Salesforce Marketing Cloud Omnichannel Connector

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder allows you to create communication paths, called journeys, that guide customers through their interaction with your brand. The Omnichannel Connector app, which is available on the Salesforce AppExchange, adds features to your Journey Builder that allow you to automatically send Conversation API template messages (either omni-channel or channel-specific) and incorporate Conversation API callback information into your journey.

There are many aspects of a Marketing Cloud journey, and we encourage you to review the Journey Builder documentation. When using the Omnichannel Connector app, the most relevant components of a Marketing Cloud journey are:

• The entry source of the journey
• The flow control and messaging activities included in the journey.

The entry source establishes the customer information and circumstances that trigger the journey. Messaging activities can automatically send messages to those customers, and flow controls direct the customer along the paths of your communication plan based on the information provided throughout the journey.

The Omnichannel Connector app provides you with an entry source type (and corresponding Data Extension), messaging activity, and flow control activity that allow you to make use of the Conversation APIs functionality in your journey:

• The Omni Entry entry source collects inbound messages from Conversation API callbacks. Including this entry source in your journey allows you to dynamically respond to Mobile Originated (MO) messages. Use this entry source with the Omni Flow flow control.
• The Omni Flow flow control collects Conversation API-specific data from the data sources that precede it on the journey, including the Omni Entry entry source.
• The Omni Channel messaging activity allows you to send both omni-channel and channel-specific template messages on your journey. In addition to selecting which message template to use under which circumstances, you can also configure this activity to populate template parameters dynamically using any data collected throughout the journey.

This article details the steps required to:

• Prepare the tools you need to connect your accounts
• Install the Omnichannel Connector app
• Connect your Salesforce account and Conversation API project to the Omnichannel Connector app
• Use the Omni Channel message activity
• Use the Omni Entry entry source
• Use the Omni Flow flow control
• Troubleshoot your solution

Prerequisites and considerations

In order to successfully integrate your Conversation API project and apps with your Salesforce account, you must ensure that the following prerequisites are met.

Salesforce prerequisites

Ensure that you have are licensed for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud service and have a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Org set up.

Note that, at this time, the Omnichannel Connector app only supports Multi-Step journeys.

Conversation API prerequisites

In order to successfully connect a Conversation API project to a Salesforce account, and use the Omnichannel connector with Marketing Cloud, you must have:

• At least one Conversation API app with at least one configured channel. For information on how to create a Conversation API app and configure a channel on that app, see this Getting started guide .
• At least one omni-channel template or channel-specific template . Templates can be created using the API or the Message Composer functionality of the Sinch Customer Dashboard . Additionally, you may create new omni-channel templates during the configuration of the Omni Channel message activity .

  Note:

  Omnichannel Connector support for the explicit channel message functionality of the Conversation API is currently under development.

• A Conversation API webhook that is configured to deliver information to the Omnichannel Connector app. This requires that you set the appropriate values for Target URL and Triggers .
  • Set the Target URL to https://sfmc-omni-connector.prod.sinch.com/omnientry/webhook
  • Select every webhook trigger available from the Triggers drop-down list.

  Note:

  You can create up to five webhooks per Conversation API app.

Endpoint considerations

The Omnichannel Connector app makes use of several of Sinch's endpoints. These include:

Installing the app

In order to install the Omnichannel Connector app:

1. Navigate to the Salesforce AppExchange.
2. Search for Sinch Omnichannel Connector and double-click the appropriate listing.

   

3. Click Get It Now .

   

4. Populate the form and click Visit Provider . An inquiry that includes the data you provided is sent to Sinch.

   

5. A Sinch account manager will contact you and contract you for the Sinch Omnichannel Connector. Once contracted, the Omnichannel Connector will be added to your Salesforce Marketing Cloud solution.

Connecting your accounts

After you have met the above prerequisites, you are ready to connect your Conversation API account and project to your Salesforce account. This is accomplished by connecting both your Salesforce account and your Conversation API project to the Omnichannel Connector app.

To accomplish both tasks, click the AppExchange tab in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI and select Omnichannel Connector. Then, complete the steps described in the subsections below.

Connecting your Salesforce account

On the Sinch Omnichannel Connector package page, the Connect your Salesforce account to Omnichannel Connector section is displayed. Review the corresponding text and click Connect Salesforce account. This will connect your Salesforce account to the Omnichannel Connector.

Connecting your Conversation API Project

After connecting your Salesforce account, The Connect to Conversation API section is displayed. You must connect your Conversation API project to the Omnichannel Connector. In order to connect your Conversation API project to the Omnichannel connector, you'll need to have the following pieces of information (found on the customer dashboard) readily available:

• Your access key ID
• Your access key secret
• Your project ID

To connect your account, simply enter this information into the corresponding fields. Then, click Connect to Conversation API. You may also disconnect your Conversation API project from the Omnichannel Connector app at any time.

