Salesforce Integration Guide
Connect Terapage to Salesforce so research teams can import participants from Leads, Contacts, Campaign Members, Accounts, or custom Salesforce objects, then keep them synced for invitations, tasks, communities, and AI-powered research workflows.
What it does
The Salesforce integration lets a workspace connect its own Salesforce org, discover available objects and fields, map them to Terapage participant records, and sync eligible contacts into studies.
Who uses it
Research operations teams, agencies, CX teams, sales research teams, panel managers, and insight teams who already keep customer or respondent data in Salesforce.
Best for
Importing research participants, building panels from CRM data, inviting opted-in contacts to studies, and keeping participant data updated without repeated CSV exports.
Example integration experience: connect Salesforce, choose an object, map fields, preview records, sync participants, and optionally auto-invite eligible contacts.
Before you start
- You must be a Terapage workspace admin or have permission to manage integrations and participant imports.
- You must be able to authorise Terapage against your organisation’s Salesforce account.
- Your Salesforce edition or licence must allow API access. Terapage cannot bypass Salesforce API restrictions on a client’s org.
- Confirm that the records you import can lawfully be used for research invitations, including any consent or suppression-list requirements.
1. Connect Salesforce to Terapage
Open the relevant Terapage workspace and go to Workspace Administration.
Open Configuration, then select Integrations.
Choose Salesforce and click Connect. Terapage will send you to Salesforce so you can approve access for your own Salesforce org.
Terapage should use OAuth so each client connects their own Salesforce org securely.
2. Choose the Salesforce object to import from
After connection, Terapage should discover the Salesforce objects available in that organisation instead of assuming every client only uses Leads or Contacts.
Standard objects
- Lead
- Contact
- Campaign Member
- Account
Custom objects
- Research_Participant__c
- Panel_Member__c
- Customer_Profile__c
- Community_Member__c
Recommended UX: show the object name, record count estimate, last modified field, and whether email, phone, consent, and source ID fields are available before the researcher proceeds.
3. Map Salesforce fields to Terapage participant fields
Terapage should dynamically read the fields in the selected Salesforce object and let researchers map them to participant fields and custom attributes.
Example mapping screen: Salesforce fields are mapped to Terapage participant fields before import or sync is activated.
| Terapage participant field | Example Salesforce field | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| First Name | FirstName | Personalises invites and participant records. |
| Last Name | LastName | Completes the participant profile. |
| Used for study invitations and reminders. | ||
| Phone | Phone / MobilePhone | Used for phone-based studies and AI-moderated telephone interviews. |
| Company | Company / Account.Name | Useful for B2B segmentation. |
| Segment | Industry / Persona__c | Supports filters, quotas, analysis groups, and reporting. |
| Consent Status | Consent_Status__c | Helps prevent accidental invitation of ineligible contacts. |
| External Source ID | Id | Used for deduplication and update tracking. |
4. Add filters and preview matched records
Before import, researchers should be able to add rules such as country, consent status, segment, campaign membership, role, last modified date, account type, or custom Salesforce fields.
Example filters
- Country equals United Kingdom
- Consent Status equals Opted In
- Email is not empty
- Customer Tier equals Enterprise
Preview checks
- Valid emails and phone numbers
- Duplicate records
- Missing consent values
- Records already in Terapage
5. Import, sync, and invite participants
Researchers should choose whether Salesforce records are imported once, synced manually, synced hourly, or synced daily. For ongoing research communities and recurring studies, hourly sync is usually the best default.
| Action | What happens | Best use case |
|---|---|---|
| Import only | Eligible Salesforce records are imported into Terapage but no invite is sent. | Reviewing or cleaning participant data before outreach. |
| Import to participant pool | Records are added to the workspace participant database. | Building a reusable research panel from CRM records. |
| Invite to study | New eligible participants are added to a selected study and invited. | Recruiting from a defined CRM audience. |
| Invite to task | Participants are sent directly to a selected activity, survey, diary, interview, or task. | Automated research workflows and follow-up studies. |
Consent safeguard: before enabling auto-invite, Terapage should ask the researcher to confirm that the selected contacts can be invited to the research study or task.
6. Import Salesforce participants into a research activity
Create or open a Terapage research activity.
Choose Salesforce as the participant source when adding participants.
Select the saved Salesforce mapping, preview records, remove invalid entries, and add participants to the activity.
The Salesforce integration should fit naturally into the existing Terapage study and activity creation flow.
Recommended sync behaviour
- Refresh Salesforce access tokens automatically when needed.
- Load the saved object, field mapping, filters, target study, and auto-invite settings.
- Query only new or updated Salesforce records since the last successful sync.
- Validate required fields before creating or updating participants.
- Deduplicate using Salesforce Org ID + object name + record ID first, then email, then phone number.
- Log every sync run, including imported, updated, skipped, failed, and auto-invited records.
What researchers should see after setup
Connection status
Connected Salesforce org ID, connected user, last sync, next sync, and reconnect button.
Sync logs
Clear logs showing records imported, updated, skipped, failed, and invited, with error reasons.
Participant source history
Each participant should show Salesforce as source, external ID, last synced date, and source object.
In simple terms: Salesforce remains the client’s CRM system of record. Terapage becomes the research activation layer that turns eligible Salesforce records into participants, invitations, tasks, studies, communities, and insight outputs.