Is it Possible to Read CRM Data for a Decision Split without Synchronized Data Sources?

Question

We would like to exit leads from a journey based on a event that occurs in the Sales Cloud. After a Wait event in a journey, we need to check the current value of a field on the Lead object before deciding to continue or exit. This is easy with Synchronized Data Sources. However, it is significant overkill to synchronize the whole Leads table for the few cases in which we need to check the value of the field. We cannot predict which Lead we will need, so cannot selectively synchronize.

With Marketing Cloud Connector, it is simple to create journey entry criteria based on real-time Sales Cloud data, and simple to create and update records in the Sales Cloud. But I cannot find a way to read the value of a single field in the Sales Cloud without a Synchronized Data Source. I must be overlooking something obvious?

Answer 1

This is exactly why Synchronised Data Extensions exist and unless you store sensitive information on Leads that shouldn't be seen by SFMC users, there is no downsides to synchronising your SF object(s) over.

Other options are very script heavy, typically not re-usable and prone to errors. If you want to solve this use case by using UI tools and not code, then you will need to use Synchronised Data Extensions.

• Alternative 1: Develop a custom Journey Activity that will check the Contact upon reaching this step, retrieve the latest values from Salesforce via API by LeadID match and then exit the Contact if criteria is met.

• Alternative 2: Set up an automation that checks for your Journey entry DE, copies over the records to a separate DE used for processing. AMPScript/SSJS script activity that checks for SF records by matching the LeadID and looks for the the latest values and writes them to the same processing Data Extension. Link this Data Extension in your Contact Builder to be able to use it for Decision Splits.