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SF NewbSF Newb 

Integrating SalesForce with another CRM application

Our company is in the process of using a vendor solution.  We currently use Clarify CRM to handle all of our cases.  The vendor uses SalesForce to handle all their cases.  In order for us to escalate cases to the vendor, we will need to log a case in SalesForce through their website.

Ideally we would like the SalesForce case to be automatically created when our agent creates a case in Clarify.  That would mean 1 less application our agents will have to open while taking a call.

Are there any API's that allow this and if so, how much effort will this process entail.

Any help, information, documentation, etc. will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
colingcoling
Hi,

There is a Salesforce feature called Web-to-case which requires no programming - it assumes your web form will (only) go to create a case in Salesforce.

You may consider synchronizing data between the two applications using one of the data sync products out there. This may not be ideal considering the scenario you pose.

If you want to customize your integration between the two, the Salesforce API is the way to go to  create a case from a script running on your server. This is not too difficult, assuming knowledge of the API.

Colin Goldberg
SF NewbSF Newb
Thanks for your response.

A few follow-up questions to the Web-to-Case option. 

1.  To confirm, we can configure the form so that it will create a case for the vendor?

2.  Can we customize that form to capture any information we want?

3.  How can we capture the SalesForce Case ID once the form is submitted so that we can track it in Clarify?

4.  Can you provide any sample code for these forms?

Thanks again for your help.
Pat McQueenPat McQueen

Hello,

I would start with getting rid of Clarify .... Salesforce.com has a much better case management solution.  Assuming that dumping Clarify is out of the scope of the current project ...

Salesforce.com does have a very rich web services based API.  However to use the API in almost every instance you will need to authenticate to the API.   This would mean that your vendor to which you submit cases would give you a user name and password.  Assuming they are not interested in giving you a user name and password we have a couple of choices.

Web-to-Case and Email-to-Case both are mechanisms to submitting a case to salesforce.com without authentication.  They use HTTP and SMTP respectivly.  Every Salesforce.com vendor has the choice to turn on each of these mechanisms.  Email is pretty easy - But it is a little more difficult to get the right data into fields. 

Web-to-Case simply takes an HTTP post and creates a case.  The downside is that Web-to-Case does not return a case number to the case submittor by default.  Typically a confirmation email is sent to the submittor with a case number.  However this is all configurable in Salesforce.com.  Your vendor does not have to send a confirmation email nor does the confirmation email have to contain a case number.

The functionality to do everything you want is in Salesforce.com - However the harder part is that you need to cooperation of the people whom are using Salesforce.com to allow you to do what you want.  If they are not willing to cooperate it will be tough.  You could start by looking at the web form they are using to capture cases online.  If it is posting directly to salesforce.com you will see:

Code:

<form action="https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToCase—encoding=UTF-8" method="POST">

<input type=hidden name="orgid" value="SomeGUIDhere">
<input type=hidden name="retURL" value="http://your.site.here">

<label for="name">Contact Name</label><input  id="name" maxlength="80" name="name" size="20" type="text" /><br>
<label for="email">Email</label><input  id="email" maxlength="80" name="email" size="20" type="text" /><br>
<label for="phone">Phone</label><input  id="phone" maxlength="40" name="phone" size="20" type="text" /><br>


 

The OrgID tells Salesforce.com which customer gets this case.  The name, email and phone are sample fields.  You could have Clarify auto-populate these fields.  (Can you?  Clarify is pretty old)  And then it would automate the case creation process.  You would just have to make sure that someone fills in the case number later.

There is an example of a more complex case creation via the API that returns a case number.  see:

http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Members:PHP_Toolkit_1.1_Samples#Creation_of_Master_and_Detail_records_with_Error_Checking

You can always get a *FREE* Developer edition of salesforce.com to try all this out.  Developer edition is a small (2 user w/ little storage) version of salesfore.com.  It is fully functional and you can try all this out.  It also provides the login so you can see all the "protected" content on the salesforce.com developer site.

Pat
hxnhxn

Look into Hubcase, it calls itself "Post Office" for support cases. It automates dispatch and escalation of work orders, tickets, issues and cases across organizations and systems to providers, vendors, suppliers, customers, partners. There is a package for salesforce http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003IQuWEAW