Customer Relationship Management software (also known as CRM) is crucial for any company as it allows you to manage customers, leads, and business contacts.
Salesforce is one of the best and most popular CRM software on the market. Many companies use Salesforce on a daily basis.
One of the biggest hurdles with CRM software is keeping it up to date. Most people resort to doing this manually, which is both tiring, time-consuming and error prone as you may forget to follow up on your leads or put them into your CRM software in the first place.
One of the best ways to automate this process is to link your WordPress website forms with your CRM software and have the data imported into the CRM automatically whenever the form is submitted.
In this article, we’ll explain how to connect the Salesforce CRM with your WordPress website using the WPForms premium plugin.
WPForms also has a free version of the plugin called WPForms Lite, but you’ll need an Elite plan to use the Salesforce addon required to set up the CRM automation.
Let’s start!
Install and activate the WP Forms plugin
First, sign up for an Elite plan on the WPForms website, and download the plugin in ZIP format to your computer.
Log in to your WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins > Add New, then click Upload Plugin on the top of the page:
Browse for the previously downloaded plugin ZIP file on your computer and click Install Now.
Once installed, click Activate to activate the plugin on your website.
Finally, head to WPForms > Settings page and enter your license key under the License section of the General tab to fully activate the plugin. You can find the license key in your account on the WPForms website.
Connect WP Forms with Salesforce
Now that we have everything set up on the website, we need to connect the WPForms plugin with our Salesforce account.
Install and set up the WPForms Salesforce addon
Head to WPForms > Addons, scroll down and find the Salesforce addon. Click the Install Addon button to install the addon.
Next, head to WPForms > Settings > Integrations and click the Salesforce option to expand it. Click +Add New Account under Salesforce options and copy the Callback URL.
Keep this tab open or copy the Callback URL to a safe place, as we’ll need it later in this article.
Create an app in Salesforce
Next, we need to create an app in our Salesforce account. To do that, you’ll need to have an Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, or Developer edition of Salesforce (other versions don’t allow connections to website forms).
Tip: To check which Salesforce version you have, switch to the Classic view of Salesforce and head to Administer > Company Profile > Company Information.
Check the Organization Edition option on the left side of the screen, and it should show the version.
Go to the Salesforce Developers website and click Login if you already have an account. If you don’t, click Sign Up and fill in your details.
Once you’re in your Salesforce account dashboard, click your profile icon on the top, then click the Switch to Salesforce Classic option.
Click the Setup option at the top of the page, and head to Build > Create > Apps menu in the left-hand menu. In the Apps section, click New under Connected Apps and fill in the details for your new app:
- Connected App Name: Fill in the name you want to use.
- Api Name: Leave as is.
- Contact Email: Fill in your email address.
- Contact Phone: Leave blank.
- Logo Image URL: Leave blank.
- Icon URL: Leave blank.
- Info URL: Leave blank.
- Description: Leave blank.
- Enable OAuth Settings: Enable this option.
In the OAuth Settings, paste your previously copied callback URL to the CallBack URL field in Salesforce.
Under the Available OAuth Scopes, select two options:
- Access and manage your data
- Perform requests on your behalf at any time
Once selected, click the Add arrow to add these permissions.
Finally, click the Save button at the bottom of the page to save changes.
Salesforce will then let you know that it takes from two to ten minutes for changes to take effect. Click Continue to proceed further, and Salesforce will redirect you to your API information page.
Wait around 10 minutes for the changes to take effect.
Copy your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret (you’ll need to click Click to reveal to see it) from your API page as we’ll need them to proceed with the setup.
Connecting WPForms with Salesforce
Head back to your WordPress Dashboard > WPForms > Settings > Integrations, expand the Salesforce option if it’s not expanded, and paste your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret into the appropriate fields.
Click the Connect to Salesforce button, log in to your Salesforce account, and click the Allow button. This gives WPForms access to your Salesforce account.
Once you provide access, you will be automatically redirected back to your WordPress Dashboard WPForms Integrations page, and you should see a success message at the top of the page.
Create a WordPress form with Salesforce integration
Next, we need to create a form that we can use on our WordPress website.
Head to WPForms > Add New, enter the name of your new form, and select a template (you can use any form, but we recommend starting with Simple Contact Form).
Use the drag and drop form builder to add, edit or remove any fields from the default form. In general, you should have these fields in your form:
- First Name
- Last name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Comment field
Once you’re done designing the form, click Marketing > Salesforce tab, then click Add New Connection. Enter the name of the connection, then click OK.
Next, click the Salesforce Object drop-down menu, and select the type of data you want to send to Salesforce (Contact or Lead, for example).
Once selected, you’ll see additional drop-down menus which you need to configure for data to be correctly entered in the correct fields in Salesforce.
Custom Field Name is the name of the field in your Salesforce account, while Form Field Value is the field’s name in your WordPress form.
The only essential field is the Full Name field in Salesforce. Make sure to select ‘Name’ as the Form Field value.
Go to the next step and select a different field from the drop-down below the name and configure it. You’ll need to do this for all data that you want to map with Salesforce. If you need to add more fields, click the blue + button.
When ready, click the Save button at the top to save changes.
Add the form to your website
The last step is to add the newly created form to a post or a page on your website. Create a new post/page or edit an existing one, and click the + button to add a new block.
Use the search field to find the WPForms block and click to add it to the post.
Finally, choose the previously created contact form and publish your post/page.
That’s it!
We recommend testing your form by filling in some data to make sure it’s properly connected to Salesforce.
Once you do, head to your Salesforce account dashboard, and you should see a new item listed on your homepage.
Click the name of the new item, and you should see all the information for the new contact.
