In Salesforce, Leads cannot be linked to Accounts. To link them, you are required to manually convert leads to contacts, accounts, and opportunities. This requires you to manually visit each record page and go through the conversion process. Or, there are workarounds using custom fields that allow you to manually create the link between Leads and Accounts.
Insycle allows you to link Salesforce Leads to Accounts directly, in bulk, and automatically.
How It Works
With Insycle, you can associate leads to accounts, in bulk or automatically, based on rules. Insycle uses a custom lookup field in Salesforce to make the associations and then displays them on lead and account profile pages using related lists.
Typically, you need to manually convert leads to contacts, accounts, and opportunities. This is time-consuming because requires you to manually visit each record page and go through the conversion process. Insycle handles this process for you, directly associating the lead without converting.
Overview
First, you need to create a custom lookup field in Salesforce to enable the association between leads and accounts.
Then, you filter your data down to the leads that you would like to match using rules. Then, you tell Insycle to link the records. With just a few clicks, you can associate Leads and Accounts in bulk.
Additionally, you can use Insycle's automation features to ensure that Leads are automatically linked consistently.
Step 1: Setup Custom Lookup Field in Salesforce
Leads are not associated with accounts in Salesforce by default. To make this association and display it on lead and account pages, you need to use a custom lookup field, then display the correct related lists.
This is a simple three-step process.
1. Create a custom “Lead” field called “Account Name”
We use this field to create the association within the database.
Navigate to Setup > Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships
- Field Label: Account Name
- Field Name: AccountId
- API Name: AccountId__c
- Data Type: Lookup
- Related Object: Account
- Related List Label: Leads (account)
- Child Relationship Name: Leads
2. Add the new “Account Name” field to the lead page layout.
This ensures that the association will show up on lead profile pages.
Navigate to SETUP > OBJECT MANAGER > Leads > Page Layouts
3. Add the “Leads” related list to the “Accounts” page layout.
This ensures that the association will show up on account profile pages.
Navigate to SETUP > OBJECT MANAGER > Account > Page Layouts
With the custom lookup field setup, you can successfully associate leads to accounts in Salesforce.
Step 2: Define Filter
To link leads to accounts in Salesforce, we will use the Bulk Operations Module. Navigate there, and select "Leads" from the top of the Bulk Operations module screen.
Insycle offers some pre-built templates for linking leads to accounts by company name or company domain. Selecting one of these will give you a good starting point to work from.
While these Templates will work out of the box, you can also customize them to your needs. We'll break down the "Link Leads to Accounts Using Company Name" template.
In Step 1, we tell Insycle how to filter your database down to the records that you would like to update. You are not required to have a filter if you would like to link all available leads to accounts. In this example, we will filter our leads down to those that were created in the last six months.
Records that match this filter will populate in the Record Viewer at the bottom of the screen.
Then, in the Layout tab, you can choose fields that you would like to include in the Record Viewer. These fields will also be present in any reports or exports from this module as well.
Step 3: Link
In Step 2, we want to make sure that we are working from the third tab, “Link." If you have selected a template, the link settings will be pre-loaded.
Here, you can add or remove associations between leads and accounts.
The Field Name is the field contained within the Contact record type. The Match Field is the field we will be matching it with, for the Company record type.
In the Comparison Rule, we are telling Insycle to only associate if company names are an exact match, but you can also choose "Similar Match" here. The Ignored drop-down tells Insycle to ignore common terms in the company name such as "LLC," "Inc" or "Co." These terms can be edited in the "Terms" button at the bottom right-hand side of Step 2.
If you want to limit the pool of accounts that are available for linking, you can filter accounts using the "Accounts Filter" button.
Additionally, you can tell Insycle whether to match the entire field or just part of it—such as the first or last few words, or first and last characters.
Step 4: Preview or Update
Now, with our filter and update action in place, we can run the bulk operation to link Salesforce leads to accounts.
When running the Bulk Operations module, especially the first time, it is a good idea to run in Preview Mode. This allows you to view the changes to the data in a CSV file before the updates are pushed to your database. Here, you can check to make sure that everything is working as expected and make any necessary changes before pushing the updates to your live database.
You can do this by clicking the Review Button in Step 3.
A popup will appear. Here, in Stage 1, we can select the Preview Mode or Update Mode,
Preview Mode runs to process and makes the changes reviewable in a CSV file, but does not update your live CRM database. If you choose Update mode, the data changes will go live in your CRM when the operation is processed.
Then click the “Next” button.
In Step 2 of the Review process, you can choose where you send the generated report. Your email will automatically be added to the list but can add other co-workers and colleagues that you are collaborating with here.
Once finished, click the “Next” button.
In Step 3, you can choose whether you would like this operation to run one time, or continuously. There are two tabs on this screen—Automate and Run Now.
When you select the Run Now tab, you are choosing to run the field update operation one time, immediately. You can run it on selected records, on a small chunk, or on all of the fields that met the criteria.
Alternatively, you can schedule this module to run on a set, recurring basis in the Automate tab. Here, you can choose to schedule this operation to run hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. When scheduled, the module will automatically run on your desired schedule and email the reports after it has run.
You can view all scheduled automations on the “Automations” page on your dashboard.
When the operation runs, you'll have a CSV detailing the changes delivered to your email, and will be redirected to a report that breaks down the updates. You can always view changes made through Insycle in the Activity Tracker.
Matching Using Email Domain and Website
When you match leads to accounts using the lead's email domain and the account's website, you have to ensure that you have certain settings in place.
Make sure that you are ignoring Text (substrings), and subdomains. This ensures that Insycle ignores subdomains (sub.domain.com), and text strings (www., http://) when comparing websites and email domains.
You can configure your ignored text strings using the Terms button.
Preview Changes Before They Go Live
You can preview the changes that you are making to your data before those changes are pushed to your live database. When you run select modules in Insycle, you have the option of choosing between Preview Mode and Update Mode once you click the button.
Automation
You can set up ongoing data maintenance automation with Insycle on the module level, or using Recipes.
Audit Trail and History
The Activity Tracker lets you review all changes made through Insycle. At any time you can download a CSV report of the operation and records affected, including while using Bulk Operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to go through the typical conversion process before associating leads to accounts?
No, Insycle allows you to bypass the typical conversion process of turning leads into contacts, accounts, and opportunities in the Salesforce system. With Insycle, you can directly associate leads to accounts.
Are there any settings changes I need to make in Salesforce for this to work?
No, Insycle is able to make Lead → Account links without having to make settings changes.
I am getting a "Failed, multiple target matches" error. What is causing this and how can I fix it?
This error occurs when multiple records meet your matching specifications. Often, this happens when you are linking two record types together using a company name as a match field.
For example, if you were linking leads to accounts, and Insycle found ten company records with the company name "Microsoft," it wouldn't know which Microsoft to establish the link with.
In these situations, you may have to deduplicate the relevant records before creating the link.
Additional Resources
Related Blog Articles
- Salesforce ABM - Associating Leads and Contacts to Accounts
- Declutter Your CRM By Purging Low-Quality Data Automatically
- The Complete Guide to Bulk Updating CRM Data Without Using Excel
Related Help Articles
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- Link and Associate People to Companies
- Associate or Link Parent-Child Companies, Create Accounts Hierarchy and Relationships
- Declutter and Purge Low-Quality Data
- Bulk Update Values of Any Field
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- Module Overview: Bulk Operations
Additional Information