Attribution for Salesforce Users

See an accurate and complete rollup of your partner program's impact on your bottom line and report back to your Salesforce instance

Matthew Schultheiss avatar
Written by Matthew Schultheiss
Updated over a week ago

Intro

Consolidate your attribution activities into a single source of truth. Using this data, you can make more revenue-backed decisions on which partners to prioritize and get executive buy-in from your C-Suite and GTM teams.

🧪 This feature is available on the Supernode tier, click here to explore plan options.

In this article:

Set Up

To enjoy the full functionality of this feature, several fields from the Salesforce Opportunity object are required. These fields can quickly be selected by navigating to the Data Sources page and choosing the "Co-Sell" data preset on the left side panel:

screenshot in Crossbeam higlighting Co Selling fields

The requisite fields are:

  • Name

  • Sales Stage

  • Amount

  • Closed

    • Depending on your SFDC instance could be Is Closed

  • Won

    • Depending on your SFDC instance could be Is Won

  • Open Date

  • Close Date


✍️ Reminder

Syncing data from Salesforce into Crossbeam does not automatically share the data with partners! Syncing the data allows you and your team to enjoy features and functionality within the app. Sharing any data with partners is completely optional.


Attributing Partners

From the left-side Navigation Menu, click on the Attribute icon. This will open the Attribution workspace.

screenshot in Crossbeam highlighting the attribution workspace

At the top of your Attribution hub, you'll see your Closing Soon opportunities. Any opportunity that has a close date in the next 30 days will appear in this carousel.

screenshot in Crossbeam highlighting the closing soon opportunities

Below Closing Soon, you will find All Opportunities. These are inclusive of all the opportunities Crossbeam has synced. You can filter by Open, Closed, Date Range, and Amount Range to surface the opportunities you're looking for.

screenshot in Crossbeam of all opportunities filters

Adding a Partner to an Opportunity

To attribute a partner to an opportunity, you have two options. You can click the Add Attribution button from your Closing Soon opportunities. Or you can click on a row within the All Opportunities section.

Clicking into an opportunity will bring up a drawer that shows you information about, as well as links to the associated Opportunity. If you have partners that overlapped with the opportunity, we automatically recommend them to you. If you don't see the partner you wish to attribute, you can search and add directly in the Select Partner bar.

Once you have the partners you wish to attribute, you can toggle between Sourced and Influenced for each partner.

Note that only one partner can be added as Sourced for any given opportunity, but multiple partners can be added as Influenced.

Gif in Crossbeam showing steps to add partner to opportunity

After you have added your partners to the opportunity, select Save and your metrics automatically update in your Roll-Up Metrics.


Customizing Your Roll-Up Metrics

Above the list of All Opportunities you can see your Roll-Up Metrics. These provide an at-a-glance look into your partner program's performance. By default, you'll see Total Sourced, Total Influenced, and Total Unattributed (to Partners). Total Unattributed is calculated using your Potential Revenue configuration.

These can be customized in several ways to meet your reporting needs. For Example: If you need to report on your quarterly performance in a QBR, you can select the applicable dates in the Date Range field and your metrics will only reflect that time period.

You can also customize the stats that display in this menu by clicking the ⚙ Metrics button and selecting the metrics that are most useful to you:

Click Apply to save your changes to your Attribution hub.


Salesforce Partner Attribution Object

Crossbeam automatically pushes Attribution recorded in Sales Edge and the Attribution page of Crossbeam Core into a custom object in your Salesforce.

😎 Pro Tip

The Crossbeam Partner Attribution Object connects directly to your SFDC Opportunities, Accounts, and Partner Accounts. This makes it easy for your RevOps team to link to Attribution data in any existing workflows.

How to Install


❗️Important

Only the Salesforce Admin is able to install the Salesforce Attribution Push Integration.

In your Crossbeam account, confirm Salesforce is connected as your Data Source before installing the Salesforce Attribution Push.


Start by clicking on the Data icon from the Navigation Menu. This will open the side panel for Data & Sharing. Select Integrations from the panel options, and your workspace will display the Integrations area. Scroll down the page to the Available Integrations section, located the Salesforce Attribution Push tile, and click the Install button.

screenshot in Crossbeam highlighting install button

From there, a pop-up window will connect to Salesforce and will prompt you to download and install the Crossbeam Attribution package.


You can also follow this link to install the Attribution Object to your Salesforce Organization. Once you log-in, you will see the installation options:

screenshot in Salesforce showing the install options

Crossbeam recommends the Install for Admins Only option. This option allows for controlling access and permissions after the package has been installed.

This page also displays a banner stating this managed package is not part of Salesforce’s AppExchange partner program. Locate the words View Components further down the screen, and click on them to open a detailed view of the Package Components:

Screenshot in Salesforce showing list of package components

This will allow you and your Salesforce Admin to review the package contents which contains only a small custom object. Close the pop-up modal and check the box below the banner to acknowledge this is a Non-Salesforce Application.

You will now be able to click the Install button.

