Growing with Drupal and Salesforce, Kirsten Sims, Cradles to Crayons

1. Growing with Drupal
and Salesforce

2. Mission & Model
! We take in new and nearly new children's items
through community collections
! Volunteers process and package these items into
highly tailored KidPacks®
! KidPacks® are distributed to children in need through
a collaborative network of social service agencies and
school partners
www.cradlestocrayons.org/about/mission-model
Cradles to Crayons
provides children from
birth through age 12, living
in homeless or low-income
situations, with the
essential items they need
to thrive - at home, at
school and at play. We
supply these items free of
charge by engaging and
connecting communities
that have with
communities that need.

3. Where We Were
Challenges
! Volunteer registration process is long and arduous, especially for
larger groups
○ Much of the volunteer process was handled via simple
forms/email/spreadsheet
○ No integration with CMS/Salesforce
○ Large groups were difficult to track and manage
! Collecting Donations and tracking specific fundraising
campaigns was difficult/non-existent
○ Tracking email/fundraising campaign effectiveness was
cumbersome and not entirely consistent
○ We needed to manually link the donations that were
flowing through our website with Salesforce
Opportunity
! Leverage Drupal & Salesforce in an effort to streamline our
donation and volunteering process to better scale our model.

4. Understanding our Business Processes
VOLUNTEERS
• Volunteer Group Scheduling
• Volunteer Visits & Registrations
• Recognize Volunteers for Service
• Categorize and Group Visits
• Automate registration/sign in process
ENGAGED DONORS
• Track and Acknowledge Gifts
• Recognize highly engaged Donors
• Forecast and track against goals
• Plan and manage marketing events
PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
• Give Partners a tool to place Orders
• Collect Partner Program/Org Info
• Recognize highly engaged partners
• Process orders quickly and efficiently
• Better understand and meet growing
demand
COMMUNITIES OF PLENTY
• Track Product Donation Channels
• Quickly Recognize Product Donors
• Manage Drives and Collection Initiatives
• Manage Product in the Giving Factory

5. Enter: Drupal & Salesforce
! We knew we needed to streamline and
centralize access to information enterprise-
wide.
! Drupal provides the front end CMS that
allows us to put some of the day-to-day data
entry tasks in the hands of our constituents.
! We can create custom landing pages/
donation pages on our website to collect
donations.
! The Salesforce Suite is the magic sauce that
allows us to map fields in Drupal to fields in
Salesforce.
! Salesforce provides the office-facing
management/reporting tool for staff.

6. How Does it Work?
! 2-way Data Sync: Drupal does all the heavy lifting to make sure Salesforce and Drupal stay in
sync.
! Drupal periodically polls Salesforce for changes in either database and syncs those changes.
For Example:
○ Salesforce Contact = Drupal User
○ Salesforce Campaigns = Drupal Webform Campaigns
○ Salesforce Volunteer Visits = Drupal Volunteer Visits
! End Result: We can move Salesforce data to website visitors/users and we allow them to
input data that finds it’s way into Salesforce.
Guest/User
enters data into
Drupal
Drupal periodically
syncs changes w/
Salesforce
Changes in Salesforce are
reflected in Drupal as well
Staff view/edit data and
the site realizes the
changes

7. DONATION CAMPAIGN (DRUPAL) CAMPAIGN DETAIL PAGE (SALESFORCE)
Donations through the landing page are
processed via PayPal and then non-
transactional information flows into Salesforce.
Where We Are

8. Donation Campaigns/Forms
! When constituents make online donations via a Webform Campaign or the General Donation form,
the payment is processed via PayPal and Drupal creates a Closed/Won Opportunity record with
donor information in Salesforce.
! If the donation is made to a Webform Campaign (i.e. landing page), Drupal relates the donation to
the appropriate campaign in Salesforce.
! Website visitors/users must select their Cradles location which impacts how the data is recorded in
Drupal and Salesforce.

9. Volunteering Through Drupal
DRUPAL FORM
SALESFORCE DETAIL
Volunteers Inquire through our website and
the information is then synced with a
corresponding Volunteer Visit in Salesforce

10. Volunteering Through Drupal (cont…)
! Volunteers can pre-register for visits by pasting a code we give them into a special
form on our website - this code then relates all registrations to a particular visit both
in Drupal and in Salesforce
! Allows us to quickly register large groups without manual data entry - group leaders
can share the code with all the registrants, and everyone gets registered
! Ensures data entry is consistent through basic form validation and controls

11. Other Drupal-Salesforce Perks
● Once they give or register to volunteer, users can log in and donate
without re-typing their contact information.
● Users can also manually update their own contact information via
our website.
● When we update contact information in Salesforce the User's
Drupal account reflects the information as well.
● We’ve effectively opened some of our daily data management tasks
to our constituents.
● Our content management system has direct access to Salesforce
data.
Benefits of Drupal
Flexibility: Drupal can
handle many of our
business requirements in
terms of content
management strategy and
has the tools to also
handle e-commerce, social
features, wikis, photos and
more.
Connections: Drupal can
connect any data directly
to Salesforce objects.

12. Some Not-So-Great Things
● Data management in Salesforce has a direct impact on your website.
Large Salesforce operations can create backlogs in the sync process
between Salesforce and Drupal - this can be mitigated, but should be
considered
● Duplicates: Email is our identifier - so if a person uses two different emails
to register or donate, we get duplicate contacts in Salesforce and Drupal
● Standardization: you have fewer tools to enforce data standardization on
a public site than you do in Salesforce.
● Development & Learning Curve: Drupal has a higher learning curve (but
is also more flexible) than other CMS’s – also much of the connection
requries custom development and ongoing support.

13. Where We’re Going
With loads of rich, accurate data - we can begin
utilizing business intelligence tools to gain deeper
insights and turn toward engagement and
projection reporting.
Reassess some of our older systems and tools in
an effort to streamline where possible by utilizing
AppExchange apps and/or new Drupal &
Salesforce Platform features - with a clear focus
on digital communities and engagement.
Grow to new markets and bring new locations (and
users) online. Additionally, build systems to
engage with organizations across multiple
markets.