In most cases, will only need to complete the process of connecting your Conversation API project to the Omnichannel Connector once. However, if you wish to connect to another project, or if your connection credentials change, you must disconnect your previous connection and reconnect using your new credentials.

A summary of your configured Conversation API apps, channels, and templates is displayed.

Updating global settings

After connecting your accounts, you may navigate back to the screen on which you configured the connections to update global settings that apply to all Omnichannel Connectory activities across your organization.

To update these global settings:

1. Click the AppExchange tab in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI and select Omnichannel Connector .
2. Navigate to the Global settings panel.

   

3. Configure the settings appropriately for your solution. Note that these settings will apply to all omnichannel Connector activities across your organization.
4. Click Save changes .

Using the Omni Channel message activity

In order to send messages using the Omni Channel message activity in your journey, you must:

1. Add the Omni Channel message activity to the journey itself
2. Configure the Omni Channel message activity

Adding the Omni Channel message activity to your journey

To add the Omni Channel message activity to your Salesforce Journey:

1. Navigate to or create the journey to which you'd like to add the Omni Channel message activity. If you are creating a journey, ensure you select a Multi-Step journey.

   

2. Locate the Omni Channel message activity under the Messages category of the ACTIVITIES section on the left side of the screen.

   

3. Click and drag the Omni Channel message activity to an appropriate space on your journey.

   

After it has been added to your journey, you must configure the Omni Channel message activity.

Configuring the Omni Channel message activity

To configure an Omni Channel message activity that has been included in your journey:

1. Double-click the Omni Channel message activity that is included in your journey. The first page of the Omni Channel message activity configuration wizard is displayed.

   

2. Select the Conversation API app to use with your Journey from the Conversation API App drop-down list.

   

   You may also set the processing mode to dispatch only. Finally, you may set the queue to high priority.

3. A new section, Select and prioritise channels , is displayed. Use the left and right arrow buttons to transfer channels from the Available channels list to the Selected channels list. The Selected channels are the channels the Omnichannel Connector app will use to send messages in this campaign. Use the up and down arrow buttons on the right side of the Selected channels list to determine channel priority.

   

4. When you have completed selecting and prioritising your channels, click Next in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Channel identities page is displayed.
5. The channel identities drop-down lists that are displayed depend on the channels you selected on the previous page. The channel identities represent the recipients of your message(s). For each displayed channel, select the source of the channel identity/recipient (for example, a phone number when using the SMS, WhatsApp, MMS, and/or RCS channels) from the drop-down list.

   Note:

   The options available in these drop-down lists depend on the entry source that precedes the Omni Channel message activity in your journey.

   

   You may also specify what metadata to be included with sent messages. Additionally, you can specify an SMS Sender ID for outbound messages (the default Sender ID configured for your Sinch SMS account will be used if this value is not specified).

6. After you have completed selecting channel identities, click Next in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Setup templates page is displayed.
7. Select either Starting a conversation (if this journey is to be used to initiate conversations with recipients) or Follow up conversation (if this journey is to be used to continue a conversation). Note that some channels require an approved template to start a conversation, whereas follow up conversations allow for the use of a wider variety of templates.

   

8. If you would like specific templates to be used with specific channels (instead of a single template for all channels), select those channels from the Select channel drop-down list and click Add channel . A section representing that channel is added to the bottom of the screen.

   

   Note the following:

   • In addition to omni-channel templates that can be used by any channel of the Conversation API, you are able to configure use channel-specific templates for certain Conversation API channels. These are templates that meet specific requirements defined by the channel itself. In many cases, these templates are used to initiate conversations. If these templates are configured in your Conversation API solution, they will appear in the drop-down list for the corresponding channel.
   • In some cases, channel-specific templates may be required. If so, the corresponding channel will appear at the bottom of the screen, regardless of the channel selections you made from the Select channel drop-downlist.
9. Select the default omni-channel template to use when sending your message from the Select default template drop-down list, or click Create Omnitemplate to create a new template.

   

   Alternatively, depending on the channels you selected earlier in the process, you may also have channel-specific templates you can choose from. These are displayed in their own sections, and may have additional options.

   Note:

   If you selected Starting a conversation and a channel that requires an approved template in order to initiate a conversation, you must select a channel-specific template for that corresponding channel.

   

   In some cases, you also define an explicit payload for the channel-specific template by clicking the coding icon and clicking Open editor.

