Salesforce and Heroku are two of the most powerful platforms for businesses. Salesforce is a CRM that has been around since 1999 and Heroku is a cloud-based platform that allows you to create, run, and scale apps built in any language (such as Salesforce's native Sales Cloud).

When you connect Salesforce to Heroku, you can automatically get Salesforce CRM data to update the Sales Cloud. This saves time and ensures your sales teams always have up-to-date information about leads in Salesforce when they work with them on their mobile devices or laptops (which is more common than ever before).

When used correctly, these two companies can save you lots of time, money, and energy - which is why we're excited to share five ways to use Salesforce with Heroku.

Table of Contents

  1. Data Replication and Manipulation
  2. Tracking Your Website Visitors
  3. Use Integrations Through Data Proxies
  4. Creating Custom User Interfaces
  5. Increase Productivity Through External Processes
  6. Using an ETL to Transfer Data
  7. How Integrate.io Helps the Integration of Heroku and Salesforce

Data Replication and Manipulation

One of the best ways to use Salesforce with Heroku is for data replication. Salesforce is so powerful in the first place because it uses Sales Cloud, Sales Platform, and Service Clouds to keep all of your business data under one roof.

This includes things like Sales or Marketing Campaigns, Opportunities, Leads, and Contacts - not just with customers but partners as well.

Since Heroku offers several database services, including Postgres DB (which can be used with Salesforce), this makes it easy to get all of your Salesforce data on Heroku, where you can track how it's performing.

You can achieve data replication by using Heroku Connect, which is a Heroku add-on that connects your Salesforce objects to a Heroku Postgres database. Salesforce data gets replicated from Sales Cloud and then you can use it with custom Heroku apps.

If you're looking for a way to automate Salesforce data replication without Heroku Connect, several tools can help get the job done. For example, Salesforce Data Loader allows users to upload CSV files directly into Sales League, making uploading large amounts of customer information easy.

Tracking Your Website Visitors

Another excellent use case for using Salesforce with Heroku lies within website analytics. Heroku allows you to add events via tracking pixels which means that you can track any information about visitors to your webpage (including Salesforce leads).

Now you'll know which Sales Cloud prospects are visiting your site, where they're coming from (such as a paid search campaign or PPC ad), and what browsers they use to view the page. This makes it easy for marketing teams to take action on these visitors by following up with them via email campaigns instead of just forgetting if a lead was created in the Sales Cloud.

You can do this through Salesforce's Sales Tracking Pixel, a Javascript snippet that you can add to your website. Sales Cloud users are automatically provided with this tracking pixel when they log in for the first time, so it makes it easy to get started right away.

You'll need Heroku Postgres along with Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud if you want to set Salesforce up with Heroku for website analytics.

Use Integrations Through Data Proxies

Data proxies aggregate various data sources, but the data isn't copied. The data is only available on demand. This method allows for data collection from many different storage systems without having to worry about synchronization problems.

Furthermore, data proxies allow Salesforce users to create a Sales Cloud data feed that other parties can access. Because Heroku is scalable, it's easy for third-party apps to pull Salesforce information from Heroku and use it in their app - which saves you the hassle of manually entering this data.

For instance, if your business uses an eCommerce platform or another service provider, they could easily integrate with Salesforce through Data Proxies on Heroku without too much trouble. This would allow them access to your Sales Cloud account so that all of your customer info (including contacts) are always available wherever they go.

Creating Custom User Interfaces

Part of what makes this so powerful is it allows teams to build custom user interfaces for Salesforce - meaning you'll never have to use Sales Cloud or do any coding ever again.

Salesforce provides ready-to-use tools for building custom user interfaces. To name a few, you may use Visualforce and Lightning Components to construct customized user experiences. When open source technologies like Java, Node.js, PHP, etc., are used to create custom user interfaces that can run on Heroku and integrate into the Salesforce UI, you can also pair them with Salesforce data. If users need more than just SalesForce info, they may want access to other kinds of data like Marketo Landing Pages or Pardot forms - both of which can also be accessed through Heroku's add-ons and toolsets.

Increase Productivity Through External Processes

Using external processes is another excellent way to use Salesforce and Heroku together for increased productivity.

This means things like connecting Salesforce to your website, creating custom user interfaces (UI) or building out data proxies - all of which make it easy to stay productive without manually entering any Sales Cloud info!

Salesforce has a list of over 100 external tools that are currently available through AppExchange. Using these apps with Heroku is an efficient solution because they're scalable enough for your business's unique needs. This makes them adaptable to whatever situation arises during your day-to-day workflows.

Using an ETL to Transfer Data

One of the most important things to consider when integrating Heroku and Salesforce is how you will safely and efficiently transfer the data. Using an ETL such as Integrate.io is one of the best ways to achieve this.

Here are a few of the main reasons why you should use an ETL when transferring Salesforce data to Heroku:

  • It allows Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud information to be shared between Salesforce, Heroku Postgres or other cloud providers.
  • It maintains a single source of truth for Salesforce Enterprise Data - instead of having two separate sources (Salesforce and external apps) that may cause discrepancies.
  • It helps save time by automatically migrating Salesforce data from one place to another without manually entering every app. When new records are added in SalesForce, they can get synced with your Heroku Database right away.
  • It cleans the data so that the data sequences match between Salesforce and Heroku. This is especially important when Salesforce data gets transferred to other platforms, like a website or e-commerce store.
  • It enables admins to map Salesforce objects (like Accounts) with the corresponding External Objects (like Website Pages). This makes it easy for external users not comfortable with Sales Cloud can use Heroku without too much trouble - no coding required.

How Integrate.io Helps the Integration of Heroku and Salesforce

One of the essential elements of the integration process is properly preparing Heroku and Salesforce to accommodate data transfers. When data is transferred from multiple databases, the Salesforce data must be cleansed and formatted correctly to ensure that Sales Cloud can read it. 

Integrate.io has the expertise, tools, and technology in place to cleanse your Salesforce Sales Cloud data, so you don't have to!

When you are transferring data, the data must be cohesive so that you can use it in Salesforce to your company's advantage. 

If you are interested in learning how Integrate.io can help, schedule a call today!