If syncing data between your customer success tool and your CRM feels like herding cats, you’re not alone. This guide cuts through the noise and gives you the real-world steps—and honest advice—you need to get Custify and Salesforce talking to each other without drama. If you’re a CS or RevOps pro tired of manual updates, or you’re about to roll out a new workflow, read on.
Why bother syncing Custify and Salesforce?
If your team uses both, you already know the pain points:
- Customer data in two places, never matching up.
- Account managers working off stale info.
- CSMs pinging sales for updates (and vice versa).
A good integration means less confusion, fewer dropped balls, and a lot less swearing at your laptop.
But: plenty of companies half-bake this setup, which only creates more headaches. So let’s do it right the first time.
Step 1: Get clear on what you actually need to sync
Don’t just turn on every field and hope for magic. Before you even touch the integration, sit down with your team and map out:
- Which objects matter? (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Cases, etc.)
- Which fields need to stay in sync? (Health scores, renewal dates, owner, status...)
- Who “owns” the data? For example, should Salesforce overwrite Custify, or the other way around?
- How often does info really change? (Hourly syncs are overrated for most teams.)
Pro tip: Less is more. Syncing everything “just in case” leads to clutter and confusion. Start with the fields that actually drive action.
Step 2: Prep Salesforce and Custify for the handshake
You’ll need admin access to both platforms. Here’s what matters:
In Salesforce:
- Clean up your fields. If your picklists are a mess, or you’ve got duplicate custom fields, fix that now. Garbage in, garbage out.
- Check permissions. The integration user needs access to all the objects/fields you plan to sync.
- Decide where “truth” lives. For each field, what’s the source of record? Document this somewhere everyone can find it.
In Custify:
- Set up matching fields. Make sure Custify has custom fields to match what you’ll sync from Salesforce.
- Review field types. Text vs. picklist mismatches will cause headaches.
- Decide on account matching logic. Usually, you’ll use something like Account ID or email. Be sure it’s unique and clean.
Don’t skip this prep. A little extra time here saves days of debugging later.
Step 3: Choose your integration method
You’ve got a few options. Which one you pick depends on your team, your budget, and your appetite for fiddling with APIs.
Option A: Use Custify’s native Salesforce integration
- Pros: Easiest to set up. Maintained by Custify. UI-based mapping.
- Cons: Limited to standard use cases—if you have lots of custom logic, you might hit a wall.
If your setup is pretty standard, start here. Follow Custify’s official docs to connect the two. You’ll authenticate with Salesforce, pick objects and fields to sync, and set your sync frequency.
Option B: Use a middleware/integration platform (like Zapier, Workato, or Tray.io)
- Pros: More flexibility. Can handle custom workflows, logic, and error handling.
- Cons: More moving parts. More things to maintain. Zapier can get expensive fast if you do a lot of volume.
If you need to sync custom objects or want complex logic (“if X, then Y, unless Z...”), middleware is worth a look. Just keep an eye on costs and complexity.
Option C: Build a custom integration via API
- Pros: Total control.
- Cons: You need dev resources, and you’re on the hook for maintenance forever.
Only go this route if your needs are truly unique and you have a dev team that’s up for the job.
Honest take: Most teams will be fine with the native integration, at least to start. Don’t over-engineer unless you have to.
Step 4: Map your fields carefully
This is where most integrations go sideways. Take your time here.
- Map only what you need.
- Watch out for field types. Date vs. datetime, picklist values, and IDs are common culprits.
- Decide sync direction for each field. Is it “Salesforce → Custify,” “Custify → Salesforce,” or two-way? Two-way sync sounds good but is tricky—avoid unless you’ve got a real use case.
- Test with a sandbox. Never sync live data on your first try. Use a Salesforce sandbox and a Custify test account if you can.
Pro tip: Write down your mapping decisions. If you ever need to troubleshoot, you’ll be glad you did.
Step 5: Run a pilot sync and check for weirdness
Don’t just flip the switch for your entire org. Start small.
- Pick a small batch of sample records. Accounts with all the fields you care about.
- Manually compare before and after. Did everything end up where it should?
- Check for errors or skipped records. Most tools will spit out an error log—read it!
- Look for “gotchas”:
- Picklist values not matching
- Fields not updating as expected (especially with two-way sync)
- Duplicate records created
If you spot issues, fix them now—don’t hope they’ll just go away at scale.
Step 6: Go live—then monitor (and tweak)
Once you’re happy with the test batch, roll out to the rest of your data. But don’t walk away just yet.
- Keep an eye on error logs. Check daily for the first couple weeks, then weekly.
- Talk to your users. Are CSMs or sales reps seeing weird data? Is anything slow or missing?
- Tweak your mappings as you go. It’s normal to realize you missed something or need to adjust.
Honest tip: Even great integrations need babysitting at first. Don’t trust “set and forget.”
Step 7: Ignore the hype—avoid these common traps
Here’s what NOT to do:
- Don’t try to sync everything. More fields = more confusion and more to break.
- Don’t set real-time sync unless you need it. Near-real-time (every 15 minutes or hour) is fine for most teams and way less stressful on your systems.
- Don’t let integration become a black box. Make sure at least two people know how it works and can update it.
- Don’t skip documentation. Write down your setup and any tweaks you make. (Future you will thank you.)
Summary: Keep it simple, iterate often
You don’t need a PhD in integrations to get Custify and Salesforce working together, but a little planning goes a long way. Start small, sync only what matters, and keep an eye on things for the first month or two. If something’s not working, don’t be afraid to scale it back and try a simpler approach.
When in doubt, ask yourself: “Will syncing this field actually help someone do their job, or am I just checking a box?” If you stick to what’s useful, you’ll have a setup that runs smoother and creates less work for everyone. Keep it simple, iterate, and don’t buy into the hype—just get your data moving where it needs to go.