Prepare for Installation

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Name the system requirements for implementation.
Describe the purpose of system users.
Identify Marketing Cloud Connect user roles.

Before You Begin

In this module, we work across multiple Salesforce clouds, so here are a few things you should know.

Instead of saying Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, we say Salesforce CRM throughout this module. Just know that this term refers to your Sales Cloud or Service Cloud account–whichever you’re choosing to connect to Marketing Cloud Engagement.
We assume you are a Marketing Cloud Engagement and Salesforce CRM administrator. It’s OK if you’re not, but you won’t have the proper permissions to access and configure your accounts.
Marketing Cloud Engagement isn’t available in the Trailhead Playground. So, while you can use your Trailhead Playground to review steps in Salesforce CRM, don’t try to follow along for steps in Marketing Cloud Engagement.

Connect Marketing Cloud Engagement with Salesforce CRM

You’re ready to bring the power of your marketing data together with your CRM data—and Marketing Cloud Connect is here to help. Marketing Cloud Connect makes it possible to share data across your cloud solutions.

Ready to dive in? Before we set off, it’ll be helpful to know where we’re going. Let’s review the steps you need to follow to complete setup.

Step

Purpose

1: Review prerequisites

Set yourself up for success by planning for system and user requirements.

2: Install the managed package

Download the managed package to get the tools to make the connection work.

3: Configure CRM settings

Make sure your users can view the email fields for contacts and leads. Then set up any additional users and permission sets within your Salesforce CRM account.

4: Configure setup in Marketing Cloud Engagement

Create a new user and configure the Salesforce Integration in Marketing Cloud Engagement.

5: Finalize configuration

Make final configuration settings in both Marketing Cloud Engagement and your Salesforce CRM account and then finalize the connection.

6: Test the connection

Confirm success with a test send. Confirm all users are set up properly and then begin to use the connector.

We cover each of these steps and show your completion progress throughout this module.

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to learn more about this topic from a Trailhead Academy instructor? Great! As you work through this module, we have added video snippets throughout to help you learn more about Marketing Cloud Connect. You can also find a link to the full video in the Resources section.

Let’s meet your instructor.

1: Review Prerequisites

Progress chart with Step 1: Review prereqs highlighted. It’s important to review the following requirements and work with your team to have them in place before you proceed with implementation.

Account Requirements

Marketing Cloud Connect requires a relationship between a single Marketing Cloud Engagement account and a Salesforce CRM org. It’s possible to connect a Marketing Cloud Engagement account to multiple Salesforce CRM orgs, but we don’t cover that setup in this module.
For most Marketing Cloud Connect functionality, users need a Marketing Cloud Engagement license and a Sales Cloud or Service Cloud license (more on this shortly).
Your Salesforce CRM org must be one of the following versions: Salesforce Unlimited, Enterprise, or Performance Editions, or a Developer Edition sandbox. To find out which version you’re using, see the Salesforce Help article Find Salesforce Edition and API Version.
Your Marketing Cloud Engagement account must be one of the following versions: Marketing Cloud Engagement Core Edition, Advanced Edition, Agency Edition, Enterprise 1.0 Lock and Publish, Enterprise 2.0 Edition, Reseller Edition, or a Marketing Cloud Engagement sandbox.
Marketing Cloud Connect features are available in the Salesforce Classic UI. If you use Lightning Experience, you are automatically redirected to Salesforce Classic when you click any of the Marketing Cloud Connect tabs.

Subscriber Key Consideration

Marketing Cloud Connect only recognizes subscribers that use the contact/lead ID as their subscriber key in Marketing Cloud Engagement. You may need to perform a subscriber key migration to align contacts between the two clouds if you currently use a different subscriber key.

Marketing Cloud Connect System Users

Now let’s discuss the system user accounts required for implementation. There are two system users that need to be created to have a successful installation. We walk you through the steps to create these in units 2 and 3, but first we want to explain why these two are important. Let’s review each.

