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JakeOleary Several Great Questions for a great integration
We are looking to a pretty robust integration so I am looking for some answers on the following, FYI I search around the message board already and I couldnt find any recent answers to similar questions.
1) Can we create links/URLs fields aside from weblinks? What about buttons?
2) Can we push an alert into the users SFDC session at all? For example real time push an update of some form that a particular account as updated information in our application? Maybe this could be achieved by displaying some text with a link conditionally and allowing us to control this condition and also the contents of the link? I understand this would require a page refresh regardless, that is not a problem.
3) Can we add new buttons or URLs to the new account / new lead entry pages? Ideally we want the user to be able to key in a company name in your system as they enter in a new lead/account and then search for it within our system and if found we would auto populate the rest of the record for them. Thoughts? I realize this may be a stretch, but any potential work arounds?
4) Can we create a custom field that is hidden? We want to store our internal ID for a particular record within SFDC app. Then use this ID when linking back to us.
Hi Jake,
1. You can create formula fields that result in a hyperlink for a record. These links will show on the detail page for a record and can be included on related lists and search result layouts.
2. Not sure on the terminology here ("push an alert to the users SFDC session"). Maybe you could expand a little on this. Tell me if this is correct: You have an external application that may change data that is also represented in salesforce.com. When that data is changed, you want to alert the user to that change and provide a link to view the details of the change.
3. This would best be done with an web link to a page hosted in your data center. Since you cannot add buttons or links to the new account / lead entry page, you would need to create a custom tab or weblink else where that would redirect to your page for the entire creation process. If an account or lead was found in your system, you can prefill the entry page and send the user to it, other wise, send the user to an empty entry page.
4. Sure, no problem, fully supported.
Thanks for the response, just to get back to you on question # 2
Yes how you stated it is right. Basically we are going to be doing a upfront match when a company is entered into SFDC. After that match we will stored our unique identifier in your system. Then whether we push an update to you or we do a pull from within your app, when a user visits that company record from within your system (lead/account page) I want to alert them if there has been a chance for that record within our own system. I could alert them say by showing a URL/Link conditionally if there is an update so they can click it and view that particular update for example. Then I pass that unique indentifier to our system and frame the results.
Thanks
-Jake
Ok, well I think this would be hard to do. You might be able to do something with record types such that when data is changed in your system that is also in salesforce.com, you change the record type on the record. Since record types have a different layout you can display information that indicates that a change has occured. You could then require the user to modify the record type back to the standard type to "accept" or acknowledge the change.
You won't be able to actuallly "alert" the user by blinking a screen element or anything that will catch their attention though.
You see the thing is I wanted to alert a user that there was new information on our website about this company. I didnt want to autoupdate the company info in SFDC, but rather just somehow make them aware of new information so they could then click a link. That stinks, no way to have fields show up conditionally.
what about this? Add a new field along the lines of "Update Avail Y/N" that we set the value on using the API if their is an update (just a simple yes/no). We could schedule automatic pushes to your api when there is such an update available. Then the user can click on the link and once viewed we can then write back to your API and set the value to a "no". Its crude, but i need some way to let the user know of data updates, so they dont have to go looking all the time.
Sure, that would work. A simple formula field could do that.