Common Problems with Salesforce (Legacy)

Timeout Errors

This is a somewhat common class of errors for Salesforce, which might manifest itself when working inside the Zap Editor or when receiving automated alert emails. Timeout errors indicate that Zapier's request to Salesforce took too long to get an answer.

Timeout errors can be caused by any number of things:

• Lots of data (think: enterprise level) in your Salesforce Account, specifically of the type you're trying to access.
• Ephemeral outages or Salesforce API issues. Check our API Status Board for possible issues.

Most of the time these errors are transient and you simply need to wait a while. If the error happened for an On Zap on the Trigger side (ie. Salesforce as a Trigger), you can safely ignore it (we will automatically recover this scenario). If the error happened for an On Zap on the Action side, you can attempt to replay failed Tasks within our Task History interface.

Trigger Limit

Right now, Salesforce can trigger up to 200 items at one time. If you attempt to add more than 200 items at once, Zapier will only be able to see the last 200.

Custom Fields/Objects Not Loading

Sometimes when you add custom fields or objects in Salesforce, they won't show up right away in the portion of your zap where you map trigger data to the action template. An easy way to fix this on the trigger side is to submit a new entry with those custom fields filled in.

If you are dealing with actions, here's a couple steps that may help:

• Hard refreshing the page (Shift+F5 on a PC or CMD+Shift+R on a Mac) a couple times
• Copy that zap and edit the copied version to see if those fields show up
• Recreate the zap from scratch
• Wait a while longer, sometimes it takes a little while for the cache to refresh with those fields

The Standard Middle Name and Suffix fields Aren't Loading

We don't yet support the standard Middle Name and Suffix fields that Salesforce released in 2015. A workaround is to create custom fields for the Middle Name and the Suffix. We plan to upgrade this in the future so the standard fields are available.

Salesforce Communities

We do not support Salesforce communities at this point in time.

"TotalRequests Limit exceeded" Error

That error means that the number of times Zapier is allowed to ask Salesforce for data has been exceeded for your connected account.

There are 2 ways Salesforce limits requests to their API (how Zapier asks for data):
1. Requests within a 20-second period (called "concurrent" requests)
2. Total API requests within a 24-hour period

That info can be found in their documentation here.

Upgrading to a Salesforce plan with more users and higher request limits will stop this error from occurring.

Field Integrity Exception Error

When you use the Create Task action, you can connect a task to a person or an object using these two fields:

If you're getting a Field Integrity Exception error, it means that you're trying to connect a person using the Related To field or an object using the Name field. If you want to connect the task to a person (like a contact or lead), use the Name field. If you want to connect the task to an object (such as an opportunity or an account), use the Related To field.

Pick the correct field and select "Use A Custom Value," then pass the ID of the person/object from a previous step.

You are creating a duplicate record. We recommend you use an existing record instead. (Or "Use one of these records?")

You may have an "Duplicate Rule" in place which is preventing us from creating the record, because it believes a duplicate already exists (when it might not.)

Here is an example of a "Duplicate Rule" for Account objects.

If the Actions are set to Alert, the rule will block these "fuzzy duplicates" from getting created (and throw the error above).

Unchecking the Alert box will allow the "duplicate" to be created.

Salesforce's help docs cover duplicate rules for other objects.

How Search Actions Work

Salesforce search actions will return the most recently created record that meets the search criteria, even if there are multiple records that match.

My Create Note Task Was Successful, but I Can't See the Note

The Create Note action adds notes to the legacy 'Notes & Attachments' (also called "Classic Mode") function in Salesforce. The notes are not viewable in the new HTML version of Salesforce.

My Event Showed up on the Wrong Date

When using the Create Event action, if you just want to specify a Due Date, use the Due Date Only field. If you want to specify both a Due Date and Time, use the Due Date Time field, but fill in both a date and a time. If you only put a time in this field, you'll end up with an event on today's date at that time.

Zaps set up like this will ignore the Date field:

Zaps set up like this will properly set the Date and Time field in Salesforce:

I Want To Select Multiple Options in a Multi-Pick List Field

Salesforce requires that multi-pick items have a ; between them. You can set it up like this:

Or if you're passing data from a previous step, you can use the Formatter to build a string with ; as the separator.

Can I Trigger from Updated Objects on Salesforce?

While there is only a Trigger for updated opportunities, you can get more targeted results by using the New Outbound Message Trigger. This uses Salesforce workflow rules, which allows you to set the filtering criteria on the Salesforce side of things.

Please note for this handy workaround, your Salesforce account must support workflow rules.

To do this, please follow these steps:

1. Firstly, create a Zap using the New Outbound Message Trigger. This trigger will create a webhook you can use on whatever workflow/trigger you want in Salesforce later.
   
2. Next, in your Salesforce setup area, you will need to create a new Workflow Rule. This rule will allow you to set the conditions that will trigger the outbound message to be sent out. This is what will trigger your Zap.
   In the example below, this workflow will trigger when a lead is updated:
   
   You can read more on creating workflows on Salesforce here.
3. Once you have saved that workflow, on the new screen that appears under "Immediate Workflow Actions" use the "Add Workflow Action" dropdown, choose "New Outbound Message" like this:
4. Here you can choose the object and the fields from that object that you want to send to your Zap. You will also need to enter the Webhook URL from your Zap's Trigger options in the "Endpoint URL" field like this:
   

You can read more creating new outbound messages on Salesforce here.

When you have done that you can come back and finish setting up your Zap. This workflow will send an Outbound Message when your workflow triggers, which will trigger your Zap!

I'm getting an OAUTH_APP_BLOCKED error when I try and connect my Salesforce account.

An administrator in your Salesforce organisation has blocked the Zapier integration from your account. To unblock it, an administrator will need to do the following:

1. Navigate to Setup > Manage Apps > Connect Apps OAuth Usage
2. Look for the "Zapier" Connected App
3. If the "Action" button for the Zapier app says "Unblock", then this Connected App has been blocked.
4. To unblock Zapier, click the "Unblock" button
5. To proceed, review the dialog box that appears and click "OK"

Custom Domains

Unfortunately at this time Salesforce accounts using Custom Domains are not able to connect up to Zapier.

My New Note Trigger isn't triggering

The New Note Trigger only works on new notes added to the Notes and Attachments object.