Context

When running a Play that prospects new contacts and syncs them to Salesforce, you may notice that some or all of the prospected contacts are not appearing in your Salesforce instance, even though the platform shows them as prospected.

Normal sync timing: Most Salesforce contact syncs complete within 2-10 minutes. However, syncs can take up to 1 hour if there are many new contacts syncing at once or if many fields are changed simultaneously. This delay is expected behavior during high-volume sync operations. If contacts haven't appeared after this timeframe, check for the issues below.

Answer

There are several common reasons why prospected contacts might not sync to Salesforce properly:

1. Mismatched Audience Filters: The most common cause is a mismatch between your audience filters and Salesforce sync settings. If your audience is filtering based on Salesforce data for contacts that don't yet exist in Salesforce, this can prevent the sync.

   Solution: Adjust your audience filters to ensure they don't depend on Salesforce data for new prospects.

2. Playbook Configuration: When creating a new Play to sync existing prospects, make sure to:

   • Turn off prospecting in step 2 of the playbook creation flow if you only want to sync existing contacts

   • Verify that your Salesforce sync step is properly configured

3. Credit Limitations: If you've hit your credit limit, this can impact both prospecting and syncing operations. Monitor your credit usage to ensure you have sufficient credits available.

4. Salesforce Duplicate Detection Rules: Active duplicate detection rules in your Salesforce instance can prevent new accounts from syncing. When Unify attempts to create an account that matches an existing record (via exact or fuzzy name matching), Salesforce blocks the creation, which causes cascading dependency errors for all associated contacts, tasks, and emails.

   Solution: Check your Salesforce duplicate detection rules and merge any duplicate accounts that are blocking syncs. You can identify these by checking Settings > Data > Integrations > Salesforce > Write tab, which shows specific sync failures with error codes and messages such as DUPLICATES_DETECTED errors. The error pages allow you to view error details, update data, and retry the sync, then consolidating the conflicting records in Salesforce so there's one clear match.

5. Missing Required Fields: The platform requires specific fields to be populated for successful syncing due to its deduplication system:

   • Contacts must have an email address

   • Accounts must have both company name and domain fields populated

   Solution: Check that your prospected contacts have email addresses and that any associated accounts have the required company name and domain information filled in.

You can verify if contacts are being synced by:

• Checking the "People Synced" vs "People Prospected" metrics in your Play metrics dashboard

• Looking at individual contact records in the platform to confirm their sync status

• Searching for specific email addresses in Salesforce to verify the sync

If you continue to experience sync issues after checking these items, contact support for further assistance.