuite also reads the subscription status of the customer in mailchimp. If the customer unsubscribed, this status is also stored in the NetSuite system for information.
Note: Subscription status in NetSuite might not be up to date with the status in mailchimp, only after re-syncing the data is up to date.