Guide to connecting Salesforce and Showpad instances

Key features

• Access the Showpad app with your Salesforce account
• Compatible with Salesforce Classic and Lightning 
• Populate Salesforce contacts with Showpad
• Log all Showpad activity in Salesforce
• Share content available in Showpad with Contacts and Leads created in Salesforce
• Serve Content Recommendations for Opportunities
• Check all Shares via Showpad on Account and Opportunity level
• Use Showpad Web app inside Salesforce

You need this to succeed

• Admin privileges on both the Showpad and Salesforce platforms
• Showpad Ultimate plan
• Salesforce Enterprise, Unlimited, or Professional plan with the Web Services API 

You can purchase the Salesforce integration for an additional fee. Pricing information is available on the Showpad website in the Integrations section. If you are interested in this feature, please get in touch with your customer success manager to activate the Salesforce integration. 

Note: If your organization uses the Salesforce Professional plan, the Web Services API add-on must also be purchased through Salesforce.

See how it works

The quick way to awesomeness

1. Configure Connection
2. Test Connection
3. Authentification
4. Permissions
5. Next steps: Integrate Showpad activities, Content Recommendations,...

Configure Connection

Let's start configuring the Salesforce integration in your Showpad instance. 

1. To connect Salesforce and Showpad, configure your Salesforce instance(s) in Showpad's Online Platform. You can configure multiple CRM instances if your company uses more than one.
   Log into the Showpad Online Platform with your Administrator credentials, click the gear icon, and select Integrations.
2. Select CRM in the Integrations section, then click Connect to CRM.
3. Enter an Alias for your CRM Configuration. If you plan to set up multiple Salesforce instances, choose appropriate names for each instance to make it easier to identify them.
4. Select Salesforce from the CRM Instance dropdown menu.
5. Choose the connection type: Production or Sandbox.
6. If your instance is a Salesforce Digital Experience, toggle on Is Digital Experience. This option allows sales reps outside your company to collaborate with you on deals
   • Enter the Digital Experience Site URL.
   • Find the URL in Salesforce under setup > digital experiences > sites. 

   Note: If both Showpad users and partners require access to Showpad from Salesforce, you must create two separate Salesforce connections in Showpad. One connection using the Digital Experience URL, and one without.

7. Enter a Domain name for your Salesforce instance if it's not a Digital Experience. 
   • Find your domain name in your Salesforce URL. Example: https://companyxyz.my.salesforce.com, enter companyxyz.
   • By leaving this field blank, users will connect via https://login.salesforce.com
8. Click Connect to Salesforce.
9. A Reminder will ask you to ensure you have the proper permissions to be the integration user. Click Connect. At this point, you'll need to enter your Salesforce credentials. This login will be used as an Integration user to connect with Salesforce.
   If the user that is used to configure this integration is not a full admin, find more about the following permissions needed at the end of this article. 
   The integration works with server-to-server communication. The outcome is that the originating IP address will not be the company's IP range or IP address but a Showpad IP address. If you use IP restrictions, we advise reading our OAuth app recommendations.
10. After logging in, the Showpad Online Platform will reopen. You will see a message when you've successfully connected your CRM instance.

Once configured, you can test your connection(s) anytime by clicking Test Connection.

The results of the test are displayed in a dialog. 

Showpad verifies your connection:

Separate from the Integration user, you will also see the Current User Status in the Authentication section. This indicates whether or not your Showpad user is currently authenticated with this CRM. This is required to configure parts of the connection that leverage real-time data from your CRM.

The Current User Status reflects the status of authentication for whatever Salesforce user you are logged in with. Your login status will be indicated by if the token is still valid, and you will be required to re-authenticate once the token has expired.

About permissions 

The following section will explain the permissions needed to achieve certain integration actions with Salesforce. 

Permissions for the integration user if not a Salesforce admin:
For background tasks such as ContentROI reporting, we use the integration user. By default, we set the integration user as the Salesforce user you used to set up the integration within the Showpad Online Platform. Still, you can always override it with a different user if needed in the details screen. These are the permissions needed for the integration user:

System Permissions

• API Enabled
• Edit Tasks
• Edit Events
• View Roles and Role Hierarchy
• View Setup and Configuration

Object settings

• Read/Create/Edit for Leads, Contacts, Opportunities, and Accounts objects.
• Read/Create/Edit/Delete for Showpad Activities, Showpad Activities Items, Showpad Content & Showpad Content Views objects.
• The integration user should have access to the Task Object and the Related To field as field-level permission for full effectiveness.
• When configuring a connection with a sandbox, enter a custom URL and that non-Lightning is the applied setting.

To ensure ContentROI syncing works:

• Read / create / edit for the custom objects used for ContentROI reporting: ShowpadForSF_Showpad_Content_c,ShowpadForSF_Showpad_Activity_Item_c,ShowpadForSF_Showpad_Activity_c,ShowpadForSF_Showpad_Content_View_c
• Access to the Showpad for Salesforce included apex classes from the package that expose the 'syncing' endpoints:
  InfoRestAPI
  ContentViewRESTAPI
  ActivityRestAPI. (set under setup > apex classes > 'security' next to the class)
• Be part of the profiles with access to the 'Showpad App' connected app that's part of Showpad for Salesforce
• Assure read+write access to the custom Showpad_Activity__c lookup field on Task object

To ensure the Analytics dashboards relating content and coach materials to deal outcomes works, the following permissions are required for users:

• Mapping from Showpad users to Salesforce users, matching by email address, and syncing back these fields on User object:
  • Created date
  • Salesforce User Id
  • Profile Name
  • Role Name
• A history of closed opportunities from Showpad users to present seller effectiveness/success metrics such as time to first deal and close rate in our dashboards. These fields are, from the Opportunity object:
  • Name
  • Created date
  • Close date
  • Amount
  • isClosed
  • isWon
  • StageName
  • AccountId
  • OwnerId

Permissions for searching the CRM and logging activities to Salesforce as a sales rep:
For logging activity to Salesforce, we use the individual user’s authentication. The following permissions are required for users:

• API access
• Access to the objects you wish for them to log to (such as Account, Opportunity, Lead, and Contact)
• Access to Lead and/or Contact for recipient search, including field-level permissions on:
  
  • firstname, lastname and email for both Contacts and Leads
  • IsConverted (for Leads)
• Create, edit, and view permission for Tasks

What's up next 

Now that your Showpad and Salesforce instances are connected, the following options are possible to utilize your new integration.

• Integrate Showpad activities in Salesforce
• Enable auto-provisioning to automatically create Showpad users
• Install the Showpad app from the AppExchange
  • Configure Salesforce connected apps and Visualforce Pages
  • Add Showpad's Insights and Recommendations app to record pages.
  • Activate Content Recommendations  
• Set up Content ROI analytics