Overview

In addition to the Basic Users who use the Playbooks product every day, Playbooks requires an Integration User (a.k.a. Service User, Access User) setup to connect the CRM to the Playbooks environment in order to perform many of the administrative and product-related API requests between Salesforce and Playbooks. Setting up an Integration User with the correct permissions and field accessibility is important for best application usage.

Purpose of an Integration User

The Integration User account is used to:

• Synchronize data between Playbooks and Salesforce: create and update tasks, update specific Playbooks fields on the lead, contact, account, task, and entity records, and retrieve user names and roles.
• Query CRM for qualifying records based on Automation Rules (Robots).
• Retrieve data from Salesforce for Buyer Intelligence services to analyze and to later update records with scores according to Prioritization with AI models.

Create a new Integration User in Salesforce or use an existing user?

The bottom line is the Integration User usually requires greater permissions than a basic end-user or even most managers are granted. In those instances, it is necessary to utilize a different user with greater permissions.

Some organizations already have an Integration User configured for other vendors (like Marketo) and may be able to use the same account. Other organizations determine it is best to create a new user. Many of these organizations create a new user in Salesforce with First Name = Admin, and Last Name = Playbooks. The Salesforce account must be given an email address not assigned to any other Salesforce or Playbooks user. Some organizations will use an existing email address to a distribution group, for example, operations@samplecompany.co.

Tip: For best results, the Integration User account should be a distinct, non-user, service account (that way it doesn’t get deactivated if a user leaves the org).

This basic information (name, email, and in some cases the User ID) is required early in the provisioning/setup process.

Identify Email Address in Salesforce

1. Click Setup.
2. Under ADMINISTRATION, click Users.
3. Click Users.
4. Click user’s name.
5. Find email address.

Identify User ID in Salesforce Lightning

1. Sign into Salesforce as the user who will serve as the integration user.
   NOTE: This may or may not be your individual Salesforce user.
2. Click View Profile.
3. Click your name.
4. Once on your user profile page, grab the 18 character ID from the URL.

A question that often comes up, is will this account use up a Salesforce license? Yes, this must be a fully provisioned Salesforce account with API Enabled. That is why some Playbooks customers will use an existing Integration User account or identify an existing Sys Admin or Manager that meets the minimum permission requirements. As long as the existing Integration User account can be assigned the Playbooks Permission Set (described below) then you should be just fine.

Can the "Access User" be Changed to my User?

Permissions and Requirements

Because the Integration User is performing synchronization and retrieval tasks listed above it must have a higher level of permissions than a basic user. A list of required field and object permissions can be found in the Playbooks Reporting Fields document. This list will detail the permissions required for both the Integration User and the Basic User.

The best way to implement these permissions is to create a Permission Set for the Integration user and a second Permission Set for Basic Users. Column K of the Playbooks Reporting Fields document details the field permissions for the Integration User and column L details the field permissions for the Basic User.

Note: The Playbooks Reporting Fields document contains details for existing (standard) Salesforce fields as well as custom Playbooks fields. Not all custom Playbooks fields are necessary for all customers. (For example, only customers that purchased the Accelerate package will need to install the Buyer Intelligence Package so they will have the Priority Score fields needed to push scores to.) If the custom field is included in an unmanaged package, the name of the unmanaged package will be indicated in column B.

Additional Salesforce Permissions

API Enabled - The Integration User (and all Playbooks end-users) need to have the API Enabled permission. This allows the users to authenticate to Salesforce using Oauth 2.0 and make other API requests. There are also implied permissions to standard Salesforce fields when this is enabled that Playbooks will need access to. To enable this permission, go to Setup > Manage Users > Profiles > (the assigned profile for the Integration User) > Admin Permissions > check the box for “API Enabled”.

Password Never Expires - This is highly recommended for the Integration User. As advised above, if a non-user is specified as the Integration User then setting the password to never expire ensures there will never be an interruption in service due to the Integration User’s password in Salesforce expiring. To implement this change go to Setup > Manage Users > Profiles > (the assigned profile for the Integration User) > Password Policies > set the “Users password expires in” to Never Expires.