Integrating Quip with Salesforce: a document is not a record

Two people had the same Quip document open. One of them corrected a sentence that the design said could update Status on the opportunity. The other rewrote a paragraph and expected Amount to move with it. Both saved. Status on the record flickered, then settled on a word neither of them would have chosen alone. Amount did not change, so the second editor pasted the number into the opportunity by hand. On Monday the document, the record, and the hand edit were three different stories. The slide had said documents were now CRM records because the acquisition had completed. The call from the document had landed on one field and invented a second path for the other. Nobody had written what happens when two people edit.

That Monday is the integration this page is about. Salesforce completed the Quip acquisition on 26 August 2016. Quip is documents and spreadsheets. A document is not a record. Name the field the document is allowed to change, and what happens when two people edit it. A diagram that skips those is a poster. The build sits on the Quip implementation page. The ownership story sits on what happened to Quip. This page is the field.

#The system

The acquisitions page this guide cites states the completion in one sentence, and this page quotes it once: "August 26, 2016: Salesforce completed its acquisition of Quip." Read it as a date. Completion was 26 August 2016. The sentence does not describe your folders, your opportunity fields, or what two editors may change. It does not say a document became a record. It does not give a price or an end date. Write 26 August 2016 in the pack, and stop adding objects the sentence does not name.

Quip is documents and spreadsheets. People write in it, comment in it, and share a link. That work can sit beside a CRM record. Salesforce owns Quip. Your organisation owns the document, the people who may edit it, and the record the document is allowed to touch. Those are different. A risk register that lists one owner will approve a paste of every paragraph into every field.

Name the system that holds the prose, and the system that holds the record. The document lives in Quip. The amount, the close date, and the owner live on the opportunity unless you have named a single exception. The completion in 2016 did not move those fields into a paragraph. Customers who already keep documents in Quip keep documents in Quip. Say Salesforce when you mean the record. Say Quip when you mean the document. A sentence that treats them as one product will let a paragraph overwrite a number finance has already approved.

This page will not invent a connector edition, an API name, or a price. The cited sentence does not publish a licence fee. A document move into Quip is not an Account migration. Do not scope them as one project. If a proposal says the acquisition made the document the system of record, ask them to point at the sentence. The sentence is a date.

#The object

A document is not a record. The object the document is allowed to change is a field you name. Status is a fair example when a sentence in the document is genuinely the place the team agrees the stage, and the record should follow that one word. Amount is a poor example unless finance has said a paragraph may set money. Pick one field. Write it on the page. Every other field stays where it is, edited by the people who already edit the record.

If you cannot name the field, you do not have an integration. You have a file sitting beside the CRM, which is a respectable design. Leave it there. A link from the opportunity to the document is enough for a seller to open the brief. The link does not need to copy paragraphs into fields. Copying is how Amount became a hand edit.

Name the record the field sits on. Opportunity, account, or a custom object are different. "The deal" is not a record when two opportunities share a name. The join is an id a person can point at, stored where both editors can see which record they are about to change. A document that can reach any opportunity with a similar title will update the wrong one and look saved.

Write who may edit the document, and who may edit the field on the record when they are not in the document. If both paths are open, you have two writers. That is the next section. If only the document may change that field, say so, and close the field to everyone else. A permission note in the document's header is not a permission on the record. Test as the seller. If they can type Status on the opportunity while the document also types it, you have not chosen.

Spreadsheets in Quip follow the same rule. A grid is not a set of records until you name the field a cell may change. A column of amounts pasted into opportunities is a load, not an integration. Send that proposal to the implementation page only after the field is named. Do not start it from a completion date.

#The failure when two people edit

The failure is two people editing the thing you allowed the document to change. One save lands. The other save lands later, or lands as a hand edit on a different field. The record shows a value neither editor now recognises. Write what happens before that Monday.

Last write wins is a choice. Say whose save the record keeps, and whether the document shows the other person's sentence as still there. A blocked second save is a different choice. The second editor sees a refusal, and the record stays on the first value. A merge you have not designed is not a third choice. This page will not invent a merge product. If you want both sentences kept, they stay in the document as prose, and the field does not change until one person picks the word.

The hand edit is part of the failure. The editor who could not change Amount pasted it into the opportunity. Now the document and the record disagree, and a third number may exist in a chat. Write the rule: fields the document may not change are not pasted by hand to "finish the integration". They are edited on the record by the person who owns them, or they are not edited. Say that in the meeting before the document is shared.

A lost link is a different failure. The document still exists. The record it was allowed to change has been deleted, merged, or is in a sandbox the document was not pointed at. The save appears to work in Quip and does nothing on the record, or it does something on the wrong record. Name who is told. A comment thread inside the document is not that person if they do not watch the record.

Do not describe the clash as a data migration that failed to finish. The document was never the account. Do not invent a daily cap, a price, or a connector name to explain two editors. The cause is an unnamed field, or an unnamed rule for two saves.

#A diagram that omits three names is a poster

A diagram that does not name the system, the object, and the failure is a poster. Quip's logo, an arrow, and the word Salesforce do not say which field, which record, or what happens when two people edit. Draw the document. Draw the one field. Draw the two editors and the rule. If the rule is missing, the drawing is a poster even if the logos are correct.

Do not draw every paragraph as a field. That picture is how Amount was dragged into the design. Cross out every field the document must not change. One arrow. One field. The rest of the document stays prose.

Do not draw the 2016 date as a pipe. The quoted sentence is a completion. It is not a mapping. A box that says the document is the opportunity has used a date as a data model. Separate them.

#What you settle before the document can change a field

Write five lines before anyone shares the link. The document, and who may edit it. The record, joined by an id. The one field the document may change. The rule when two people edit that field. The fields that must never be copied out of a paragraph to finish the job.

Then say what you are not buying. You are not buying an Account migration. You are not buying a price this page does not state. You are not buying a merge. This page does not give Quip an end date. The completion was not a shutdown. Leave the documents where they are until the field is named.

The implementation page is where a document move is kept apart from an Account load. What happened to Quip is where 26 August 2016 and the refusal to invent a purchase price are kept. Use those pages when the meeting argues about the acquisition. Bring the meeting back to the two editors.

Agree who may add a second field later. A second field is a new design, including a new rule for two editors. The poster does not grow a field because a paragraph mentioned a number.

#A test you can run

Open the document as both editors, in a place that is not the live opportunity if you can help it. Change only the allowed field, from both sessions, in an order you chose. Read the record. It should match the rule you wrote, not a blend nobody chose. Read the document. Both people should be able to see what the record kept.

Then try to change a forbidden field from the document. The record should not move. If a person can still paste the number onto the opportunity, the test has shown the hand path. Close it, or name the person allowed to type that field on the record and keep the document out of it.

Confirm the document is aimed at the record you think. Point it at a similarly named opportunity and confirm it refuses. A save that updates the neighbour is the wrong join. Fix the id before you invite the team.

The integration is ready when a new editor can see the field, the record, and the two-person rule without asking who completed the acquisition. If the page still says the document is the opportunity, send it back. 26 August 2016 did not land Amount for you.