SalesForce Custom App

Objective

This document will demonstrate how easy it is to integrate SalesForce to the ixHello platform and create methods to pull data.

Pre-requisites

  • An active Salesforce Account

An active Salesforce account is required for this integration. The skill will require the user to log into their Salesforce account.

If an account needs to be created, please follow the steps below:

To proceed with these steps, you should have all the pre-requisites satisfied. If you are missing something, please go back and make sure you satisfy all of them.

Once done, you are ready to get started using ixHello platform with Salesforce.

The following shows the general steps/activities that will be carried out in setting up this integration. Note: It is advisable to use same email for signup across the 3 channels below. Step 1 -3 below are compulsory.

Create New Instance of Amazon Connect

  1. If you are new to Amazon Connect, you can start by creating a Free Tier Amazon Web Services account.

  2. Create a new instance of Amazon Connect and obtain a phone number using this official documentation from Amazon. Depending upon your location and the location of your target customers, you might need to perform some additional work here. Help from technical department might be required depending upon the scenario.

  3. After creating the instance, Amazon Connect Home.

  4. Sign up for ixHello platform

  5. Ensure you Login with Amazon (LWA) https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask account is setup by your admin. If you are the account admin, you can follow this instruction to set it up.

  6. Set up connection to Salesforce

  7. Create a custom app in ixHello

  8. Publish the skill

  9. Test the Lex

Before you proceed from here, please make sure that these prerequisites have been fulfilled.

Setup connection to Salesforce

  1. On the resulting Connect External System form, fill out the following details, and click on ‘Connect System’.

Integration Category: Custom

System Type: SalesforceCustom

System Instance Name: Salesforce Demo

Note: If a SalesForce Account is running on customer domain tick “Use Custom Domain” checkbox and provide the custom domain URL. Also, if Sandbox account is used then tick “Sandbox” checkbox.

Once you click on “Connect System” button, you will be redirected to the SalesForce login page as shown below. Enter your username and password and click on “Login” button.

Once you are logged in, Salesforce might show a screen with permissions options, allow it. You will be redirected to the platform with a success screen as shown below.

Now, you have successfully integrated Salesforce with the platform.

  1. Now Salesforce has been successfully integrated with the ixHello platform. Now, click “Return to Integration Configuration” to return to the connections page. SalesforceCustom will appear in the list as shown below.

Create a custom App in

  1. Fill following details in the Add Custom window and click ‘Save’.

Name: Salesforce Custom

Custom Skill Type: Search

  1. The following popup screen will appear, add following details and click on Save.

Name: Salesforce DataSource

Integration Configuration: Select Salesforce Integration Config created in Step 2.

Create Methods to fetch the data from Salesforce

  1. Next step is to create Methods. Methods allows you to fetch data from Salesforce. The salesforce supported custom queries can be used to define the data to be fetched from the linked Salesforce account.

  2. ixHello platform currently supports following Salesforce methods:

  3. Get All Objects

  4. Get Object Fields

  5. Get Object ById

  6. Get Object All Records

  7. Get SOQL Query Results

  8. Create Object

  9. Update Object

  10. Delete Object

  11. For this document, we’ll create only one method. Users can refer to the appendix to explore all other supported methods.

Scenario/ Use Case (Contact Finder):

Method: GetSOQLQueryResult

This method requires just one parameter. Please review the information below.

Parameters:

SOQLQuery

SELECT Id, FirstName, LastName,Phone

FROM Contact

WHERE FirstName='John'

and LastName='Bond'

This is a standard Salesforce Object Search language (SOQL) query which you can use in different ways

  1. Other than these two parameters, provide following standard inputs:

Method Name

You can give any name. This name will be displayed in the methods list.

Request Type

GetItems

This is the method that you are using

Parameters

As explained in the previous table

Result Type

ListOfRecords (Auto Selected)

It indicates that the method can return one or more records

Record Limit

Numeric value (e.g. 10)

If Method is returning larger number of records, then you can limit this result by providing this value.

Record JsonPath

Each method returns data in json format and to pick any specific information from the json, we need to specify the Record JsonPath so ixHello platform will pick that data in consideration while displaying results.

Example: $.[*]

This selects all the records that is returned.

Empty Result Template

When the method does not return any data, this response will be generated. So we can specify something like:

“Sorry, I could not find the contact details”

Record Template

Let’s assume that the following json represents one record.