✍️ Note

Review Users Setup Profiles to confirm they will have access to the custom object in Salesforce.

screenshot in Salesforce showing setup profiles with custom object permissions

How to Map your Partner's Account IDs From Salesforce

Return to the Integrations workspace, locate the Salesforce Attribution Push under the list of Installed Integrations, and click the Settings button.

In the pop-up modal locate the Partner and enter the Salesforce Partner ID.

screenshot in Crossbeam how to connect partner account IDs

💡 Quick tip

To find your Salesforce Partner ID:

Pull up your Partner record page in Salesforce, the ID is the 18-character alphanumeric string in your web browser address bar. For instance:
https://crowdblossom.my.force.com/lightning/r/Account/0018a00001zXOwpAAG/view

When you are done, click the Save Changes button.

You can edit or remove any Partner IDs at any time by returning to this workspace.


Attribution from Sales Edge

Now that you have successfully installed the Crossbeam Attributions object in Salesforce, completed Sales Edge conversations can automatically push an attribution record to Salesforce.

screenshot in Salesforce of conversation

When changing the conversation status from open to completed, select the relevant Opportunity (this syncs from Salesforce: a dropdown of options will appear - you will see the names and amounts of open opportunities for the given account) and choose an attribution status (Sourced, Influenced, or Neither).

screenshot in Salesforce of how to mark conversation as complete

When the next Crossbeam data sync cycle completes, a "Crossbeam Attribution" record will be created in Salesforce. The record includes key information including a link back to the Sales Edge conversation.

screenshot in Salesforce of attribution record

Attribution from Crossbeam Core

Now that you have successfully installed the Crossbeam Attributions object in Salesforce, attributions you add and save in the Crossbeam Core - Attributions page can automatically push an attribution record to Salesforce.

As detailed in the Adding a Partner to an Opportunity section above, open the relevant opportunity, add the partner(s), and select attribution type. Click Save.

screenshot in Crossbeam of adding a partner to attribution

When the next Crossbeam data sync cycle completes, a "Crossbeam Attribution" record will be created in Salesforce. The record includes key information including a link back to the Crossbeam Core - Attribution page for that specific opportunity.

screenshot in Salesforce with crossbeam attribution record

Accessing and Displaying Attribution Data in Salesforce

Salesforce Administrators have a lot of flexibility when it comes to displaying the attribution information to their teams. For example, consider displaying Crossbeam Attribution records in Salesforce as a Related List on the Account or Opportunity:

Example displaying attribution information to teams in Salesforce

Whether you choose to display the attribution info on Salesforce pages or not, be sure to leverage the Crossbeam Attributions custom object for reports and dashboards. For example, use the "Crossbeam Attributions" Salesforce report types to run reports on all...

Screenshot in Salesforce showing example type of reports to run

...or specific slices of attribution:

example of segment of report

FAQs

Q. I see an error message like this, and I am nervous about syncing in more data to Crossbeam:

Screenshot of error message

A: Any new fields you sync to Crossbeam are yours only - this data is not shared with your partners. This data allows Crossbeam to accurately reflect the actual revenue impacts of your Partners.

Q. What happens if my Opportunity gets deleted (or changed) in Salesforce? But it already has an Attributed Partner in Crossbeam?

A: Attributed revenue from this opportunity will no longer count towards your statistics or those partner(s).

Q. What happens if an Opportunity has an empty amount or close date?

A: Attributed revenue from opportunities without amount or close date are excluded from the denominator when calculating Roll-Up Metrics.

Q. Is it possible to pull in the attribution type (i.e. influenced, sourced, etc.) into the report?

A. Yes. We send the attribution type, sourced or influenced, along with each opportunity.

Q. Does this new attribution object get installed with the existing manage package? Or is this a second manage package I’ll have to install?

A. It is a second manage package, so you can install it via the Integration Marketplace or from the tile in Crossbeam Core.

Q. Does this feature come with pre-built reports? Or do I have to create a custom report?

A. This attribution feature comes with four standard report types:

  1. Crossbeam Attributions

  2. Crossbeam Attributions with Account

  3. Crossbeam Attributions with Opportunity

  4. Crossbeam Attributions with Partner

Q. Similarly to opportunities that get pushed into Salesforce today, does each attribution record connect to an account and an opportunity?

A. Yes. Each attribution is related to the account (i.e. the account you closed) and the partner account (if you include it during the setup of the integration).

Q. When configuring the Attribution Push in Crossbeam Core Settings, what does “Add a Partner ID from Salesforce” do?

A. If you input your Partner Account IDs here, your attributions will be linkable to the Partner in your Salesforce instead of by their text name only.

Q. How often does my Attribution data get synced to my Salesforce?
A. 30 minutes after the initial setup and every 12 hours after that.


Coming soon!

Activity Timeline

See all your partner activity happening on your Opportunities so you have irrefutable credit for your Partner's impact on that deal.

screenshot in Crossbeam of coming soon activity timeline

If you would like to be the first to know when Crossbeam's Activity Timeline is live, reach out to your rep to stay in the loop.

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