Overview
Depending on the day, the sync between Marketo and Salesforce can be absolutely smooth as butter or full of digital potholes. The key to navigating a buggy sync is to understand how the platforms talk to each, the pros and cons of the different sync method, the different errors you might encounter and lastly how to troubleshoot them.
Two Ways to Sync Marketo to SFDC
When data is captured in Marketo, it can be passed into Salesforce in two different ways:
- Via Salesforce Campaign Sync at the parent program level – where all of the information to a specific Marketo program – channel, progressions, membership and program cost – is natively synced into the corresponding SFDC campaign
- Via smart campaign flow steps – where specified Marketo campaign data is passed into the corresponding SFDC campaign using a flow step within a smart campaign.
Program Level vs Flow Step Sync Pros and Cons
There are clear differences between the two methods of syncing between Marketo and SFDC, each with its own pros and cons. Some of the main pros and cons are outlined below.
PROGRAM LEVEL SYNC
- PROS
- Once connected, Marketo program data is automatically synced into the corresponding SFDC campaign.
- If a SFDC campaign doesn’t already exist, you can create one from Marketo.
- CONS
- The campaign statuses in Marketo must be an exact match to the statuses available in the SFDC campaign.
- If a large amount of data is synced at a given time, a sync backlog can occur.
FLOW STEP SYNC
- PROS
- Allows more control over the sync to SFDC because you can determine who gets synced, what statuses sync, at what point they sync, etc.
- Visibility into sync errors within the campaign Results tab so you can troubleshoot sync issues, even without having Admin access.
- CONS
- It requires a bit more effort to create/manage flow step that controls the sync
- If you create the SFDC campaign at the Marketo program level and forget to. disconnect the sync, the program level sync will take precedence over the flow steps.
Troubleshooting Sync Issues
When sync errors occur, information about them can be found in several places including under Admin > Salesforce > Sync Errors, on a record’s activity log, and also in the Results tab of a smart campaign. There are three main types of sync errors you man encounter:
- Access issues
- Duplicate Issues
- Missing Info
In the chart below, you will see some common error codes for each type of sync issue, what it means and how to troubleshoot to resolve the sync issue.
| Access Issues | ||
| Error Code | Explanation | Next Steps |
| Failed to acquire lock on SFDC Campaign
Note: This error may be appearing only on a record’s activity log/smart campaign results and not the Sync Errors tab. |
The campaign is already in use in SFDC, such as another record currently being added to it. This may happen if multiple records concurrently trigger a Marketo campaign with the Add to/Change Status in SFDC Campaign flow step, such as when a list is imported. | Consider running the Add to/Change Status in SFDC Campaign flow step as a batch instead, especially for list imports that would trigger the campaign for many people at once. |
| INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY
INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_OR_READONLY |
The Marketo sync user profile in SFDC doesn’t have permissions necessary to complete the actions (such as insert or update information) in SFDC. | Determine what changed on the Marketo record just prior to the error. Ensure the Marketo sync user profile has permissions for the fields and any objects/fields that would need to update as a result. Some examples are listed on this Community post. |
| UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW | The records that needed to be updated were in use by another process/person in SFDC. | Usually the records will go through in the next interval sync, but if you see these errors a lot, there may be something happening on the SFDC end that is taking too long.
See Error ‘Unable to lock row – Record currently unavailable and Record Locking Cheatsheet from SFDC documentation. |
| Duplicate Issues | ||
| Error Code | Explanation | Next Steps |
| DUPLICATE_VALUE | Marketo is trying to add a record to a campaign it’s already a member of. | No action needed. |
| DUPLICATES_DETECTED | SFDC has Duplicate Rules in place that prevent a new record with the same email address (or other matching criteria). | Merge duplicate records.
If there is a custom sync filter, this error is more likely to happen. An email address may exist on a SFDC record that is not syncing to Marketo, so Marketo creates a new record and tries to sync it over. At that point it fails due to the duplicate. The SFDC record will need to be updated to allow it to sync to Marketo, then the duplicate records can be merged. |
| Missing Info | ||
| Error Code | Explanation | Next Steps |
| FIELD_CUSTOM_VALIDATION_EXCEPTION | Based on the specific value in a field, a value may be required in another field.One common example is if Status is Disqualified, a Disqualified Reason must be entered. | Ensure Marketo campaigns are in place to stamp the dependent field prior to sync. |
| INVALID_OR_NULL_FOR_RESTRICTED_PICKLIST | The field in SFDC accepts only values from a specific list of options. This record had a value that wasn’t acceptable. | Confirm current SFDC field picklist values and ensure Marketo is setting only these values (or updating values prior to sync). Note that picklist values can vary between the Lead and the Contact objects and/or between different record types. Extra logic may be necessary to avoid errors. |
| REQUIRED_FIELD_MISSING | SFDC requires a value in a field in order to save a new record/update an existing record. | All SFDC orgs require Last Name and Company, but many clients have additional required fields.
Ensure Marketo campaigns are in place to stamp the required field prior to sync. |
| The following required fields are hidden from the Salesforce sync account [username] | The Marketo sync user profile in SFDC may not have view permissions for standard and/or required SFDC field(s). | Update the Marketo sync user profile in SFDC to be able to read the field(s). |
Conclusion
Sync errors between Marketo and SFDC can happen for a variety of issues, no matter how you sync data between your systems. Thankfully, the most common errors can be resolved on their own or with some simple adjustments once you understand the root cause of the issue.
