Salesforce Pipeline Integration Setup & Troubleshooting

Before you begin

In order to successfully connect Salesforce to GovDash, you must be a Salesforce administrator, and a GovDash administrator. This is required in order to grant GovDash permission to access your Salesforce.

Connecting Salesforce

To connect Salesforce to GovDash:

1. Access the Salesforce Integration page in GovDash.

2. Click Connect Salesforce on the right hand side.

3. Login to your Salesforce account that you want to connect to GovDash.

4. Salesforce will process the connection, and bring you back to GovDash for configuration.

Initial Configuration and Sync Settings

GovDash provides multiple options for syncing your Salesforce opportunities into your GovDash Pipeline. You can configure your Salesforce connection and sync settings on the Capture Settings page, located within your GovDash Settings.

Create Only Sync

This setting will only create opportunities in GovDash from your Salesforce pipeline, it will not overwrite any of your opportunities within GovDash.

Override Sync

This setting will move your opportunities within GovDash to the stage that they are currently set to within Salesforce, based on your linked/mapped phases. This option is useful for teams where Salesforce will be your source of truth, and you want GovDash to stay in sync with changes made in Salesforce.

Bidirectional Salesforce Sync (Webhooks)

GovDash supports bidirectional sync to Salesforce through webhooks. This will allow GovDash to communicate opportunity creation, deletion, and updates directly to your Salesforce pipeline. For more information on how to configure this integration, please see our support article here.

Syncing Opportunities

The Salesforce integration offers multiple sync options depending on your needs.

One Time Sync

You can perform a one time sync by selecting the Sync Salesforce Opportunities button on the right hand side. You will then be prompted to map your phases from Salesforce to GovDash, and GovDash will process your sync and let you know once the sync has been successful.

This sync is preferred if you only wish to bring your opportunities over and not keep your Salesforce phases in sync with GovDash.

Automating Sync

This setting allows you to automatically sync your Salesforce opportunities using your set sync setting. This can be enabled by selecting the checkbox under the Phases heading after linking your phases. The automatic sync will run every 30 minutes and respect the Sync Settings selection you’ve made.

Linking Phases

If you would like to have Salesforce be your source of truth and sync your phases and opportunities to GovDash, select the Link Phases button under the Phases heading.

GovDash will prompt you to map your phases from GovDash to your phases within Salesforce.

You will then be prompted to select any additional phases within Salesforce that you'd like to link to GovDash.

You may rearrange your phases and choose color options in this step, or at any time from the Capture Settings in GovDash.

If you'd like to link your phases and sync your opportunities, select Link Phases & Sync Opportunities, otherwise select Link Phases to only link your phases to GovDash without a sync.

Tracking/Mapping Salesforce Fields

Before You Begin…

We highly recommend creating your custom fields within GovDash before attempting to map your Salesforce fields. Please check our support article here for guidance.

Using the Track Field button, you can map additional Salesforce fields to GovDash, such as due dates, descriptions, NAICS codes, opportunity values, and more.

Select your GovDash Opportunity Field and Salesforce Object, and then choose your field that you’d like to map from Salesforce → GovDash using the Salesforce Field drop down.

Salesforce Object/Table Support

We currently only support the Opportunity table in Salesforce, but this may change in future updates.

This will link the fields together, which will sync the data within the opportunity’s fields on your next successful sync.

Custom fields that you’ve created in GovDash can be mapped to your Salesforce fields as well!

What Happens When Fields Don’t Match?

If you are trying to map fields that do not contain the same data between GovDash and Salesforce (such as a NAICS selector that doesn’t have the same code layout/description, or Agency list that spells agency names out differently) and a sync is attempted, GovDash will show null within that field in your Pipeline opportunity Overview tab.

We recommend utilizing Custom Fields within GovDash for these types of fields, which you can map and ensure that the options match between GovDash and Salesforce, which is especially useful for pick lists.

Unsupported Custom Field Types

Currently there are four unsupported custom field types for mapping to Salesforce. We are working to support these as soon as possible:

• Number Range

• Currency Range

• Date Range

• Multi-Select

• Direct Support for Lookup Fields (See Mapping Lookup Fields to GovDash Section for our recommended solution)

Linking Existing GovDash Opportunities to Salesforce Opportunities

If you have the same opportunities in your GovDash Pipeline already within Salesforce and you’re setting up the integration, you can link these opportunities together through field and ID mapping using the steps below. This ensures that when Salesforce is synced to GovDash, it is able to identify your opportunities within your GovDash Pipeline and update the existing opportunities without creating new ones.

