Integration Design
Part of Marketing technology integration design
Mapping data flows before connecting tools
Map records, fields, triggers, corrections and failures before connecting marketing tools.
Map one record from the action that creates it through every system that reads, changes or acts on it. Before configuring a connector, show what moves, what can change later, and where an incorrect value could affect a person or decision.
Draw the current path
Choose a task with a clear start and finish. For a hypothetical enquiry, draw the form, validation step, customer system, sales assignment and marketing suppression check. Use a box for each system or manual step, and an arrow for each transfer. Label each arrow with its trigger: submission, scheduled import, manual upload or later update.
Ask the people doing the work what they actually see. A diagram based only on application names can miss a spreadsheet, a manual correction or a queue of rejected records. Mark unknown paths for investigation.
Add a field-level sheet
For each arrow, record the information needed to configure and check it:
| Field | Question |
|---|---|
| Record and identifier | What moves, and how does the destination find a match? |
| Definition | What does each value mean at this point? |
| Direction and trigger | Which change sends it, and can the destination write back? |
| Timing | When must the recipient be able to rely on it? |
| Transformation | Is it renamed, reformatted, combined or filtered? |
| Exception and owner | What happens if it is blank, rejected or corrected, and who resolves that? |
Suppose campaign_source comes from a form, but marketing later corrects it. Show whether the correction replaces the destination's earlier value. If both systems can edit the field, flag the conflict for an agreed rule. A two-way arrow does not settle which value should win.
Trace changes, history and failure
Follow the same record through creation, correction and an unavailable destination. Ask how the transfer resumes and whether a retry could create a duplicate. Show what happens to a blank or deleted value.
HubSpot's Salesforce mapping documentation names “Prefer Salesforce unless blank” as a sync rule option. It also mentions a “Don't sync” setting in a duplicate-mapping warning. Check the available rules and their effects for the proposed field.
Give historical records their own path on the map. Record whether the proposed route needs an import, resync, later trigger or deliberate exclusion, and who checks the result.
Sync Rules in HubSpot-Salesforce Integration
- Prefer Salesforce unless blank
- Salesforce value takes precedence if not empty; otherwise, HubSpot value is used
- Don't sync
- Field is excluded from sync, preventing updates between systems
- Bidirectional sync
- Both systems can update the field; conflict resolution must be agreed upon
Mark the information boundary
Identify arrows carrying personal information and destinations that use it for marketing. Where the Australian Privacy Principles apply, the organisation's privacy owner should assess the actual collection, use and disclosure. Show how a correction or opt-out reaches systems that may still act on an old value.
The map is ready for configuration when both system owners can explain the normal path, a correction and a failure without guessing. Keep the diagram and field sheet together, and update them when a field or destination changes.
