The Top 6 Salesforce Integrations For Your Project Management Needs
Salesforce is an excellent CRM software that can help your business manage customers and projects. However, did you know that it also can integrate with other project management platforms? These integrations give your team access to resources that will help them visualize, budget, track, and communicate between projects. This article will discuss the Salesforce integrations and how they can increase project efficiency and work within your business processes.
What Is Salesforce?
Before we talk about how to integrate it with other platforms, let’s talk about what Salesforce does itself. Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) software that helps businesses manage their customers and projects. It has a wide range of features that can be customized to fit the needs of any company, proving to be valuable to small businesses and large businesses alike. One of the great things about Salesforce is that it integrates with other software programs, giving users even more options for managing their data.
Project Management vs. Customer Relationship Management
Project management platforms, like Hive for example, are useful tools to help businesses plan, execute, and track their projects. Project management software is similar to Salesforce in that they both help businesses manage their data. However, there are some key differences between the two types of software.
Salesforce is a CRM software, which means it’s focused on customer relationship management. This means that Salesforce is designed to help businesses manage their customer data. The same way that CRM software helps businesses keep tabs on all things customers, project management platforms help businesses manage their project data.
This difference between these two is reflected in the features of each type of software. Salesforce has lead tracking and contact management features, while project management platforms have features like task management tools and Gantt charts.
If you want to manage both projects and customers together, your best bet is to combine your Salesforce CRM software with a project management tool via integrations.
Types of Salesforce Integrations
Salesforce integrations are simply connections between Salesforce and other software programs. These integrations allow users to transfer data between the two platforms, making it easier to manage both customers and projects in one place. There are many different types of integrations available, and each one has its own unique set of features.
There are three main types of Salesforce integrations, and depending on your business needs, you may find that one type of integration is a better fit than another. These integrations include:
- API-based
- Point-and-click
- Pre-built
1. API-Based Integrations
API-based integrations are the most flexible type of integration, but they also require the most technical knowledge. With an API-based integration, you can connect Salesforce to any other software program that has an API. This gives you the ability to customize the connection to fit the specific needs of your business. However, setting up an API-based integration can be complex, requiring some coding knowledge.
2. Point-and-Click Integrations
Point-and-click integrations are more straightforward to set up than API-based integrations, and they don’t require any coding knowledge. With a point-and-click integration, you can connect Salesforce to any other software program with a point-and-click interface. This type of integration is less flexible than an API-based integration, but it’s much easier to set up.
3. Pre-Built Integrations
Pre-built integrations are ready to use out of the box, and they only require a few clicks to get started. With a pre-built integration, you can connect Salesforce to any other software program that has a pre-built integration available. One example is a Salesforce addin for Outlook that allows you to share your calendar availability and let others book meetings with you from inside Salesforce.
These types of Salesforce integrations are the easiest to set up, but they are also the least flexible.
6 Salesforce Integrations For Project Management
While Salesforce has so many functions and usability, it is still missing the project management piece. This is why Salesforce integrations can be an excellent way for your business to use multiple, interconnected tools for projects. Here are some of our favorite project management platforms that offer Salesforce integrations.
1. Hive
If you’re looking for a comprehensive solution that includes Salesforce CRM and project management, you should consider Hive. Hive is a standalone project management platform with a ton of usability. In addition, it offers a Salesforce integration that allows users to sync their data between the two platforms. This is especially useful for companies that use Salesforce for their CRM needs and Hive for their project management needs.
Hive’s Salesforce integration increases efficiencies and links both platforms together, making it easy to manage both customers and projects in one place. So how does it work? The Hive + Salesforce integration is accessible within Hive’s built-in automation tool called Hive Automate.
With Hive Automate, redundant sales tasks can be fully automated to trigger events within other work tools. For example, if a new opportunity comes through in Salesforce, you can set up a trigger to automatically create a new Action Card in Hive and assign it to someone else on your team who needs to follow-up with next steps.
It’s a great way to connect all of your customer data to the place where you ultimately manage and track progress on all projects. Get started with a free 14-day Hive trial to test it out for yourself.
2. Milestone PM
Milestone PM is another standalone project management platform with a great Salesforce integration. This simple task management platform is flexible enough for small businesses but can customize for complex business projects.
While Milestone PM is the least robust project management platform on this list, its Salesforce Integration makes it a powerful option. The Salesforce/Milestone PM integration offers a host of additional perks such as Activity Sync to sync project tasks, Gantt Chart enhancements, resource assignment, interlinking and custom templates and fields.
3. Monday.com
Monday.com also offers a Salesforce integration within its project management platform. This integration offers users the ability to view and manage their Salesforce CRM data directly within Monday.com. The integration allows users to create custom fields to map their data between the two platforms.
This no-code-required integration between Monday.com and Salesforce is a simple minutes-long process that gives users of both software programs a bridge to begin building triggers. Monday.com works with Salesforce by setting up various automation triggers to keep users on track and moving forward.
4. Smartsheet
The Smartsheet for Salesforce Connector enables collaboration for sales teams to organize, share and update customer information. By connecting the two platforms, you can easily access customer information from Salesforce within Smartsheet, and vice versa. It helps you get a better picture of your customer interactions and projects.
In Smartsheet, filters and groups can be set to organize data, and team members can build workflows without using any code or specialized technical skills. You can add visual analytics and reporting, enabling you to make more informed decisions, improve communication between your team and increase efficiency. Facilitate handoffs to professional services with real-time visibility and improve the sales pipeline by eliminating repetitive tasks.
5. Slack
If your team uses Slack as the communication platform, integration with Salesforce is a must-have. You can improve significant your workflow with this Slack and Salesforce integration, by simply having notifications sent to direct contacts on Slack when a task is due or created. You can increase your visibility of sales data and pipeline opportunities with real-time updates. Even your customer service can be improved through this integration, for example, if your team uses Slack to communicate with customers, you can easily track customer interactions on Salesforce.
There are different ways to make this integration possible, you can do it through a third-party tool such as Zapier, Workato, and Automate.io.
6. Jotform Salesforce Forms
Jotform Salesforce Forms is a feature-packed no-code data collection tool that integrates with the Salesforce ecosystem and allows users to automate their workflows. The product offers a number of project management features such as task assignment, approval flows, automated reports, calendars, and dashboards.
Jotform is a great option for businesses that need to collect and manage their project data all in one place while also saving time as it eliminates the need for manual data entry. Your collected data is synced with Salesforce and users can use the analytics tool to assess their projects. Jotform is also on the AppExchange and can now be used right within Salesforce.
Benefits Of A Salesforce Integration
There are many benefits of a Salesforce integration for businesses. When companies use Salesforce for their CRM software needs and integrate it with a project management platform, they get the best of both worlds. A Salesforce integration gives businesses the ability to:
- View and manage data in one place
- Automate sales processes
- Increase efficiencies
- Link customers and projects together
Integrating Salesforce with your project management platform can offer many benefits for your business, including the ability to view and manage data in one place, automate sales processes, increase efficiencies, and link customers and projects. If you are looking for a way to improve your business processes, Salesforce integration may be the right solution for you.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive solution that includes Salesforce CRM and project management, you should consider an integration like Hive! Start your 14-day free trial to see why thousands of teams use Hive to integrate work tools and work faster every day.
