An automation action is a step that performs a task, activity, event, or change. Think of a action as:

When Something happens (the Trigger) and These Conditions are true, then This Event (the Action) occurs.

SmartSuite's Create a Record and Update Records actions for Salesforce allow you to automatically add or modify records in Salesforce. If you haven't already, we also recommend that you check our our articles on creating an automation and managing automations for more information about setting up new workflows.

To use Salesforce you will need to have an existing Salesforce account. Salesforce actions are part of SmartSuite's automations system, which all account types have access to. Simply click the Automations option in the Solution drop-down menu (see image below).

Accessing the Automations configuration interface:

Once the Solution Automations dialog is displayed, click Add Automation to begin creating an automation that will interact with Salesforce.

You will need to set up a trigger to tell the Automation when to run and which record to use as the source of data for your Salesforce actions.

For example, you might be tracking user-submitted help requests in SmartSuite. If you wanted to create a new Salesforce Opportunity when a record is created, you would select a When a Record is Created trigger to initiate the automation when the SmartSuite record is added.

After creating your automation and selecting your Trigger, you can select Salesforce from the Integrations section of the Add Actions list. You can then select either the Create a Record or Update Records action. It looks like this:
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Whenever your automation trigger fires and the conditions are met, the Salesforce Create Record action will create a new record of the type you specify. Configuring it just requires a few clicks.

You will be prompted to select or connect your Salesforce account. Once your account is connected, the dropdown options for xxx will be pre-populated based on your Salesforce account. For this example we will use the Opportunity record type.

Click Connect to get started. Note that you will be prompted to select a "production" account or a "sandbox" account.

If you are not authenticated you will be prompted to log in to your Salesforce account. Provide the credentials you would like to use to connect to Salesforce normally. Then accept the request to connect:

When your account is connected, you will be returned to the connection screen. Click anywhere outside of the dialog box to continue. Note: you can disconnect your account from the automation at any time by clicking the Disconnect button on this screen.

After this initial account configuration has been completed, you can then specify the details for the Salesforce record you want to create. Customizable fields include:
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You can add either static values to each of these fields, or map values from the triggering record as their value. Continue adding fields until you have populated everything you need in the record that will be created in Salesforce. When you're done, click Save Automation at the bottom-right corner of the screen to save the automation and its configuration.

To configure the Update Records action you will need to find the issue to update by matching one of the following fields to either a static value or a value contained in the triggering record.

Follow the steps described in the Add Issue action above to connect your Salesforce account. After this initial account configuration has been completed, you can then specify the details for the Salesforce records you want to update. First you will need to specify how to identify the record(s) you want to update. You do this through the Find Record to update conditions section.

Add one or more matching conditions by selecting the field you want to match, specifying the comparison operator, and then providing either a static value or a value from the triggering record. You can add additional conditions by clicking Add Condition. The fields available to match will vary depending on the type of entity you are trying to update.

Continue adding fields until you have populated everything you need in the issue that will be updated in Salesforce. When you're done, click Save Automation at the bottom-right corner of the screen to save the automation and its configuration.