   

   

   After selecting the template, a preview of how the message will appear on the handset is displayed on the right side of the page.

   

10. Depending on the template you choose, there may be more selections to make. Complete any remaining selections and click Continue setup . This may include configuring variables. Any variables are listed with a corresponding drop-down. For each variable drop-down, select the field from the preceding entry source that will be used to populate the variable.

    

11. After you have completed making your selections, click Next in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Summary page is displayed. First, select how you want your delivery reports and inbound messages to be stored.
    • Select Save in a global bucket to store all content in a single, pre-named data extension ( Omnichannel Connector Delivery Reports for delivery reports and Omnichannel Connector Inbound Messages for inbound messages).
    • Select Save in a journey scoped data extension to store the content in a custom-named data extension associated with this journey. If you select this option, populate the field under the radio button with the name to use for the data extension.
    • After making your selections, click Confirm Data Extensions .

    

    Then, review the rest of your your configuration options. You may optionally send a Test message by selecting the appropriate channel, populating required fields, and clicking Send. This will emulate the Omni Channel message activity's functionality, though the information you provide will be populated by the entry preceding the Omni Channel message activity in your journey in production.

    

12. Once you have reviewed your configuration (and, optionally, sent a test message and validated that the test message was received), click Done in the bottom right of the screen. If there are any issues with your test message, or if you need to update your configuration, use the Back button to navigate through the configuration process and update your selections.

Retrieving delivery reports

After messages are sent on the Conversation API, delivery reports are generated. Data from these delivery reports is transferred to your connected Omnichannel Connector app and stored in a Data Extension called Omni Connector Delivery Reports. This Data Extension includes the following fields (any corresponding Conversation API delivery report fields are noted in the table):

You may export this data to process it externally. You may also use the Omni Flow flow control to configure your journey to respond to the status of the delivery report.

Using the Omni Entry entry source

The Omnichannel Connector app provides you access to the Omni Entry entry souce, which is a type of Event entry source, that you can use in your journey.

This entry source listens for mobile originated (MO) messages delivered with webhooks associated with your Conversation API solution. This information is stored in an automatically created Data Extension that is associated with the Omni Entry source. You are then able to use that information to trigger your Journey and propagate information throughout it.

Note the following:

• In order for the Omnichannel Connector app to successfully collect information from Conversation API callbacks, you must ensure that you have configured a webhook that connects with the Omnichannel Connector app. See the Conversation API prerequisites section for more information.
• When configuring the Omni Entry within an Event entry source, you will select a journey for it to listen to. The Omni Entry entry source will collect MO messages sent in response to the messages sent during the that journey.
• The Data Extensions that are automtically created by the Omni Entry Event are accessible outside of the journey. You can export the data (that is, the MO messages) contained in this Data Extension for external processing.

The table below details how the fields in these automatically created Data Extensions are mapped to the corresponding Conversation API fields:

To successfully include the Omni Entry entry source in your journey, you must:

1. Add the Event entry source to the journey itself
2. Configure the Omni Entry entry source

Additionally, it is considered a best practice to the include an Omni Flow flow control immediately after the Omni Entry entry source. This allows you to direct the path of the journey based on keywords extracted from an MO sent by your end-users. See Using the Omni Flow flow control section for more information.

Adding the Event entry source to your journey

To add the Omni Entry entry source to your Salesforce Journey:

1. Navigate to or create the journey to which you'd like to add the Omni Entry entry source. If you are creating a journey, ensure you select a Multi-Step journey.

   

2. Locate the Event entry source under the ENTRY SOURCES category on the left side of the screen.

   

3. Click and drag the Event entry source to the entry source space on your journey.

   

After it has been added to your journey, you must configure the Omni Entry entry source.

Configuring the Omni Entry entry source

To configure the Omni Entry entry source:

1. Double-click the Event entry source that is included in your journey.

   

2. Select the Omni Entry Event type to continue the configuration.

   

   Click Next.

3. The CONFIGURE EVENT page is displayed. Select the journey to which this entry source wil listen from the Journey drop-down list. The MO messages sent in respones to the selected journey will be used to populate an automatically created Data Extension.

   

   Click Next.

4. The SUMMARY page is displayed. Confirm that you have made the correct journey selection and click Done . Alternatively, if you'd like to select a different journey, click the Back button and make a new selection.

Understanding default entry sources

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder provides you with a number of default entry sources that you can use in your Journey. When configuring Journeys that make use of the Sinch Omnichannel Connector, you will likely most often use the Data Extension entry source. This is a flexible data structure that allows you to create, modify, and update rows of information that can then be used throughout the journey.

