Editor's Note: Ferris Argyle is going to present Salesforce Workflow Automation with Google Spreadsheet and Apps Script at Cloudforce. Do not miss Ferris's talk - Saurabh Gupta
As part of Google's Real Estate and Workplace Services (REWS) Green Team, the Healthy Materials program is charged with ensuring Google has the healthiest workplaces possible. We collect and review information for thousands of building materials to make sure that our offices are free of formaldehyde, heavy metals, PBDEs and other toxins that threaten human health and reduce our productivity.
My team, as you might imagine, has a great deal of data to collect and manage. We recently implemented Salesforce.com to manage that data, as it can record attributes of an object in a dynamic way, is good at tracking correspondence activity and allows for robust reports on the data, among many other functions.
We needed Saleforce.com to integrate with our processes in Google Apps. We wanted to continue collecting data using a Google Docs form but needed it integrated with Salesforce.com because we:
And this is where Google Apps Script came to our rescue. We found that we could use Google Apps Script to create a new Case or Lead in Salesforce.com when a form is submitted through our Google Docs form. This allowed us to continue using our existing form and get our data directly and automatically into Salesforce.com.
Salesforce.com has two built-in options for capturing data online - Cases and Leads. Google Docs Forms can capture data for both of them. Set up your Case or Lead object with the desired fields in Salesforce.com. The next step is to generate the HTML for a form. You will use the IDs in the Salesforce.com-generated HTML when writing your Google Apps script.
1. Login to Salesforce.com and go to Your Name > Setup > Customize > Leads or Self-Service (for Cases) > Web-to-Lead or Web-to-Case
2. Make sure Web-to-Lead/Web-to-Case is enabled. Click on Edit (Leads) or Modify (Cases) and enable if it is not.
3. Click on the 'Create Web to Lead Form' button (for Leads) or the 'Generate the HTML' link (for Cases)
4. Select the fields you want to capture and click 'Generate'. Save the HTML in a text file. You can leave 'Return URL' blank
Create your form and spreadsheet (or open up the one you already have and want to keep using). This is very easy to do. Go to your Docs and click on 'Create' to open a new form. Use the form editor to add the desired fields to your form- they'll show up as column headings in the corresponding spreadsheet. When someone fills out your form, their answers will show up in the right columns under those headings.
The script is set up to take the data in specified cells from the form/spreadsheet and send it into designated fields in your Salesforce.com instance (identified by the org id in the HTML generated above). For example, the form submitter's email is recorded through the form in one cell, and sent into the email field in either the Lead or Case object in Salesforce.com.
1. Create a new script (Tools > Script Manager > New).
2. Write the script below using the pertinent information from your Salesforce.com-generated code (shown further down).
function SendtoSalesforce() { var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet(); var row = sheet.getLastRow(); var firstname = sheet.getRange(row, 2).getValue(); var lastname = sheet.getRange(row, 3).getValue(); var email = sheet.getRange(row, 4).getValue(); var company = sheet.getRange(row, 5).getValue(); var custom = sheet.getRange(row, 6).getValue(); var resp = UrlFetchApp .fetch( 'https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?encoding=UTF-8', { method: 'post', payload: { 'orgid' : '00XXXXXXXX', 'first_name' : firstname, 'last_name' : lastname, 'email' : email, 'company' : company, '00YYYYYYYY' : custom, 'external' : '1' } }); Logger.log(resp.getContentText()); }
Define your variables by directing the script to the correct cell (row, column number). Then in the payload section, match the field id from your Salesforce.com HTML (red) to the variable you defined (blue). For example, the email address of the submitter is defined as variable 'email', can be found in the 4th column of the last row submitted, and the id for that field in Salesforce.com is 'email'.
Note that any custom fields you've created will have an alpha-numeric id.
3. Save your script and do a test run.
To send your data automatically into Salesforce.com, you need to set a trigger that will run the script every time a form is submitted. To do this, go to your script and click Resources>Current script's triggers.
1. Create a Trigger for your function so that it runs when a form is submitted.
2. Post the link to your form on your website, send it in an email, link to it on G+, etc. Get it out there!
That's it! Now when someone submits a form, the information will come into your spreadsheet, and then immediately be sent into Salesforce.com. You can adjust your Salesforce.com settings to create tasks when the information comes in, send out an auto-response to the person filling out the form and set up rules for who is assigned as owner to the record. You'll also have the information backed up in your spreadsheet.
This has been a great solution for our team, and we hope others find it useful as well!
