How enterprises can leverage Salesforce as part of an ECM platform

From a functional and business perspective, there are two cross-cutting topics to consider when connecting information systems via an ECM interface.

1. Information collection and archiving
   How do I access data and how do I safeguard data integrity across all of my systems?
   
   
2. Information publication
   How is the collected information made available to my users? Where does information appear and in which form? How does the user access it?

Ultimately the goal is to have a single point of truth, but also to facilitate easy access for users to the right information at the right time.

Data and information access

Maintaining data security is a hugely important factor for companies. Who needs access to which documents? Where do these documents need to be stored? The type of permission is important, since not every user is authorized to work on documents and master data, much less delete them.  

Filing documents in Windows Explorer is a particular source of frustration for admins, who quickly reach the limitations of the Windows access control system. User management, too, is another important area of effective access management.

Heterogeneous system landscapes

The number of information systems used in business is steadily growing. The pandemic was a major catalyst for the digital transformation and led to many companies upgrading their collaboration tools—in turn increasing the number of potential information sources.  

For example, the enterprise resource planning system (ERP) handles merchandise management, while customers are managed via a CRM platform and people work collaboratively using SharePoint. This gives rise to monolithic solutions in individual departments, which are often entirely independent from the rest of the company. They contain information that is all but inaccessible to everyone except a small user group, meaning the company unlocks a mere fraction of the solution’s full potential.

Lack of transparency

Heterogeneous system landscapes can be incredibly advantageous in individual fields, but the flip side of this is a lack of transparency. Most business processes extend over several areas and thus beyond system boundaries.  

The result: transaction-relevant information can end up being located in another data silo, away from where it is needed. This lack of transparency directly affects quality, for example in customer-facing areas, sales or service. It can quickly impact on external perception of a company.

Data integrity

All of the above poses one key question: How do you consolidate these data silos? The standout concept here is the ECM platform as the single point of truth for company information. But for it to work, the contents of the individual data silos need to be connected.  

Regardless of whether the data is consolidated, migrated or integrated—data integrity has top priority at every step. Maintaining the validity and veracity of data is both extremely important from a technological standpoint and essential to safeguard compliance with GDPR and other regulations.

So how do we tear down the data silo in Salesforce and make information from Salesforce available in other workflows while also making data from other systems available in Salesforce?

It’s possible with the Doxis ECM system. Doxis acts as an intermediary, capturing all information created in Salesforce and peripheral systems and making the information available via a Salesforce integration.

Automated customer eFile creation

A new account is created in Salesforce and documents are saved to the account using the integrated file storage function. The interface (Smartbridge for Salesforce) sends the documents to the ECM system, which automatically creates a corresponding customer eFile where it archives the documents coming from Salesforce.

Assuming there is also a similar interface to Teams, with a corresponding Teams channel connected to Doxis, then these documents automatically arrive in the defined customer eFile, too.  

This means the files saved in Salesforce and Teams are now stored in a central repository in Doxis. Even better, you can avoid redundancy by only saving data in the ECM system and no longer in the local systems (in this case Salesforce and Teams).

Direct access from Salesforce

The next step is to publish the data archived in the ECM system, i.e. make it available in peripheral systems. Rather than replicating the data back in the other direction, data is displayed in Salesforce via a Doxis web client iFrame integration. A parameterized URL additionally enables the direct creation of a link to the active object (the account in our example), so the user immediately sees the relevant information from the ECM platform.

The big advantage is that the user is shown not only the original information from Salesforce, but also data from other connected systems, such as Teams or ERP systems. And it does all this without needing a direct interface from the other systems to Salesforce. All communication takes place via Doxis.

Because this integration both displays the searched object from the ECM system in Salesforce via a viewer component and integrates the Doxis web client, it radically extends the scope of functions—opening up access to the standard set of DMS functionalities.

The specifics:

• Comprehensive versioning or audit trails significantly improve document traceability.
• Access to the entire spectrum of processes.
• Easier administration, with individual document permissions defined in Doxis and forwarded to Salesforce via the client integration.

The result: all users across all source systems always see the same information, guaranteed. Salesforce is transformed into an ECM platform.

360° view of customers, with or without Salesforce access

Ideally, information arriving in the ECM system is not limited to Salesforce but will also come from other peripheral systems such as the ERP platform. It makes the entire customer process—from initial contact to billing—documented and transparent. All employees can now access all relevant information, no matter which system they use or whether they have access to Salesforce.

Faster customer & service processes

Integration enables end-to-end process mapping across multiple systems and without switching media. The result: documents are displayed in the right place and time, like when a customer calls the service team, the team can directly see the customer history. If it relates to a certain service, the team also sees the service specification and all information from Doxis in context. The benefits are twofold: it improves transparency for the service team and enhances service quality for the customer.

DMS functionality in Salesforce

We mentioned above how the entire ECM web client is integrated. This enables users to access not only individual documents, but also the functionalities of the DMS system. Information is clearly and hierarchically displayed in a folder structure. Users can add annotations and version documents as they need. And with Doxis’ powerful inbuilt process engine, it can map everything from simple ad hoc workflows to complex processes.

Audit security

Documents are now no longer stored in Salesforce, but in the ECM system’s digital archive, where they are covered by all mechanisms designed to safeguard audit security. For instance, archiving rules define how long a document must be retained before it can be deleted and who has access, while deletion rules ensure that a document is destroyed after a certain period of time. If required, data can additionally be written to external storage media with, e.g., WORM technology.

Tips on Salesforce and ECM integration

Salesforce is great for managing customer relationships, but it gets even better when paired with an ECM system. Instead of working in separate silos, the two complement each other, making information easier to find and use. ECM acts as the central hub, keeping documents and data organized while Salesforce stays focused on customer interactions. With everything connected, employees spend less time searching and more time getting things done. Bringing Salesforce into a company-wide ECM platform turns scattered information into a well-oiled machine.

FAQs about Salesforce integration