Note

This will not update opportunities from GovDash → Salesforce without setting up webhooks. Webhooks must be configured before information can be sent out of GovDash to Salesforce. For information on configuring webhooks, please see our guide here.

1. On the Salesforce side, your team will need to create a new field/column titled GovDash_Opportunity_ID. This field will contain the opportunity ID from within GovDash, which will be used to "match" the opportunities upon import/sync to GovDash.

2. For any opportunities that exist between both systems, using this GovDash_Opportunity_ID field, enter the opportunity ID of the opportunity within GovDash (found within the URL bar when you're in the opportunity) into the Salesforce side/version.

3. When configuring the Salesforce integration in GovDash and mapping the fields, ensure that the GovDash Opportunity ID field is mapped to the External CRM Identifier ID.

4. Initialize the opportunity sync with the Override option. By mapping these fields ahead of time, this ensures that Salesforce has the GovDash ID mapped, which will update the GovDash opportunities with the Salesforce data.

Mapping Lookup Fields to GovDash

While the integration doesn’t directly support lookup fields (as these fields in Salesforce reference an ID rather than a readable value), you can use the steps below to create a field that extracts the value from the lookup field into a value that is readable (and mappable) to GovDash, while keeping the two fields completely in sync.

Creating and Mapping Lookup Field Steps

Before you start: how lookup field naming works

Salesforce uses two different naming patterns for lookup fields, and the formula syntax differs slightly between them. Identifying which one you're working with up front will save time.

Field type	API name pattern	Formula reference pattern
Custom lookup	FieldName__c	FieldName__r.Name
Standard lookup	FieldNameId	FieldName.Name
User lookup (standard)	OwnerId, CreatedById	Owner.Name, CreatedBy.Name

In short:

• For custom lookup fields, replace __c with __r to traverse the relationship.

• For standard lookup fields, drop the Id suffix. There is no __r involved.

Step 1: Find your lookup field's API name

1. Go to Setup.

2. Go to Object Manager.

3. Click Opportunity

4. Click Fields & Relationships.

5. Under the Data Type column, find the field with the Lookup data type.

6. Click the field name to open its detail page and copy the Field Name (API name) exactly as shown.

How to recognize which pattern you have:

• Ends in __c → custom lookup (e.g., Vehicle__c, Partner__c).

• Ends in Id with no underscores → standard lookup (e.g., AccountId, OwnerId).

Step 2: Confirm the lookup object

On the same field detail page, find the Related To value. This tells you what object the lookup points to and which fields are available to reference. For most lookups, the Name field on the related record is what you want to surface.

Step 3: Create the Formula (Text) field

1. While still in the object's Fields & Relationships page, click New.

2. Select Formula and click Next.

3. Enter a Field Label and Field Name.

4. Set Return Type to Text and click Next.

Step 4: Apply the formula

Custom lookup fields

Replace __c with __r and append .Name (or another field on the related object).

Lookup field API name	Formula
Vehicle__c	Vehicle__r.Name
Agency_Description__c	Agency_Description__r.Name
Partner__c	Partner__r.Name

Standard lookup fields

Drop the Id suffix and append the field you want from the related record. These are the most common standard lookups on the Opportunity object.

Standard lookup	API name	Formula
Account	AccountId	Account.Name
Primary Campaign Source	CampaignId	Campaign.Name
Record Type	RecordTypeId	RecordType.Name
Price Book	Pricebook2Id	Pricebook2.Name

User-based fields (Owner, Created By, Last Modified By)

User lookups don't expose a single Name field, so you typically concatenate first and last name using the & operator. The same patterns apply to CreatedBy and LastModifiedBy.

Goal	Formula
Full name	Owner.FirstName & " " & Owner.LastName
Email	Owner.Email
Username	Owner.Username

Step 5: Validate and save

11. Click Check Syntax. You should see No errors.

12. Click Next.

13. Set Field-Level Security if needed.

14. Add the field to your page layout.

15. Save.

Once saved, the new Formula (Text) field will be available to map in the GovDash Salesforce integration alongside your other Opportunity fields.

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Step 6: Map the Field in GovDash

1. Navigate to Capture Settings in Settings

2. Create the corresponding custom field for your new formula fields

3. Click Track Field, select your GovDash field, and then the new Salesforce formula field, and then Confirm to save.

4. On your next sync (whether manual or automatic, depending on your settings), the new formula field data will sync showing the actual value of that lookup field, rather than the key.

Disconnecting Salesforce

To disconnect your Salesforce account, select the Disconnect Salesforce Account button above the Sync Settings.

Troubleshooting