📋 Summary of the Problem
When managing data between Salesforce and Mailchimp, understanding update frequency is critical for campaign timing, data accuracy, and automation planning. Users often have questions about how quickly changes in one system appear in the other, and what options exist for real-time versus batch synchronization.
💡 The Solution
Data update frequency depends on the direction of data flow and which features you're using. Here's how our integration handles updates:
Salesforce to Mailchimp:
• Field Mappings (Trigger-Based, Near Real-Time): When you create or edit a Contact or Lead in Salesforce, triggers automatically fire to send the mapped field data to Mailchimp. This provides near real-time updates, subject to Salesforce processing and API call limits. Users must have the appropriate Mailchimp for Salesforce permission set assigned for triggers to fire on their edits.
• Data Wizard (Scheduled Batch Updates): Runs scheduled bulk updates from Salesforce to Mailchimp, typically every hour. This timing is approximate, not guaranteed. Large data sets or Salesforce queue backlogs can delay execution. The Data Wizard is ideal for bulk synchronization and initial data loads.
• Invocable Actions (Real-Time via Automation): Provides real-time updates when you build automation in Salesforce Flows, Process Builder, or Apex triggers. These actions execute immediately when your automation calls them, allowing precise control over when and how updates are sent to Mailchimp.
Mailchimp to Salesforce:
• Primary Sync (Approximate Hourly): The primary sync attempts to run approximately every hour, pulling data from Mailchimp into Salesforce. This includes subscriber status, membership changes, tags, groups, and campaign activity. However, the timing is not guaranteed to be exactly one hour. Large audiences, Salesforce API limits, or queue saturation can extend the effective frequency.
• Lightning Components (Synced Data Display): Our Lightning components display the most recently synced Mailchimp data that's stored in Salesforce. They do not call Mailchimp APIs directly at view time. Data freshness depends on when the last successful Primary Sync completed. You can manually refresh specific records using the refresh button on the component.
Do you use webhooks?
Real-time updates from Mailchimp to Salesforce typically rely on webhooks. However, webhooks require additional customer configuration and can create security concerns and support complications. To keep the integration straightforward and secure, we use scheduled batch syncs instead of webhooks.
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