Set up intelligent Content Recommendations

Content recommendations help admins to create rules that suggest the most relevant content for each sales conversation in Salesforce. The recommendations, which serve up materials such as videos, ebooks, white papers, and infographics, are based on deal data in Salesforce. 

As an admin, you can configure recommendation rules using all types of Salesforce fields (including text, multi-value, picklist, etc.), as well as fields on related or child objects (for example, products related to the opportunity). These rules link the tags of your assets with the Salesforce fields. When certain Salesforce criteria are met, Showpad content with the linked tag will be recommended.

This will give your sales reps the best suggestions for advancing each deal. Users will find recommended content surfaced in Accounts, Leads, Contacts, or Opportunities, depending on the setup.

Recommended assets are presented to sellers ordered first by the number of matching rules and secondarily by the most recently updated date.

You need this to succeed

• Admin privileges on both the Showpad and Salesforce platforms
• Showpad Ultimate plan
• Salesforce Enterprise or Unlimited plan
• In Showpad, the users need access to the Experience that uses the recommended assets
• Before following these instructions, please ensure you first connect your Salesforce instance, enable CORS, download and install the Showpad for Salesforce app, configure the Showpad app, and add it to record pages.  

See how it works

Do this step by step

• How to enable recommendations rules
• How to configure recommendation rules
• How recommended content appears in Salesforce
• Rule examples

How to enable recommendations rules

1. In the Showpad Online Platform, click the settings gear and select Integrations. Then, go to the CRM tab. 
   
2. Click the Salesforce instance you wish to set up recommendations for.
   
3. Scroll down to the Recommendations tab and click Edit.
4. Click Change. Select where you want to see the recommendations in Salesforce by checking Accounts, Contacts, Leads, and/or Opportunities.
   Check the box if you wish to also include internal files in recommendations. These files are files intended for internal learning and are marked not shareable.
   

   Note: If the Showpad App is added to Salesforce Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, or Lead pages without enabling recommendations, users will see the app widget with just the Showpad Insights tab.

   

How to configure recommendation rules

1. Click Create a Recommendation Rule.
2. In the Recommended Showpad content field, add the tags for which you want to surface content. You can match assets with ALL the selected tags, ANY of the selected tags, or NONE of the selected tags.
   • Match ALL tags means that in order for an asset to be recommended, it must contain every one of tags listed in this field.
   • Matching ANY of these tags means that in order for an asset to be recommended, it must contain at least one of the tags listed in this field.
   • Match NONE of these tags means that in order for an asset to be recommended, it must not contain any of the tags listed in this field.
     

     Tip: To test which assets will appear in the recommended section of Salesforce, use the tags filter in your Library to validate your tag rules.
      

3. Next, choose Object field and select Account, Contact, Lead or Opportunity from the drop-down menu.  
4. Optionally, if you want to base your recommendations on a Child Relation, select an option from the drop-down menu. 
   

   Note: You can reference custom objects for recommendations as long as they are surfaced via Opportunities, Accounts, Leads, or Contacts. For example, 'Showpad Instances' would be both a custom object and a child object as it relates to the Opportunity object.

5. Next choose the field from the Object or Child object from the drop-down menu, or type the related field you want to view.
   

   Note: You may also reference a parent object field using a dot notation, similar to Salesforce cross-object formulas. See an example in the Rule examples section. 

6. Choose the parameter for the field value such as equals, contains, etc. Add the field value that will qualify for recommendations. Choose the operator for the field value such as equals, contains, and so on. 
   
7. Add the field value that will qualify for recommendations. Be mindful that for lookup fields, master-detail fields, and record types you will need to enter the record ID rather than the display value.
   For matching values from multi-picklist fields, make sure to enter their API name, which can be found by administrators in the setup side of Salesforce. Also note that multi-picklist values are stored as semi-colon separated values, so consider using ‘contains’ rather than 'equals’ to make sure all matching records are caught.
8. Easily duplicate the current record by ticking the Create another box. Click Save when you're done editing. 
9. You can also create advanced rule sets combining Salesforce conditions using OR and AND operators. To do so, click Show advanced Recommendation Rule creation.
   
   • Using the OR functionality means either Salesforce component of the rule can be true for recommendations to show.
   • Using the AND functionality means that both components of the rule must be true for the recommendations to show.
   

How recommended content appears in Salesforce

If you create your Recommendation Rules and attach content tags to the correct fields, content will start to show up for your sales colleagues in the various places you selected. Up to 100 assets will be displayed, and they will be sorted as follows:

• Number of matching rules (highest first)
• Last updated asset (most recently updated first)

Assets will be categorized into All, Share, and Learn Tabs. All includes any assets relevant to the recommendation rules applicable, Share content is assets with the sharing permission enabled, and Learn is internal assets, with sharing not allowed.

More information about how it works for your sales reps is available here.

Rule Examples

Basic rules

     1. In the image below we will make recommendations for opportunities in the stage 'qualification'.

• Select 'Opportunity' as the object.
• Next, choose the related field 'Stage'.
• Select the qualifier 'equal to'.
• Add the field value 'Qualification'.
  

In this example, when the opportunity stage field value is ‘qualification’, we will recommend content with the tags containing both ‘Agriculture’ and ‘Brochure’ that users have access to in their Experiences.

     2. As an example of a rule using the optional child relation, we will make recommendations for products related to an opportunity.

• Select Opportunity as the object.
• Next, choose the child relation OpportunityLineItems. This is the intermediate ‘connecting’ object in Salesforce linking Opportunities to Products.
• For the Child object field, type product2.Name.
• For the qualifier, we selected equal to, and the value Showspace Unlimited as the product.
• In this example, when any of the products related to an opportunity is equal to Showspace Unlimited, we will recommend content with the tags Showspace and Unlimited that users have access to in their experiences.

     3. As an example of a rule using the parent relation with dot notation, we will make recommendations based on the account related to an opportunity.

• Select Opportunity as the object.
• For the object field, type Account.Primary_Distribution_Country__c.
• For the qualifier, we selected equal to, and for the value, we type FR.

In this example, when the account’s primary distribution country related to an opportunity is equal to France, we will recommend content with the tags technology and brochure that users have access to in their experiences.

Advanced rules