Note: Legacy CRM plugin experience will be deprecated on May 20, 2023. After that you will be able to modify your CRM sync settings using the new enhanced CRM sync experience only. CRM sync settings for your active plugin are automatically available in the new experience. No action is required.
Summary
Outreach continues to build out and improve our customer experience for Outreach Engage. As a result, we are offering an improved experience for connecting your CRM (e.g., Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics) to Outreach. This new enhancement includes:
- Guided onboarding experience to more quickly set up CRM integrations
- Simplified UX for managing sync configurations.
The intent of this new experience is to improve the speed at which you are able to connect your mission-critical CRM with Outreach while proactively addressing API and activity feed issues.
This document focuses specifically on the changes coming to CRM sync for Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. It is subject to change as we progress the vision for CRM connectivity and sync for the Outreach Sales Execution Platform.
Overview
How are these changes delivering value?
The focus of this initiative is to provide improved and streamlined workflows for CRM connectivity. Additionally, we want to make it easier for users to easily embed external experiences and data into Outreach. With that in mind this capability enables us to deliver the following value:
- Improved set-up time between your CRM and Outreach Engage
- Ensuring that Outreach Admins have a more consistent and easy-to-use experience configuring CRM sync
What CRMs are available for public beta and GA?
For public beta, Salesforce and Salesforce Sandbox are available. Support for Microsoft Dynamics will be available at the time of GA.
Feature Impact
Task Mappings
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Task Mapping Improvement* |
Details: |
Impact |
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Standard Task Mappings unified with Advanced Task Mappings *Existing Outreach customers will continue to have access to Standard Task Mapping capability. |
Old experience: In old experience, Outreach offered two modes of task mapping - standard and advanced. Standard task mapping (pushes activity through the Lead <> Prospect and Contact <> Prospect sync settings) and advanced task mapping give admins the ability to connect Outreach activities directly to the Task/Activity objects in the CRM. New experience: In the new experience, we have combined standard and advanced task mappings into a single task mapping experience. The information architecture of the CRM sync configuration has been changed to make it streamlined with lesser-used settings moved to the advanced settings menu. |
Time savings and improved ease of use when setting up activity sync. |
Sync Contacts before Leads
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Sync Contacts before Leads Improvement |
Details: |
Impact |
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Old experience: Users needed to drag and drop to change the order of syncing contacts and leads. New experience: By default, Outreach will sync leads first, then contacts. Users also have the ability to reverse order so that contacts are synced first. |
Faster time to sync contact and lead data from CRM to Outreach with a more intuitive experience. |
Object Mappings and Field Mappings
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Object Mappings and Field Mappings Improvement |
Details: |
Impact |
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Set up object mappings first before configuring field mappings. |
Old experience: Object Mapping Users needed to move through multiple tabs for object mapping and required extensive knowledge of each component of object mapping for setup. Additionally it was difficult for users to know if advanced settings had been applied to object mappings. Field Mapping For field mapping, users needed to click into each object to select which field is going to be mapped. To see what fields were mapped in an object, users needed to click into that object on an individual level. New experience: The new experience offers a guided step-by-step experience on a single page. Additionally less frequently used settings have been moved to advanced setting dialogs. Object Mapping A new configuration tab for object mapping enables guided methodical order for setting up objects from CRM to Outreach. Object mappings are now defined first with the ability to drill down into field mappings (ex., lead, contact, account, activity, opportunities) that are assigned to that object. For advanced settings, a new gear icon highlights when an advanced setting has been applied. Field Mapping The new experience delivers a more organized view of all field mappings with no need to click into each object to understand mapped fields underneath. Advanced settings for field mapping remain but are clearly marked in new UX. |
More logical flow for moving from object syncing to field mapping and conditions. |
CRM Sync Conditions
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CRM Sync Conditions Improvement |
Details: |
Impact |
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Consistent user experience throughout Outreach for setting up CRM sync conditions similar to what is found in other areas of Outreach, ex. Triggers. |
Old experience: The experience of syncing CRM to Outreach was different to many other similar workflows within Outreach Engage. To create a sync experience, conditions needed to follow a specific order from adding condition types to objects, followed by adding conditions for each object. New experience: The new experience follows workflows similar to those found elsewhere within Outreach Engage while maintaining the same functionality found in the original experience for CRM sync. Users can now easily see all conditions mapped and grouped together in one view without needing to move to multiple screens to complete set tasks. Additionally, new help icons provide more explanation on what each element of the sync does when going through setup or making changes. |
Improved consistency for common processes. |
Inbound/Outbound Create and Update
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Inbound/Outbound Create and Update Improvement |
Details: |
Impact |
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Control inbound create, inbound update, outbound create, and outbound updates on all objects independently. |
Old experience: Multiple steps and tabs to set up inbound create, inbound update, outbound create, and outbound updates. New experience: The new experience offers a cleaner user experience with no change in functionality. |
Improved ease of use when performing inbound/ outbound create and update. |
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Why are we deprecating the legacy CRM Plugin experience?
A: We have launched a new enhanced CRM sync experience that makes it faster and easier to set up and manage CRM sync configurations. Therefore, the legacy experience will be deprecated.
Q: Are my settings going to be automatically migrated to the new experience?
A: Yes, your CRM sync settings are automatically available in the new experience.
Q: Can I use both the legacy (until deprecated) and the new experience in parallel?
A: Yes, you can choose to use both the legacy and the new experience to manage your CRM sync settings until the legacy experience is turned-off.