In addition to Data Extensions, you may also use Events, API Events, and Salesforce Data as an entry source. API Events allow you to extract data from API calls that can be used to initiate, and propagate information throughout, your journey. While the information provided by the API Call entry source is ultimately stored in a Data Extension structure, it differs from the Data Extension entry source in that the journey only processes the information included in the API call itself, not all of the entries in the Data Source in which the information is recorded.

Using the Omni Flow flow control

The Omni Flow flow control allows you to extract information from prior sources on the journey (including information extracted from the Omni Channel message activity and MO messages retrieved by the Omni Entry entry source) and use it to split your journey and populate fields in subsequent activities. To successfully include the Omni Flow flow control in your journey, you must:

1. Add the Omni Flow flow control to the journey itself
2. Configure the Omni Flow flow control

Adding the Omni Flow flow control to your journey

To add the Omni Flow flow control to your Salesforce Journey:

1. Navigate to or create the journey to which you'd like to add the Omni Flow flow control.If you are creating a journey, ensure you select a Multi-Step journey.

   

2. Locate the Omni Flow flow control under the Flow Control category of the ACTIVITIES section on the left side of the screen.

   

3. Click and drag the Omnichannel flow control to the appropriate space on your journey. It must be placed directly after an Omni Entry entry source (if it is to process information extracted from MO messages delivered in response to messages sent on another journey) or a combination of an Omni Channel messaging activity and a Wait Until Event control (if it is to extract responses/information from the Omni Channel activity).

   

After it has been added to your journey, you must configure the Omni Flow flow control.

Configuring the Omni Flow flow control

To configure the Omni Flow flow control in your Salesforce Journey:

1. Double-click the Omni Flow flow control that is included in your journey. The first page of the Omni Flow flow control configuration wizard is displayed.

   

2. Select whether you want to split the flow of your journey By keyword or By delivery status .

   

3. Add your first path, which should be different than the Default path . Click Add path .

   

4. Define either a keyword (or keywords) or a delivery status (or statuses) to associate with this path, depending on the selection you made in the previous step. First, populate the field, then click Add keyword or Add delivery status .

   

5. Add as many additional paths (with unique keywords or delivery statuses) as your solution requires by using the same method in the previous step.

   Note:

   To rename a path, click the pencil icon and enter the new name into the editable field.

   

6. When you are done adding paths, click Done .

A note on Wait Until Event

As discussed in previous sections, you may include an Omni Flow flow control directly after a combination of a Omni Channel activity and a Wait Until Event control.

In order for this configuration to function properly, you must configure the Wait Until Event control to listen for the API event that is automatically created by the Omni Channel activity. This will provide the subsequent Omni Flow control with the appropriate pieces of data that will allow it to direct the path based on status or keywords.

Troubleshooting and analytics

If you encounter unexpected behavior or results while using the Omnichannel Connector app, you can follow the troubleshooting steps described below or review analytic information for your Conversation API solution.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues while using the Omnichannel Connector app, there are you may troubleshoot your solution by completing the following steps in order:

1. Retry the action (for example, sending a message). Your solution may have encountered a temporary error that may resolve itself as circumstances change. For example, if an automatic contact management operation interferes with a send message request, the same request may succeed on a subsequent attempt.
2. Review the steps described in this article on troubleshooting the Conversation API . Your Omnichannel Connector app is directly connected to a Conversation API app, and resolving issues with your Conversation API solution overall will likely resolve any issues you encounter with your corresponding Omnichannel Connector app.

Viewing analytics

You can view analytic information about your Conversation API solution, including message delivery data, Monthly Active Users (MAU), conversation data, channel statistics, and more on the Sinch Customer Dashboard.

FAQs

Where will the Sinch Omnichannel Connector data be hosted?

For the initial release, the Omnichannel Connector data will be hosted in the Sinch AWS EU region. In the future, we will expand the hosting to other regions.

What is the support process when using Omnichannel Connector?

The support process is the same as the process for the Conversation API. You may submit a ticket to the Sinch 24x7 team, and they will triage the case. If they cannot resolve it, then the case will be escalated to Sinch tier-2 support and eventually to Sinch Dev team members.

Is the Sinch Omnichannel Connector GDPR compliant?

Yes.

Is the Sinch Omnichannel Connector LGPD compliant (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados; aka: Brazilian General Data Protection Law)?

Yes.

I am an ASP client. Is Omnichannel Connector suited for me?

Yes, ASP clients can use the Omnichannel Connector app in their solution(s).

What is the expected throughput when sending outbound traffic using the Omnichannel Connector?

The maximum speed of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud's Journey Builder is 50 TPS (when using the custom activities). The Sinch Omnichannel Connector supports this throughput level.