Sync Scarf Data with Salesforce
Overview
Keeping your Salesforce accounts in sync with Scarf’s company data gives your team a clearer picture of how organizations are engaging with your open-source project.
This playbook walks through the process of integrating Scarf with Salesforce to ensure your sales and marketing teams have the data they need to act strategically. Automating workflows and surfacing key adoption signals helps your team prioritize the right accounts at the right time, making it easier to turn open-source engagement into meaningful business opportunities.
What you’ll need
- In Scarf:
- A Premium Plan in Scarf
- Owner or Admin Permissions
- In Salesforce:
- Permission to read the org ID in Salesforce
- Permission to “view setup and configuration”
- Read/write access to standard objects
- Permissions to Create Fields on Account Records – this permission is not required for the CRM sync to function, but Scarf specific Fields must be created in the CRM instance for full metadata to be written. (Optional)
Before we start, make sure you have authority within your organization to make these changes.
Step 1: Setting Up the Salesforce Integration
Starting from the Scarf App home screen, click on your profile icon and make sure you have the right organization selected. Then, select Organization Settings from the dropdown menu.
Select Integrations from the Settings menu. You will see the following screen.
Click the Connect organization to a data source button.
Opt-in to automatically sync companies with matching accounts inside Salesforce. Click Finish linking CRM.
Any non-matching accounts will not be updated automatically, you will need to manually match them from the Insights page.
Note: If you don’t check this option, the integration will not attempt to match any company with existing accounts inside Salesforce. Instead, all company-to-account matching will need to be done manually.
You will see the following screen prompting you to choose the CRM you want to integrate with Scarf. Select Salesforce.
You have two options for authenticating your Salesforce account:
- Using your credentials (recommended, as it is the quicker route).
- Using a Security Token and Organization ID.
In this playbook, we’ll follow the steps for authentication with account credentials.
Note: If you’re authenticating with a Security Token and Organization ID, you’ll need your Salesforce username and password. The Security Token and your Salesforce Organization ID can be retrieved from your Salesforce settings.
You’ll be asked to review the permissions Scarf requires to read and write data. These permissions determine how Scarf interacts with your CRM.
- Read permissions allow Scarf to access key details from your Salesforce records, such as company names, addresses, industries, phone numbers, and activity timestamps. This enables Scarf to match companies in your CRM with those engaging with your open source project.
- Write permissions allow Scarf to update and create records in Salesforce, ensuring that newly discovered companies, updated contact details, and engagement insights are reflected in your CRM.
Enter your Salesforce subdomain. You’ll find your Salesforce subdomain by going to your Salesforce Settings, and navigating to “My Domain”.
Once it’s authenticated, you will need to log in to your Salesforce account. Click Open Window.
This will prompt you to authenticate to Salesforce with your credentials.
Once you’ve successfully logged in to your Salesforce account, return to Organization Settings > Integrations. If the integration was successful, you will see a message “Connected on [Date]”.
Step 2: Configure your Salesforce Integration
Once your CRM connection is set up, you can configure your Salesforce connection and define what actions the integration can perform. For more details on these settings, check out our CRM Integrations documentation.
- Enable Scarf to connect Insights to this CRM: This toggle controls whether Scarf is actively syncing with your CRM. Turning it off temporarily disables the integration, stopping all reading and writing until switched back on.
- Auto-match to known accounts from Scarf: When enabled, Scarf will attempt to match surfaced companies to existing Salesforce accounts. If turned off, all company-to-account mapping will need to be done manually.
- Auto-sync: This setting ensures that any company surfaced by Scarf matched to a Salesforce account is automatically included in the next scheduled sync. If turned off, matched companies won’t be updated with the latest events, unless manually triggered.
- Automatically create new accounts in your CRM: This is the most critical setting. Enabling this ensures that every company engaging with your open source project is captured in your CRM, even if they weren’t previously in your records. This gives you the latest insights into which companies are interacting with your project, helping you prioritize outreach and uncover new opportunities.
If you prefer to keep things manual and don’t want Scarf to read or write data automatically, we still highly recommend enabling "Automatically create new accounts." It ensures that every new company engaging with your project is captured in your CRM.
From this screen, you also have the option to delete the Salesforce integration if needed.
Note: Be careful when adjusting these settings or deleting the integration. Disabling automatic actions or deleting the integration may prevent critical information from being sent to Salesforce, impacting your ability to track engagement and act on key insights. Always review your settings before making changes.
Step 3: Match and Sync companies with Salesforce accounts
From the Scarf App home screen, go to Insights. Select your desired CRM from the dropdown. We’ll select our previously configured Salesforce instance.
Click CRM Controls to visualize your CRM options. You will have a new column called “CRM Connection”.
Next to each company name, you’ll find checkboxes that allow you to select multiple companies for bulk actions, like matching or syncing all the selected companies to your CRM.
Clicking Match Selected prompts Scarf to attempt an automatic match between the company details and an existing Salesforce account. If no match is found, or if multiple potential matches exist, you can manually select the correct account by entering its name in the text box next to the company name.
Clicking Sync Selected adds the selected companies to the next scheduled sync cycle, which runs nightly. This ensures that Salesforce is updated with the latest company details and engagement data. Use this when you’ve already confirmed that a company is correctly, and you want to push the latest updates to Salesforce.
Click Confirm when you’re ready.
Step 4: Correct matches or unmatch a company (Optional)
If a company is matched to the wrong Salesforce account or you no longer want Scarf to send updates for it, you can manually correct or unmatch the record.
Locate the company you want to correct or unmatch.
Next to the company name, you’ll see two icons: a pencil (edit) and an X (unlink).
- To correct a match: Click the pencil icon. This allows you to enter the correct Salesforce account name. Use this if the company is linked to the wrong, and you want Scarf to sync data with the right one.
- To unlink the company: Click the X icon. This removes the connection between the company and the matched Salesforce account. Use this if you no longer want Scarf to send updates about this company to your CRM.
Note: Unmatching a company does not delete any data from Salesforce. It simply stops Scarf from sending new updates for that company.
Step 5: Check the Sync Options
In the Company Insights page, you will now have different options that inform you about your syncing status.
🟢 Green dot: Syncing was successful.
🔘 Grey dot: Syncing in progress.
🔴 Red dot: Syncing unsuccessful.
Scarf keeps a record of all actions performed during each sync in the Recent CRM Sync History table. This allows you to review what was created, synced, fetched, and matched during the latest sync cycles.
Sync history is retained for 30 days, after which records are automatically deleted.
If you want to dive deeper into what each action in the table means, check out our CRM Integration documentation for a full breakdown.
Bringing it all together
You’re now able to see, track, and act on open source engagement directly inside Salesforce. Instead of wondering which companies are using your project, you now have a system that surfaces new companies engaging with your open source software, allowing you to capture and act on that interest immediately.
With this integration, every new company that engages with your project can be added as an account in Salesforce, giving you a living, evolving picture of your open source impact.
This is the missing piece for open source businesses looking to connect open source adoption with revenue. Now that you have it, what will you do with it?
There’s an ocean of possibilities when it comes to leveraging this data. Check out our other playbooks to explore different ways of collecting data, tracking engagement, and operationalizing it across your business. Want to see how we put this into action ourselves? We’ve broken it all down in our blog on how we use Scarf for marketing.
Happy Scarfing!
