Sales works in Salesforce, project delivery in Projectile. Without integration that means won opportunities are recreated as projects by hand, contacts are maintained twice, and sales never sees what became of its deals.
I specify and deliver the bidirectional synchronization of opportunities, contacts and project data between the two systems, with the same approach as any Projectile implementation: capture requirements, translate them into specifications, test against real data, take it live.
Implementation paths
Which integration path holds up depends on system landscape, data volume and change frequency. Three approaches have proven themselves in Projectile projects:
| Path | How it works | Fits when |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Both systems communicate directly via API calls | changes should arrive on both sides promptly |
| Shadow tables | Intermediate tables both sides read and write | direct API access is not possible or not wanted |
| File export | Periodic exchange of structured files | batch processing is enough and the landscape should stay simple |
The choice follows requirements, not taste, and it gets documented. What happens when a vendor changes its API policy is something I have written about using SAP as the example: SAP’s June 9 deadline. For any integration the lesson is the same: know your dependencies, keep an alternative path open.
Data mapping is the core task
The real work is not the transport layer but the mapping. Which Salesforce object corresponds to which Projectile record? How do opportunity stages map to project status? Which side owns which fields, and what happens on conflicting changes? These questions decide the quality of the integration, not the chosen technology.
Data mapping was the core task in every integration I specified, tested and took live in the partnership with Information Desire Software GmbH: besides Salesforce, that includes DATEV, Atlatos, Diamant and Rex. Details are in the Information Desire Software partnership case study; the Projectile-DATEV interface shows how deep such a specification goes.