Integrate forms with Salesforce

Integrating with Salesforce

So...you’re using Salesforce, ah? Good for you!
Salesforce is undoubtedly the best online CRM out there and Its customers use it for managing customer relationships, human resources, customer support and so on.

For many clients using salesforce is significant in their daily routine activities and this also affects their website, forms and applications, which consequently need to be synced with SF. For some clients it becomes only natural to move their websites and external apps under the Salesforce umbrella as well. This way they can use a single common architecture - the Salesforce.com's cloud.

But how do you actually set up a website or application that will be connected to Salesforce?

The Salesforce umbrella provides its own solutions - if you’ll look for them you’ll find the same names keep popping up: names of platforms like Force.com, Site.com, Portals, Communities, as well as creation technology names like: Visualforce and Lightning.

However, if we narrow down this list you’ll find that there are 2 main options for creating applications and websites via Salesforce cloud:

The first is force.com  With force.com sites you can build custom pages and web applications and publish data to the world using programming with visualforce, programming apex, visualforce and APIs.
Force.com allows you to authenticate access to specific pages that expose data from your internal database and using visualforce you can bundle your pages in force.com and create a public web application, where visitors don't need to authenticate in order to view your pages.
The second is communities
Here you can create a community based on preconfigured templates and then apply your branding. You can publish your pages anywhere while having no servers, softwares, database to manage.
Each community comes with an associated Site.com site (and a Force.com site) that lives under the same domain, and has strong community-related features.
In communities there are a few options for creating websites and apps: community builder, sitecom, portals, visualforce and lightning.

In addition to the options above there are other tools, that are not of Salesforce, but also provide an integration with Salesforce tp make sure your data is synced. Tools like form builders, for example, provide such integration, but like any other tool, you will need to compare and see which form builder suits you best.

What should I look for in a form builder?

When you’re trying to choose the best tool you should always keep in mind that it is all about the right combination of factors. Following are a few factors you should consider:

Ease of use
Some tools are easier, more intuitive than others. Look for a drag & drop, wysiwyg tool, in which you can see the result while creating the form.
The form builder’s advantage is that it requires zero coding thus enabling anyone to use it, and implement things otherwise done by programmers.

Design flexibility
Most form builders have a rigid layout, in which the design is set automatically for you. If you wish to create landing pages or have your forms align with your brand design you will need to look for a flexible tool that will allow you to place elements where you like and change their styles freely.

CustomizationThis criteria is important since it will allow you to create your forms, with personalized emails, customized messages and so on. Again, each form builder offers a different customization level. Some will let you change the text of your customized emails, while others will let you insert your own HTML code and change it completely.

Salesforce Integration
There are professional form builders that provide a powerful integration with SF while there are others that offer a basic integration. Be sure to look for a Bi-directional integration, so you can read from SF objects as well as write to SF objects.

Pricing
For some companies and organizations, especially NPOs this is an important aspect to consider. Choosing the most expensive tool does not always ensure the best quality or the best capabilities, so be sure to add the price factor to your comparison - you just might find a better tool for at a more affordable price.
 

What is FormTitan and why use it to create forms, landing pages and apps that are integrated with Salesforce?

FormTitan is a robust form builder that not only allows you to create smart, stunning, responsive forms and landing pages, but it is also a powerful platform that offers over 750+ integrations with 3rd party applications, conditional logic, Pdf mapping, full customization and more.

When it comes to Salesforce, FormTitan provides a powerful, Real-time, Bi directional integration that can Read as well as write to SF objects - This makes FormTitan a great tool for creating forms, landing pages and applications which are integrated with Salesforce.
When you create a Salesforce integration in the FormTitan form builder you will first need to authenticate with SF, however, your form fillers will not need to authenticate in order to preview the data or even edit it. Another thing is that while the integrated form/landing page/survey/application you create is stored on the Formtitan servers, it can easily be embed it in your website, blog and even inside Salesforce. And the price? To top it all off - the FormTitan prices are much lower than its competitors, starting at 9$ per month.