How does Marketo see and pull data from Salesforce Formula Fields?

Another note on Salesforce formulas in Marketo: Use them sparingly to conserve API usage.

We were having problems with massive API usage a few months ago, and contacted Marketo support. After some troubleshooting, I was informed that Salesforce formulas require Marketo to query Salesforce for each value separately. We hid most of our formulas from Marketo, and our API usage returned to more acceptable levels.

If I am reading this correctly, it tells me I have to do an edit/save action on every lead record in my system in order for the change I just made to my formula field to show up correctly.  That is completely impractical.  Please tell me there is another way.

Hi Steve, you're able to do a mass impact of all records in Salesforce using a tool like data loader or DemandTools. Your Salesforce admin should be able to help you here.

The tactics to use in conjunction with Formula fields is to create a "force update" text field on leads, contacts and accounts. Just hide it from users, except from admins.

When you update a formula field or create one, just use a tool such as the ones listed above. We also use Enabler4Excel (very convenient) to set a value (any value) to this field. This will cause the refresh of values to Marketo.

You can update that field from SFDC (Data loader, for instance) or from Marketo.

-Greg

This is massively useful info! We track 40 different category scores and want to find the highest category name and highest category score for segmentation. We currently use a webhook to do this, but I was pondering if it was better to use Salesforce sync with a formula for this and it sounds like a definite no! Plus we save a ton of columns on our Salesforce object.

I spent hours upon hours with Salesforce Process Builder, Workflow rules etc. And I finally found a good (and pretty simple) workaround for this that I thought I would share. Hopefully this will save someone many hours of testing! haha

In my scenario I needed to send out emails based on members who has a specific value in a text formula field on the Account Record in Salesforce. The issue as stated above was that formula fields do not trigger a System Modification (ie. Last Modified By field update). So the goal here is to have my SFDC Accounts update daily, therefore pushing all current data to Marketo for my Smart Campaigns to run. I was unable to get this to work with Process Builder or Workflows. (if have a developer you can achieve this with an apex triggers but I did not have that luxury) So I figured out how to accomplish this via Marketo.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In Salesforce, create a Date or Date/Time field on the Contact Record called "SystemModStamp".  Note: Even if your formula field is on the Account Record, you have to use a Contact field for the SystemModStamp in order for Marketo to "Sync Updates to SFDC" after the flow is complete. If you use an Account field, it will update the value in Marketo but not Salesforce. ( I learned this the hard way )
2. Next, from Marketo, create a smart campaign.
3. Under Status tab, be sure to set the Qualification Rules to "Run each lead through the campaign flow every time". Don't worry about your SFDC API limits, we will set up the frequency for this flow to run in the Schedule tab.
4. For the SmartList, set up the filters for the records you'd like to update daily. I recommend being as specific as possible, again you don't want to max out your SFDC API limits.
5. For the Flow, add a Change Data Value flow & Select your SystemModStamp date field
6. Instead of choosing a date, enter the system token {{system.date}} for Date field or {{system.dateTime}} if you went with a Date/Time field type.
7. Next, go to schedule and set up your recurring run. (make sure you test your campaign on 1 lead using "run now" before turing on)
8. Give it about 5minutes and your field data will update Salesforce!

Good Luck!

Screenshot of my Smart Campaign Qualification Rules

Screenshot of my Smart List

Screenshot of my flow

Screenshot of My Schedule

Screenshot of my Results in Marketo

Screenshot of my Results in Salesforce

Thanks, Amy! This is a nice workaround to force Marketo to sync certain records.

It may also be worthwhile to add the custom field to the Lead object in Salesforce as well, in case you need to refresh those records too.

Vote here:

-Greg

Voted!

Thank you, @Amy Coplen​! Can you confirm if this would trigger a formula field on a related case to update as well? I'm trying to target based on Case Age (a Formula Number showing how many days old) on cases related to the Contact, but those formula values don't seem to be updating in Marketo. Thanks for your advice!

~Maggie