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Both Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365 are very popular business products, even among our clients, so we naturally get many questions.
Can Office 365 integrate with Salesforce?
How do I add Salesforce to Outlook 365?
Is Salesforce even compatible with Microsoft?
Let's explore the Salesforce integration with M365 here on the blog to help you answer these questions.
Why integrate Salesforce with Microsoft Office 365? And can you?
Yes. Yes, you can integrate Salesforce with Microsoft Office 365 and here's why you should.
Salesforce is a powerful CRM tool that centralises customer data and interactions. Microsoft Office 365, also known as Microsoft 365 or M365, provides applications such as Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, and more designed to streamline communication, collaboration, and document management.
By integrating these two platforms, businesses can:
Streamline workflows and give teams access to real-time information
Avoid departmental silos by enhancing collaboration
Improve supply chain management
Increase net promoter scores through better customer service and response times
Increase productivity and eliminate downtime or application switching
Eliminate unnecessary task management through seamless automation
Having them sit as separate software products on your hardware doesn't make good business sense.
How to integrate Salesforce with Microsoft Office 365
Salesforce provides two integration options tailored to meet different business needs:
Salesforce AppExchange: Pre-built connectors and applications on Salesforce's marketplace to integrate Salesforce with Office 365 tools like Outlook, Excel, and SharePoint.
Custom development: For more specific integration requirements, custom development using Salesforce and Microsoft Graph APIs is needed to build tailored solutions that meet your organisation's unique workflows.
In most cases, the business we work with uses pre-built connectors and applications across the devices. This gives them their most commonly used data exchange points:
Email integration: Sync emails between Salesforce software and Outlook to ensure that all customer communications are logged in Salesforce automatically.
Calendar sync: Integrate Salesforce with Outlook Calendar to manage appointments and meetings seamlessly.
Document management: SharePoint integration stores and manages documents related to Salesforce records directly within Office 365.
Let's look at how to implement a basic integration between Salesforce and M365 (specifically Outlook)
One of the most common Salesforce integrations for M365 we get asked about is email sync, so let's look at Outlook 365 and Salesforce.
Step 1: Log in to Salesforce and navigate the Setup page.
Step 2: In Setup, enter "AppExchange" in the Quick Find box and select "AppExchange."
Step 3: Search for "Outlook" in the AppExchange search bar and browse the available Outlook integration apps.
Step 4: Select the desired Outlook integration app that best suits your needs and click "Get It Now" or "Install" to initiate the installation process.
Step 5: Follow the installation prompts and grant necessary permissions for the app to integrate with your Salesforce account.
Step 6: switchNavigate to your Outlook 365 account once the installation is completed.
Step 7: In Outlook, you should now see the newly integrated Salesforce app. Follow the app's prompts to authenticate and link your Salesforce account with Outlook.
Step 8: After the authentication process, you can access Salesforce data and functionalities directly within your Outlook account, enabling seamless email syncing and improved productivity.
That should help you integrate Salesforce with Outlook 365 for email syncing!
But there are some things to consider before you do.
Things to remember in any software integration
Thoroughly understand the software integration requirements to ensure all necessary components are included.
Verify the compatibility of different software systems to ensure smooth integration without any conflicts.
Ensure that the integrated software is scalable to accommodate future growth and changes in requirements.
Implement robust security measures that protect your sensitive business and customer data during integration.
Understand access roles and privileges to ensure the right team members can access everything they need.
Rigorously test the integrated software to identify and rectify any bugs or data issues before large-scale deployment.
Properly document the integration process for future reference, security and maintenance.
Provide appropriate training to users and establish support mechanisms to assist them with the integrated software.
And finally, back up individual systems and data banks before you press "integrate".
We hope this has helped. If you need help with other software integrations, check out our blog.