Sync Salesforce formula fields

Who can use this feature?

  • All roles with access level "high"
  • Available on all plans

Catalyst supports Salesforce formula fields as synced fields; however, your teams may need to manually trigger an update to Catalyst when these field values are changed in Salesforce.

Background

Formula field changes do not alter the updated_at timestamp on records in Salesforce, so Catalyst doesn't know when to sync them. In other words, if the timestamp in Salesforce is less than or equal to the timestamp in Catalyst (from when the record was last updated in Catalyst), it signals that there are no new updates to sync.

For example, let's say you have a formula field that takes the First Name field and the Last Name field and combines them to make Full Name.

  • When the First Name field says Jonathan, and the Last Name field says Smith, the record's Full Name field automatically combines values to display Jonathan Smith.
  • If you update the First Name to "Jon" in Salesforce, the Full Name formula field updates to show "Jon Smith" instead of "Jonathan Smith."
  • However, because the formula field update did not alter the timestamp, Catalyst doesn't know to update the field; the new value will not be synced to Catalyst.

Manually trigger an formula field update

To get Catalyst to update the new formula field value, you can alter a different field on the record.

  1. In Salesforce, choose a different field that is synced to Catalyst (static, non-formula).
  2. Update the field value. When this happens, the updated_at timestamp is updated, which will tell Catalyst to re-sync all data on the record. It may take up to 7-8 hours for these fields to update, as they are part of the regular syncing interval.

Your Salesforce admin may be able to build a process that can automate this type of update and ensure that any formula field data can be regularly updated.

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