System User

What It Is

What It Does

Considerations

Marketing Cloud Connect API user

The Marketing Cloud Connect API user completes the account-level connection between Marketing Cloud Engagement and Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.

This user provides the initial authentication for email sends, triggered sends, tracking subscription requests, and Journey Builder entry events.

To have access to different Marketing Cloud Engagement business units in Salesforce CRM, a Marketing Cloud Connect API user must have access to those business units in Marketing Cloud Engagement.

CRM API user

(also called the Salesforce system user)

Similarly, the CRM API user created in the Salesforce CRM is required to complete the connection between the CRM account and Marketing Cloud Engagement.

This user provides the initial authentication that allows the connected app (a framework that enables an external application to integrate with Salesforce) to work.

This user makes tracking data, synchronized data extensions, and Journey Builder activities available in CRM. It's also used for sending to CRM audiences from Marketing Cloud Engagement in non-scope-by-user accounts (accounts with open access to all integrated users).

For optimal security and performance, use a dedicated system user as the CRM API user, which uses a user license.

That can sound complicated, but just remember that the purpose of these user accounts is simply to create a connection—like a handshake—between Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud Engagement.

Relationship chart showing the Marketing Cloud Connect API User and CRM API User making the connection between Salesforce and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement.

Learn more about system IDs and users in this video clip.

Marketing Cloud Connect Users

In addition to system users, there are other user types that determine access to Marketing Cloud Connect functionality. Let’s review.

User Type	Description	Additional Info and Considerations
Marketing Cloud Connect admin	The person who manages the daily use and setup of Marketing Cloud Connect within Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.	At least one user in the Salesforce CRM org needs access to configure Marketing Cloud Connect inside the CRM environment. This can be you or it can be another person.
Integrated users (Marketing Cloud Connect users)	An integrated user has an established user login (license) in both Marketing Cloud Engagement and in CRM and their accounts are linked in Marketing Cloud Engagement.	These users have full Marketing Cloud Connect functionality, including the ability to send to Salesforce reports and campaigns from Marketing Cloud Engagement and have full access to the email page layout in CRM.
CRM user	A Salesforce CRM user who does not have a Marketing Cloud Engagement account.	Can view the email related list on the contact and lead page layouts if the admin has added them to the layout. Can’t send any emails using MC Connect.
Marketing Cloud Engagement user	A Marketing Cloud Engagement user who does not have a CRM account.	Can view and send using Salesforce data extensions in Marketing Cloud Engagement (if they are configured). Can’t send to a Salesforce report or campaign.

Example

Now it’s time to consider which individuals in your company need to use Marketing Cloud Connect. To help you with that decision, let’s review an example of how one company, Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO), selected roles for its team members.

Name and Role	User Info	Reason For Selection
Pia, NTO cloud architect	Salesforce CRM admin, Marketing Cloud Engagement admin Integrated user	Pia is an admin in both systems and helped design the overall data structure in Sales Cloud and in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
Isabelle, digital marketer	Marketing Cloud Engagement admin Integrated user	Isabelle manages the marketing team and oversees all digital marketing. She works closely with Teri, the sales manager, to coordinate campaigns.
Paulo, email specialist	Integrated user	Paulo manages email on a day-to-day basis, creates journeys, sends emails, and wants to have the option to send with Journey Builder and with Salesforce Campaigns.
Michele, technical marketer and email designer	General Marketing Cloud Engagement user	Michele designs and builds emails, but doesn’t need to send emails.
Teri, sales manager	Integrated user	Teri creates Salesforce campaigns and reports and wants to have the option to send emails from Sales Cloud.
Jessa, sales rep	General CRM user added to the email page layout.	Jessa views what has been sent to her customers in the email page layout, but doesn’t need to send emails.

Discuss the possibilities with your team and be sure you have a plan in place before you move on to the next unit, where we install the managed package and configure your CRM settings.

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