Dean Thrasher - Behind the Paywall - SUGCON

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BEYOND CRM INTEGRATION: SALESFORCE AS CONTENT GATEKEEPER ON SITECORE 7+

Dean Thrasher

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#BEHINDTHEPAYWALL

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INTRODUCTION

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ABOUT DEAN THRASHER

Email:Dean_Thrasher@epam.com

Twitter:@dthrasher

Linked in:https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanthrasher

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ABOUT DEAN THRASHER

• Working with Sitecore for 5 years– Using Sitecore versions 5,

6, 7 and 8• .NET web development

for 15 years– ASP, ASP.NET WebForms,

ASP.NET MVC• Background in RM, DM,

DAM, WCM, ECM• Began working with

Salesforce 18 months ago

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ABOUT THE COMPANY

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SITECORE PRACTICE HIGHLIGHTS

90+Delivered Projects

150+ Experienced Professionals

14x Accolades Recognized

• Digital Strategists

• Solution Architects

• Sitecore Developers

• Visual Designers

• QA Engineers

• Business Analysts

• Usability Experts

• Support Specialists

• Project Managers

8+ Years of Successful Delivery50+Customers

4x

4x

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BACKGROUND

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THE CLIENTStratas Advisorshttp://stratasadvisors.com

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INTERACTIVE DATA TOOLSPresenting dynamic, interactive data

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INTERACTIVE MAPSPresenting geospatial data

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THE SOLUTION

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THE BUILDING BLOCKS: SITECORE

• Manages public and members-only content

• Handles user authentication and authorization

• Allows users to update and reset passwords

• Allows users to manage profile information and newsletter subscriptions

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THE BUILDING BLOCKS: SALESFORCE

• Receives leads from the site

• Manages accounts and contacts

• Defines available product subscriptions

• Determines which accounts and contacts have which products, and whether those subscriptions are still active

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THE PUBLIC SITE

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THE MEMBER DASHBOARD

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THE ACCOUNT PROFILE

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REQUIREMENTS

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PRODUCTS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

• More than 165 distinct products offered• Products are often bundled together• Site content can be targeted to multiple

products • Subscriptions are offered to corporate

accounts• Subscriptions expire after a period of time

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SITE USERS

• Anonymous users, or visitors• Site members– Prospects (no active subscriptions, see preview

content)– Subscribers (have an active subscription)

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ACCOUNTS, CONTACTS AND LEADS

• Accounts have contacts• Accounts have subscriptions• A contact inherits its subscriptions from

the account to which it belongs• Contacts may be granted access to log in

to the site• Leads are generated from the website• Leads may be converted into contacts

later on• Leads are not allowed to log in to the site

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HOW WE DID IT

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SALESFORCE

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WHICH SALESFORCE EDITON?

• Salesforce has different pricing tiers, offering different features and limits.

• You will need at least the Enterprise edition to be able to use the web service APIs

• Make sure you know the number of Salesforce users you have available in your instance

• Make sure you know how many and what kinds of Salesforce Sandboxes are available to you

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WHICH SALESFORCE API?

• Salesforce has 10 different APIs!• Force.com: REST API vs. SOAP API • If SOAP, which WSDL?• Force.com Enterprise WSDL

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SALESFORCE DATA MODEL: SALES OBJECTS

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SALESFORCE DATA MODEL: PRODUCT OBJECTS

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CUSTOM SALESFORCE FIELDS

• Contact– Contact type– Website access– Sitecore username– Sitecore password

• Asset– Subscription start

date– Subscription end

date

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SALESFORCE SANDBOX

• Don’t develop or test against a production instance!• The type of sandbox determines:

– The amount of data you can have – How often you can refresh– What objects get populated

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HORROR STORY #1:KNOW YOUR LIMITS

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SALESFORCE API LIMITS

• You can make a set number of API requests within a 24-hour period.

• This limit depends on Salesforce edition and the number of licensed users.

• The API limits are different for sandboxes and production instances.

• The API limits apply to all integrations and applications that communicate with an instance.

• Beware of usage spikes!SUGCON NORTH AMERICA 2015

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WEB SERVICE STYLE GUIDE

• Prefer “chunky” over “chatty” web services

• Request data in batches• Cache the information you receive• Check request usage against API limits

and determine when you’ve had enough• Design your application to survive an API

blackout or other service interruption

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SITECORE

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CACHING

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CACHING USER DATA

• Logins and page views should be fast, so we want to avoid calling Salesforce web services when we can

• Salesforce determines who can log in and what they can see, but Sitecore enforces this policy

• Sitecore can then act as an SSO or claims-based authentication mechanism for other web properties

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USER PROFILE CUSTOMIZATION

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HORROR STORY #2:ESCAPING THE SANDBOX

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KEEP YOUR SANDBOX TIDY

• Your non-production Sitecore instances will need to communicate with a Salesforce Sandbox

• The Sandbox should have a reasonable approximation of production data

• Don’t put real customer email addresses in the Sandbox!

• Have checks on both the Sitecore and Salesforce side to prevent tests from triggering email, alerts, notifications, and workflow

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SECURITY

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HYBRID SECURITY MODEL

1. Sitecore enforces login for members-only sections of the site

2. Custom code determines who is a subscriber

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ENFORCING SITECORE LOGIN

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PRODUCT CODE TAGS

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PRODUCT CODES APPLIED TO PAGES

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PRODUCT CODES AS USER ROLES

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AM I SUBSCRIBED?

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SECURITY CHECKS: MEMBER DASHBOARD

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SECURITY CHECKS: SEARCH RESULTS

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SECURITY CHECKS: TABLE OF CONTENTS

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SECURITY CHECKS: ARTICLE CONTENT AND SIDEBAR WIDGETS

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SYNCRONIZATION

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KEEPING SUBSCRIPTIONS IN SYNC

The site needs regular updates from Salesforce to keep user subscriptions current.

So:• Update member data as a background

task• Determine the synchronization schedule,

and disable tasks if necessary• Perform partial and full sync operations

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TASK SCHEDULER

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LOGGING

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LOGGING AND ERROR HANDLING

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HORROR STORY #3:SELF-DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK

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TRIGGERS AND OUTBOUND MESSAGES

• Using triggers and outbound messages, you can create a “push” architecture instead of a “pull”

• Salesforce API limits do not apply to outbound messages

• Outbound messages can only send certain fields from certain objects

• Salesforce can batch messages – and choose when to send them

• Salesforce expects your message endpoint to acknowledge receipt

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WRAP UP & QUESTIONS

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!