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Overview

Unify can create and update Salesforce records in response to Play runs and sequence enrollments. This page summarizes the rules used to determine when and how to create or update records in Salesforce.

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Overwriting data

Unify takes a very conservative approach to overwriting existing Salesforce data in order to make data loss impossible. This approach is based around only a few simple rules:
  • Creating new records: When Unify is creating a new Salesforce record, it will fill in all fields that are enabled for writing in the field mapping or default values.
  • Updating existing records: Unify will inspect whether the field is empty or not. If the field is empty, it will be updated with the new value. If the field already has a value, it will only be updated if it is a Unify-specific field. These fields are prefixed with “Unify” and can be found here.
These rules apply regardless of how the record was originally created (e.g., by Unify or externally). If you’re looking for more fine-grained control, you can also limit the permissions granted to the Unify integration user in Salesforce.

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Duplicate prevention

Duplicates are strictly prevented within Unify. When creating new Salesforce records, Unify will only ever create one record. If there is already an existing Salesforce record of the same type, Unify will always update it rather than creating a new one. However, duplicates are a common problem in Salesforce and may already exist in your Salesforce instance. In addition, users or other integrations may accidentally create new duplicates over time. In order to accommodate this reality, Unify follows specific rules to ensure predictable behavior when updating duplicated Salesforce records. While Unify cannot de-duplicate your Salesforce, it will never make the problem worse, and in some situations may be able to help clarify the “source of truth” record.

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Contacts

Salesforce contacts are written by Unify if Create new records as Contacts & Accounts is selected. In addition, contacts are sometimes created in place of leads if the person being written to Salesforce already exists as a contact. Unify cannot create a lead in this situation due to Salesforce’s contact duplicate rules. In both situations, if there is an existing contact that matches the Unify person being written, it will be updated. Matches are determined based on email address. If there are no matches, a new contact will be created. If there are multiple contacts that match the Unify person, only one will be updated. Specifically, the contact that was most recently modified within Salesforce is the one that will be updated.

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Accounts

Salesforce accounts are written by Unify whenever a contact is created or updated. They are also written if a Salesforce sync action runs within a Play that is running on companies. If there is an existing account that matches the Unify company being written, it will be updated. Matches are determined based on the domain of the company website. Domains are normalized, so URLs that redirect to different domains will not result in duplicates. If there are no matches, a new account will be created. If there are multiple accounts that match the Unify company, only one will be updated. Specifically:
  • If one account has more associated contacts than the other(s), that one will be updated
  • Otherwise, the account that was most recently modified within Salesforce will be updated

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Leads

Salesforce leads are written by Unify when Create new records as Leads is selected. If there is an existing lead that matches the Unify company being written, it will be updated. Matches are determined based on email address. If there are no matches, a new lead will be created. If there are multiple leads that match the Unify person, only one will be updated. Specifically, the lead that was most recently modified within Salesforce is the one that will be updated.

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Email Messages

Unify writes to the email message object in Salesforce, which is the recommended approach for syncing email data to Salesforce. In order to write records of this object type, the Enhanced Email feature must be enabled in Salesforce. This is typically enabled by default. Unify does not update existing email messages in Salesforce; only emails sent through Unify or received in response to those emails will be written to Salesforce. Unify uses the standard Universal Message ID to deduplicate email messages if they are simultaneously being written by another integration. Email messages are written to Salesforce for all emails sent as a part of Unify sequences if the corresponding person already exists in Salesforce. This means that in order to write email messages for sequence enrollments, you should ensure that the person already exists in Salesforce or that you include a Play action to sync them to Salesforce.