Integration is a major concern for us. How easily will Salesforce CRM integrate with our other business applications? What sort of integration capabilities does Salesforce.com provide?
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Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director
Salesforce.com provides a very rich foundation for integrating with other applications via its Force.com platform. The application programming interface (API) is solid, provides "call in" and "call out" access to 95% of the tables and functions of the system, and is well documented. For those who want to integrate via coding, the API is very friendly with scripting languages such as PERL, PHP, and VB.net as well as compiled languages such as Java and C#. Salesforce.com also provides connectors that provide two-way integration with Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Lotus Notes and SAP. There are connectors available for phone systems (CTI), desktop software (such as QuickBooks), and server applications (such as Jira). In addition, the Force.com platform provides the basis for third-party integration systems from Boomi, Pervasive, CastIron, Informatica and others. These companies each provide "packaged" access to scores of standard applications and databases.
To sum up, I know of no CRM system that is easier to integrate with, than Salesforce.com.
This was first published in April 2009