TroubleshootingSync

ImplementationGuide

June 2018

Contents

Overview

Trigger Sync

Transaction Reports & Conflicts

Full Sync & Mass Updates

FAQs

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Overview

Welcome. This section covers how Bedrock Data Sync works, with some tips, tricks, best practices, and answers to a few common questions.

1. When will a record get picked up in the sync?

There are two scenarios.

1. When an existing record has a mapped field that has changed. 2. A new record is created.

Records must meet at least one of these conditions to be pulled into your sync.

Note: If a record exists before you create a Workflow rule, it will not be pulled into the sync. An update must occur for the record to get pulled into the sync for the record to move between systems. Later, we’ll cover how to force sync such records.

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Overview(continued)

2. How does Bedrock dedupe records?

We use a standard set of dedupe keys (fields) for each object type supported by our Connectors. Below is an overview of each object and the keys used for this process.

Object

Contact Email

Company_Name

Title,Occured_At

Name,Close_Date

Contact,Company

Email

Company

Opportunity

Owner/Employee

Activity

IdentifyingRelationships

IdentifyingFields

MatchingLogic

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Direct on lowercase email address

Fuzzy match on company name

Fuzzy match on name, direct on

expected close date, graph on related contact/company

Direct match on lower case email address

Direct match on title & “occured at”, graph

match on related contact/company

Overview(continued)

3. How often does Bedrock Sync run?

The first component of “sync time” is the time between each run. The default setting is 10 minutes after the completion of a sync. While you can adjust this time1 most prefer data to sync as soon as possible.

The second component of “sync time” is the time data takes to move between your systems. This varies greatly due to the amount of data moving in any given sync, internet connection speeds and other variables such as API limits.

1 https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/131-customize-how-often-the-sync-runs-for-your-integrations

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Overview(Continued)

4. How do changes to records affect sync time?

Bedrock Data processes all changes to records by distinguishing those made to mapped and unmapped fields.

Sync then resolves changes to records between your systems (de-duplicated, appended, written and saved).

As this is a two stage process, note that changes to unmapped fields, if done in large volumes, can kick off what seem like long sync runs when very little data is moving between systems.

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Overview(continued)

5. Anything else I should keep in mind?

Yes!

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• Schedule automated processes and data imports for off hours or slow times, when possible.

• Email campaigns are a common source of large dataset updates.

• Don’t map more fields than your integration requires

• Records will only sync if a mapped field is updated or the record is newly created.

• During the time a sync is processing, additional updates or newly created records will be placed in a queue until the sync finishes. 10 minutes after sync is complete, the next sync will begin with the queued changes.

Trigger Sync

On-Demand Trigger Sync lets you sync records by hand. For more on setup, refer to our help article2.

Forcing records to sync by hand is useful when you create sync rules that apply to previously created records. We see this often during initial setup, although forcing records to sync can be helpful at anytime. In any case, we recommend making a single-line text field, and, if you can control its permissions, only expose the field to system administrators. Once you have this field created, here is what the mapping setup will look like:

2 https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/627-trigger-sync-field-on-demand-syncing

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Trigger Sync(Continued)

Test Workflows

In addition to forcing records to sync, you can also use this field as a temporary test rule in your Workflows. For each record you are trying to sync, setup a rule that says if the “Trigger Sync” field is “not empty” then allow the record to sync. With the Trigger Sync field you can go to any record you’d like in your system and apply a value to this field and it will attempt to sync through Bedrock on the next sync run.

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Trigger Sync(Continued)

Key takeaways:

• Setup a Trigger Sync field to force records to sync on demand

• Use the Trigger Sync field as a test Workflow rule to troubleshoot your mappings

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Using Transaction Report to Review Conflicts

If your records don’t sync for whatever reason, you'll be able to see some of the errors on your Dashboard. To determine what caused the errors and any other possible conflicts, you can download the Transaction Report by clicking the Download button above your Recent Activity feed.3

3 For more information, visit https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/725-overview-of-transactions-report

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Transaction Report (continued)

This excel spreadsheet is downloaded to your computer and contains valuable information about the past 24 hours of your sync. It will show and identify five different types of conflicts.

1. Missing Fields4

2. Dupe Records5

3. Not Indexable - missing value in the field use to dedupe (i.e. email address for contacts)4. Update Error (see below)5. Create Error (see below)

Update and Create Errors, or API errors, are received from the destination system. In most cases, the record has met Bedrock Data requirements and rules, but the system we were writing it to prevented the write from occurring.

Although these messages may not clearly identify the root cause, Bedrock does log errors in an API error library for reference. If you have questions about a new error not previously logged, send the error to support@bedrockdata.com so we can diagnose the problem and add the message to our library.