{

"attributes": {

"type": "Contact",

"url": "/services/data/v47.0/sobjects/Contact/0032w000002GFOVAA4"

},

"Id": "0032w000002GFOVAA4",

"FirstName": "John",

"LastName": "Bond",

"Phone": "(312) 596-1000"

}

In this example, Phone is at root level and can be accessed by {{Phone}}

So record template can be written as

Phone number of {{FirstName}} {{LastName}} is {{Phone}}

So, when a method is executed, this will be displayed as,

Phone number of John Bond is (312) 596-1000

Note:

Anything written in between {{ }} is represented as a json field and it’s case-sensitive.

{{Phone}} is not same as {{phone}}

Result Template

This indicates how method results should be represented.

Here you go, {{Records}}

Here, {{Records}} represents one or more records separated by a separator.

Sample Response:

[

{

"attributes": {

"type": "Contact",

"url": "/services/data/v47.0/sobjects/Contact/0032w000002GFOVAA4"

},

"Id": "0032w000002GFOVAA4",

"FirstName": "John",

"LastName": "Bond",

"Phone": "(312) 596-1000"

}

]

  1. Now let’s us proceed back to method building in ixHello. Click on ‘Create New Method’, and fill out following details in the Create New Method pop up.

Name: GetContactMethod

Request Type: GetSOQLQueryResult

SOQL Query: SELECT Id, Name,Phone FROM Contact WHERE Name='{{ContactName}}'

Result Type: ListOfRecords

Record Limit: 1

Record JsonPath: $.[*]

Empty Result Template: Sorry I could not find phone number for requested name

Record Template: Phone number for {{Name}} is {{Phone}}.

Result Template: {{Records}}

Click: Save

  1. Before moving further, you want to test whether the method build is success and the method is able to extract correct data from Salesforce or not. Click on ‘Test’ to test the created method.

  1. Now, to test the method, let us go back to the Salesforce portal and create a Contact.

Create Intents

  1. In the top menu tabs, select “Intents” and “Create New Intent”. Then select or enter the following:

Fill following details and click on Save

Name: SearchContactIntent

Intent Type: Search

Intent Action: Executive Method

DataSource: Salesforce DataSource

DataSource Method: GetPhoneNumberByName

Create Slots

  1. In next step, we have to create Slots. Slots correspond to the parameters in SOQL query that we defined in the method screen. In the top menu tabs, select “Slots” and select “Create New Slot”.

Fill the following details.

Note: The Reprompt message is what Lex will ask if it can’t fill/resolve the person slot. Then select or enter the following:

Name: ContactName

Slot Order: Blank

Reprompt Message: What is the name

Type: Full name

Custom Skill: Salesforce Custom Skill

Intent: SearchContactIntent

Click: Save

Create Utterance

  1. Utterance are words spoken to launch specific intents. In the top menu tabs, select “Utterance” and select “Create New Utterance”. Now input or select the following:

Value: What is the phone number of {ContactName}

Custom Skill: Salesforce Custom Skill

Intent: SearchContactIntent

Create Input

  1. In the top menu tabs, select “Input” and select “Create New Input”.

Fill the following details:

Name: SearchContactInput

Custom Skill: Salesforce Custom Skill

Custom Intent: SearchContactIntent

Data Source: Salesforce DS

Data Source Method: GetContactMethod

Once the Input is created, click on ManageParameters. You need to follow this step if you have defined Slot.

  1. On the resulting screen, click on Input Parameter and add the following details.

Input Parameter Name: ContactName

Parameter: ContactName

Data Type: Text

Publish to Lex

  1. The next step is to Publish the app. Here, we are going to publish to Amazon Alexa.

  2. To publish to Alexa, select “Publish” in the top menu tabs then click “Add Skill Publishing”. Then input or select the following:

External Skill Name: SalesForce CRM Demo Skill. (This will be the name of the skill in Alexa. Therefore, make it unique and different from the names of your other skills in Alexa.)

Skill Type: Search

Channel: Amazon Lex

Uncheck the following: Require account linking, Auto Publish

Optional: Replace all placeholder values in all “Message”. Uncheck all the settings shown in the second image below.

Click: Save.

  1. In the top menu tabs select “Publish” then click “Publish to Alexa”.

Once in Publish Skill to Amazon Lex select and do the following:

Selected App: Salesforce custom skill

External App Name: SalesForce CRM Demo Skill

Amazon Lex Version: V2

Select Amazon Lex Account:

Select the Lex account setup by your admin or the one you set up in step 4 above.

Click: Publish To Amazon Lex

  1. On the resulting screen, ensure that a success message shows for the publishing steps before clicking “Test Lex”. If success message not shown, click “Go Back to App Publishing” to fix any issue shown in publishing result.

Once clicked on "Test Lex Bot", you will be redirected to App Publishing screen, and the Test Bot will appear at the right corner showing the App name along with the welcome message:

Congratulations!

You have successfully completed building a SalesForce-Custom Skill.

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