I posed the following question awhile back on thread but I don't recall seeing a response.

One problem with this is that Web2Lead only inserts new records and only for Leads. So, in the first case, you'll get duplicate Leads everytime a person submits a form. Second, I don't see functionality for updating or inserting a Contact record.

So my question for SF would be: is it advisable to use the AppExchange API to do insert/updates to Lead and Contact objects everytime a web form on a web site form is completed. This would require a separate login/merge/logout API transaction for every form which might number in the 100s or 1000s per day. Or is it recommended that the best way is do synchronization of SF with web form-collected data on a scheduled basis (30 mins or hourly, etc.) and how tight a frequency is acceptable.

If someone wants to allow Leads or Contacts to change some of their fields in a self-service way, what's the best practice?

Thx for any guidance.

I posed the following question awhile back on thread but I don't recall seeing a response.

One problem with this is that Web2Lead only inserts new records and only for Leads. So, in the first case, you'll get duplicate Leads everytime a person submits a form. Second, I don't see functionality for updating or inserting a Contact record.

So my question for SF would be: is it advisable to use the AppExchange API to do insert/updates to Lead and Contact objects everytime a web form on a web site form is completed. This would require a separate login/merge/logout API transaction for every form which might number in the 100s or 1000s per day. Or is it recommended that the best way is do synchronization of SF with web form-collected data on a scheduled basis (30 mins or hourly, etc.) and how tight a frequency is acceptable.

If someone wants to allow Leads or Contacts to change some of their fields in a self-service way, what's the best practice?

Thx for any guidance.