Content recommendations automatically suggest the most relevant content for each sales conversation. The recommendations, which serve up materials such as videos, ebooks, white papers, and infographics, are based on deal data in Salesforce.
In addition, as an admin, you can configure recommendation rules using all types of Salesforce fields and fields on related objects. This will give your sales reps the best suggestions on how they advance each deal. Users will find recommended content in Accounts, Leads, Contacts, or Opportunities.
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
Select your Salesforce Experience
 Classic |
 Lightning |
See how it's done on Salesforce Classic
- To enable these recommendations, make sure you first configure the Salesforce instance, CORS, and the Showpad for Salesforce app. There are some settings in your Salesforce instance that must be configured a certain way in order for the integration to work.
- Enable the Shared Activities by navigating to the Activity Settings via Setup, Build, Customize, Activities, Activity Settings. Enable the Allow Users to Relate... option.
See how it's done on Salesforce Lightning
- To enable these recommendations, make sure you first configure the Salesforce instance, CORS, and the Showpad for Salesforce app. There are some settings in your Salesforce instance that must be configured a certain way in order for the integration to work.
- Enable the Shared Activities by navigating to the Activity Settings via Feature Settings, Sales, Activity Settings. Enable the Allow Users to Relate... option.
- Profiles need to have read access to Price Books in order for the recommended content to be available once the connection is configured. Please be aware that if your organization has highly customized processes for handling price books and opportunities, this may be impacted.
You can find these settings by selecting the Gear icon, Setup, Security, Sharing Settings. Choose Price Book in the selection box labeled 'Manage sharing settings for:' and set the default access levels to Use.
Do this step by step
- Click the settings gear in the Online Platform and select Integrations.
- Create or edit an existing Instance in the CRM tab. Click the Salesfoce instance you wish to set up recommendations for.
- Scroll down to the Recommendations tab and click Edit.
- 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 not shareable.
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 and the Web app tab.
- After clicking save, you will see the option to click Create Rule to get starting making recommendation rules. Alternatively, you can scroll down to the Showpad Widget section on your main integration page, and click Edit next to Recommendations.
- Click Create a Recommendation Rule. 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.
- Recommendation rules can be configured using all types of Salesforce fields (including text, multi-value, picklist, etc.), as well as fields on related objects (for example, products related to the opportunity).
- Click the Choose Object field and choose Account, Contact, Lead or Opportunity from the drop-down menu.
- If you want to include an optional advanced field or Custom Child Relation, select an option from the drop down or use the text box to add the object or field.
- Choose the parameter for the field value such as equals, contains, etc. Add the field value, then the corresponding tags for which you'd like to recommend content.
- Click Save when you're done editing.
- For example, in the image below we will make recommendations for products related to an opportunity.
- Select Opportunity as the object.
- Next, choose the child relation OpportunityLineItems.
- In the Advanced field, use Product2.Name (for the product name).
- Choose an option of what content you want users to see when the field value is a certain way.
- In this example when the field value contains ‘balloon’ we will recommend content with the tags ‘Medical’ and ’Medical brochures’.For example, in the image below we will make recommendations for products related to an opportunity.
- If you're creating a rule based on a Custom Child object, you will follow the example above, however be sure to input the Custom Child object's API name in the Custom Child Relation field.
Note: Recommendation Rules can only be based on existing picklist fields, if not available, you can create a custom picklist field in Salesforce. When creating a rule on a custom child relation or advanced field, be sure to enter the API name, which can be found in Salesforce setup as an admin, instead of the display label.
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. 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.
Detailed examples
To clarify how Content Recommendations work, we'll use an example to show you how relevant content will be displayed for any given opportunity.
Let's say, you go to Salesforce and see an opportunity that is in 'Stage 1'. The industry of this opportunity is 'Medical Devices'. In this case, Showpad will recommend content that has been tagged as:
- Stage 1 only
- Stage 1, Stage 2
- Stage 1, Stage 2, Medical Devices
- Stage 1, Stage 2, Medical Devices, Construction
In all of the above cases, Showpad matches the tag on the asset with the corresponding field in Salesforce. If no match is found, then there shouldn't be a tag on the asset that conflicts with the field in Salesforce.
Showpad will not show you files that are tagged as:
- Stage 1, Construction
(Why? Per the tag, this file is valid only for construction, and the industry on the Salesforce opportunity is Medical Devices, so this file would make no sense to a 'Medical Devices' customer) - Stage 2, Medical Devices
(Why? The file is valid only for Stage 2, and the Salesforce Opportunity is 'Stage 1' and so wouldn't be valid for a Medical Devices customer since they are past stage 1 and already in stage 2.
After all of these rules, the final filter that is applied is the user access filter. The person viewing the opportunity in Salesforce should have access to the assets in Showpad that are being recommended. So, even if the recommendation engine finds assets to recommend based on the rules above, they will not be shown if that user does not have access to those assets.
As an administrator, when tagging assets on Showpad's Online Platform, you just need to think: Where should all these files appear?
- If the file should be recommended for all opportunity stages, then attach all the opportunity stage tags to the file.
- If the file should be recommended for only specific opportunity stages, then attach only the tags for those opportunity stages.