4 https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/618-managing-required-fields-in-your-mappings5 https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/811-how-to-resolve-dupe-record-conflicts

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Transaction Report (continued)

Resolving Conflicts & Refreshing Field Info

One of the most common types of API error conflicts arises from invalid field information.

Example: You have two drop down fields mapped together and one system is trying to push over a value that doesn’t exist in the target system. To resolve, you simply add the missing value to that target field and hit the Refresh Field Info button on the Mapping screen.

As you go through and resolve each conflict, you’ll often need to force your records to re-sync. This is where the On-Demand Trigger Sync field comes in handy.

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Performing a Full Syncor Mass Update Records

After you’ve tested records and conflicts in the Transaction Report, you may now want to force all of your records to sync across from one system to another. For this scenario, there are two options:

Full Sync

If you run a full sync, we recommend doing so over a weekend, during a slow period or when your team will not be online. If you have over 150,000 unique records between your two systems, we highly recommend you not run a Full Sync and instead go with a Mass Update option.

For more on how to process a Full Sync, please refer to our help article here:

https://help.bedrockdata.com/article/442-can-i-trigger-a-full-sync-of-all-records

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• Trigger a full sync• Mass Update Trigger Sync field.

Full Sync(continued)

Full Syncs are a form of Reset, which means we’ll be first resetting your Bedrock integration database and re-indexing all of your records from your systems. It’s just like when you first turned on your integration and we had to first index all of your records.

Mass Update Trigger Sync Field

Remember the field we had you create earlier called a Trigger Sync field? Well, here is another great use case. In most of the systems we work with, there are ways to run mass update operations for a subset of your records.

Often this works by first building a list of records in the given system and then within the list tool there is an option to mass edit a specific field for all of the records in this list. You would simply select the “Trigger Sync” field and apply a value (i.e. today’s date). Immediately on the next running sync all of these records will come down into the integration. So long as they pass a Workflow in Bedrock, they will sync with the other system.

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Full Sync(continued)

Here are some help articles from common Bedrock Connectors that outline process for performing mass updates:

Sugar CRM: http://support.sugarcrm.com/Knowledge_Base/Studio_and_Module_Builder/Adding_a_Field_to_Mass_Update/

NetSuite https://noblue.co.uk/blog/netsuite-tips-making-mass-updates

Zoho: https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/miscellaneous/common-functions.html#Mass_Update_Records

Dynamics CRMhttps://ledgeviewpartners.com/blog/dynamics-crm-bulk-edit-tool/

HubSpot: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/contacts/how-can-i-bulk-edit-contacts-companies-deals-or-tasks

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Full Sync(continued)

In most marketing automation systems you can use their built-in automation functionality to make bulk updates to a field for a subset of records.

For ConnectWise customers there is no built-in tool that lets you easily bulk edit so your options are either to simply perform a Full Sync or you can consider exporting and reimporting your records and in the re-import update the Trigger Sync field.

Key Takeaways:

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• Run a Full Sync if you want to bring everything into parity after completing troubleshooting (but be mindful of the impact this can have)

• Use the Mass Update option if a Full Sync is more then what is needed.

• Remember to re-sync records after resolving conflicts and don’t forget to refresh field info in Bedrock if it requires update field settings in your systems.

FAQs

Why does it take so long to run a Full Sync if I’m only syncing a few hundred records?

When you run a Full Sync you are also performing a Reset of your sync. This means we are deleting your Bedrock database and re-indexing all of your records from all systems you have connected to Bedrock.

While you may not be syncing all of your records from both systems, Bedrock needs to have these records indexed so that we can dedupe against all of your data to avoid from duplicates getting created.

This way if “mary@acmecorp.com” fills out a form on your website and becomes a new contact in your marketing system, if she is already living over in your CRM system we’ll be able to see this and instead of creating a duplicate in your CRM, we’ll update her existing record.

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FAQs(continued)

Can I customize the Dedupe Keys used to sync each object?

You can only customize the dedupe key for Company-type objects. This also only really works if you are syncing this record in one direction, which is often the case since mainly this type of record gets created by your sales team during the Lead > Opportunity conversion process within the CRM.

Only a Bedrock support engineer can change this key so if you are interested in learning more, reach out to support@bedrockdata.com.

Can I get alerts for when records do not sync?

Not at this time. We also find that if you did setup such alerts that it may lead to a lot of unnecessary emails since there can often be a number of reasons why records don’t sync in a given sync run and in many cases it can be temporary and it will eventually sync across. But we are looking into having a feature that lets you have the Transaction Report sent to your inbox on a daily basis in order to review in one report the full days history of records that didn’t sync and the reasons why.

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