Okta Salesforce Integration: 2 Easy Steps

With businesses rapidly moving to the cloud, tools like Salesforce have become essential for managing customer relationships and streamlining operations. Beyond CRM, Salesforce offers services like Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, enabling teams to connect flexibly and scale effectively. 

To enhance this, Okta’s identity and access management solutions allow businesses to unify logins across platforms, saving time and ensuring security. With Okta Salesforce integration, you can simplify access to all your applications, speeding up workflows while maintaining a secure environment. Let’s explore how to set this up seamlessly!

Introduction to Salesforce

Salesforce is a powerful cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that simplifies managing sales and marketing efforts. Designed to store and track customer data, contacts, and leads, it supports businesses in achieving marketing goals and generating sales forecasts. Founded in 1999, Salesforce has become a go-to tool for entrepreneurs and organizations of all sizes.

With features like email integration and automation, Salesforce offers flexibility and scalability. By combining Salesforce data with other sources in a Data Warehouse using tools like Hevo Data, you can uncover valuable insights to drive your business forward.

Also, check out our Ultimate Guide on Salesforce to use it effectively for your business needs.

Introduction to Okta

Okta is an identity management service that makes accessing apps and devices seamless while ensuring top-notch security. It offers Single Sign-On (SSO) for cloud, on-premises, and mobile apps, using protocols like SAML and OpenID Connect for smooth integration with tools like Salesforce, Office 365, and Slack. Founded in 2009, Okta simplifies access while protecting sensitive business data with continuous authentication and authorization. By incorporating Okta, you can enhance user convenience and safeguard critical systems from modern identity threats.

Key Features of Okta

Okta is widely used as an Identity and Access Management platform by the largest companies in the world, and the following features are responsible for its immense popularity:

• Single sign-on is one such feature that makes Okta unique by allowing users access to many applications at a time with one log. It reduces the burden of remembering multiple passwords and also saves the login time for each application.
• It provides an added layer of security by using a particular application named Multifactor Authentication (MFA).
• Other essential features include Provisioning, Active Dictionary, and LDAP integration. Okta also has a mobile app, namely Mobile Okta, which further simplifies your life.

So, if you are interested in centralizing identity into a single pane of glass, switching to Okta is the best thing you can do for your company.

Purpose of Okta Salesforce Integration

Your company uses Salesforce to track leads, forecast, and manage accounts with authority. But, to effectively manage your time, it’s necessary to integrate your Salesforce with a third-party Identity and Access Management service provider. That’s where Okta comes into the picture. Okta Salesforce integration lets users have centralized and secure access to all the applications.

You can use the Okta Salesforce integration to:

• Update a user profile in Salesforce with the user profile in Okta on a regular basis. Profile updates across the two platforms are directly imported.
• Import (new) users created in a third-party application into Okta.
• Push (new) users created in Okta directly into Salesforce.
• Automate two-way data sync between Salesforce and Okta in real-time.
• Reactivate user accounts in Salesforce.

Now that you’re aware of the benefits your organization can reap with the Okta Salesforce integration, it’s time to establish the integration. You can do so by enabling Single Sign-On (SSO) and User Provisioning in Okta with Salesforce.

Process Compatibility

• The Salesforce Okta integration supports only the Salesforce User object. Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunity objects within Salesforce are not supported.
• Okta cannot auto-update all user attributes in Salesforce while selectively excluding Profile or Role from being updated.
• Deactivating a user in Okta deactivates the user’s account in Salesforce.

Prerequisites

To set up an Okta Salesforce integration, you:

• Should have a Salesforce account.
• Should have an Okta account.
• Need to install the Okta Verify app.

Set Up Okta Single Sign-On (SSO) with Salesforce

The Single Sign-On (SSO) login is more secure and convenient than using a username and password every time you log in. This is the first step for establishing the Okta Salesforce integration. The integration is pretty much straightforward. The following steps to set up Okta SSO with Salesforce are listed below.

• From your Okta dashboard, click on the “Applications” tab located at the top.
• Click on the “Add Application” button.

• Search for “Salesforce” in the search box and click on “Salesforce.com”.

• Click on “Add Button” to add Salesforce.com to the list of your active applications.
• You’ll be redirected to the “General Settings” tab where you can enter your information related to your Salesforce Org.
• Click on “Next” to move on to the “Sign On” tab.
• Select SAML 2.0, and click on “View Setup Instructions” to learn more about the SSO setup.

• To enable SSO in Salesforce, click on “Setup” and select “Identity”.
• Click on “Single Sign-On Settings”. 
• Click on “Edit” and make sure the “SAML Enabled” box is checked. Save your settings.

• Click on “New” and enter the required information.
  • You can enter a “Name” of your choice.
  • You can copy-paste “Identity Provider Login URL” and “Custom Logout URL” from your Okta page.
  • You can fetch the “Issuer” value from View Setup Instructions.
  • Download the “Identity Provider Certificate” from Okta and upload it in the required field.
  • In the “Entity ID” field, you can enter “https://[CustomDomain].my.salesforce.com” if you have a custom domain setup. Otherwise, enter “https://saml.salesforce.com”.

• Save your settings.
• Salesforce will now generate a “Login URL”.
• Go back to Okta and enter this Login URL in the “Advanced Sign-on Setting” to enable SSO for Salesforce.

This is how you can set up a Single Sign-On with Salesforce. Let’s move on to the next step of Okta Salesforce integration.

Setting up User Provisioning in Okta

To share user and group data between Okta and Salesforce, you need to set up User Provisioning in Okta. You’ll need the Salesforce account username and password, and the token to configure the provisioning settings.

• From your Okta dashboard, click on the “Applications” tab located at the top.
• Search for “Salesforce.com” and click on it.
• Click on the “Provisioning” tab.
• A message will be displayed saying “Provisioning is not enabled”. Click on the “Configure API Integration” button under the message.

• Make sure the “Enable API Integration” box is checked.
• To enable the integration, provide your Username, and Password along with your Token.
• Click on “Save”.
• You can edit the Okta to Salesforce provisioning settings by clicking on the “To App” tab in the Settings list.
• You can edit the Salesforce to Okta provisioning settings by clicking on the “To Okta” tab in the Settings list.

• You can now assign users to Salesforce by clicking on the “Directory” tab.
• Click on “People” and select the username you want to assign the application to.
• Select and assign the application to the user by clicking on “Assign Applications”.

This is how you can set up User Provisioning in Okta. Your Okta Salesforce integration is now ready to sync data between both platforms.

If you’re looking at how to transfer data from external sources to Salesforce, check out our blog on Salesforce Connect to learn more!

Conclusion

Here are the key takeaways from this blog:

• Tools like Hevo enhance ETL processes and simplify handling large datasets effectively.
• Organizations increasingly rely on cloud-based applications, making unified identity management essential.
• Okta Salesforce integration streamlines scheduling, time management, and user access across systems.
• Automating data flow between Salesforce and Okta can simplify processes and save time.
• Advanced Salesforce users often manage diverse data sources for better decision-making.
• Salesforce’s Scheduled Data Load works well for limited sources but may struggle with varied or high-volume data.
• Hevo Data offers a no-code solution to integrate Salesforce and third-party apps seamlessly.

Give Hevo Data a try and sign up for a 14-day free trial today. Hevo offers plans & pricing for different use cases and business needs. Check them out!

Do you use Salesforce? Share your experience of working with Okta Salesforce integration in the comments section below.

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