top of page

My Portfolio / DocumentationSalesforce integration

Updating important integration documentation

Aim: Improve the customer experience of Pendo's integration with Salesforce by enhancing the product documentation in terms of structure, completeness, and clarity.

​

Problem

 

The most commonly used integration with Pendo was Salesforce. â€‹The integration was also one of the most complicated, the documentation for which was identified by customer-facing teams as an area for improvement. I wanted to improve the accessibility, clarity, and effectiveness of the information presented to customers about the integration in our Knowledge Base, both with the content itself and how that content was structured and presented.

Process

1. Information gathering


First, I read the existing Salesforce integration articles and watched relevant videos in Pendo Academy. From these, I identified areas where additional clarity or supplementary documentation was necessary.
 

I then contacted the Senior Customer Success (CS) Engineer who had created the Pendo Academy videos to ask questions and to learn about the key problems and sources of confusion customers faced with the integration. Some of the main sources of confusion included:​

​

  • The difference between setting up a connection and setting up a push/pull data sync.

  • The order of key activities.

  • How to choose unique identifiers.

  • How to verify that the integration was working.

  • How to troubleshoot common problems.

​

2. Content refinement

​

I started by tidying up the existing Salesforce documentation according to style guidelines, and then began collaborating in Google Docs to work with the Senior CS Engineer asynchronously since we were in different time zones. I asked questions in the Google Doc and set up regular meetings to work through questions, fill gaps in content, and seek feedback on my drafts.​

​

Collaboration in Google Docs

​

I wanted to restructure the content for better flow and comprehension, and so I divided and ordered the content into informational, instructional, and troubleshooting content, followed by more specific use case articles. For findability and context, these articles were organised into their own section in the Integrations category of the Knowledge Base.​

 

Each article underwent meticulous editing and review to ensure clarity, conciseness, accuracy, relevance, and effectiveness. â€‹

Outcomes


I divided and ordered the content into distinct articles:

​

  • Informational. I created an overview article for helping customers understand how the integration worked. It included clarification of key terminology, relevant use cases, and diagrams that I created to explain the abstract processes involved and to aid understanding of the integration workflow.

  • Instructional. I created an article for step-by-step guidance that detailed how to set up the integration. The article included annotated screenshots, important clarifications that were previously missing from the documentation, and links to the informational content.

  • Advanced configuration. Following feedback from the Senior CS Engineer, I created a separate article for instructions on how to connect more than one Salesforce object to Pendo.

  • Troubleshooting. I consolidated common issues and resolutions into a single resource. Some of this content had existed at the end of old articles, some belonged to their own articles, and some were not yet written. To help with confusing overlaps in terminology (for example, "mapping" is used to describe both the initial connection for the integration and for setting up a data sync after the connection is made), issues were grouped and ordered according to core activities in the setup process. This matched what was outlined in the overview article and signposted in the setup article: initial connection, setting up a pull, and setting up a push.

​

Next, I rewrote and moved use case articles ("recipes") from "Best practices" and placed them underneath the four main articles outlined above. This was to ensure that all articles related to the core integration were found together, in a logical order: overview, setup, advanced setup, troubleshooting, and then ways of utilising the integration for specific activities.

 

As a result of this work:

​

  • We decided to link to Pendo Academy videos from relevant articles. This was not just for the Salesforce integration, but for all Pendo Academy videos. 

  • The Product Manager requested diagrams for the HubSpot integration that were similar to the custom diagrams I created for the overview of the Salesforce integration.​

Screenshot 2024-05-12 at 17.09.40.png
Screenshot 2024-05-12 at 17.09.30.png

Challenges and learnings

 

The existing Salesforce integration articles were lengthy and convoluted, and yet still missed important steps and context, which took time to make sense of and put together in a complete and logical order.​ I also couldn't set up the integration for myself to see and test how it worked, and so I relied on close working relationships with the Senior CS Engineer and Product Manager for clarification. Working with these team members was an effective and rewarding experience.

​

  • Spotify
  • YouTube
  • SoundCloud
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Flickr

©2023 by Dr Jeunese Adrienne Payne

bottom of page