Our team at AD InfoSystem tackled a nightmare scenario last month. A manufacturing client called us in after their third failed attempt at connecting Salesforce with their aging ERP system. Their IT director was facing tough questions from leadership about the mounting costs with zero results to show.
"Maybe our systems are just too incompatible," he told us, exhaustion evident in his voice.
Two weeks later, their systems were talking smoothly. The culprit? Nobody had properly mapped how their inventory data was structured differently across systems. It is not exactly rocket science, but it is the kind of crucial detail that derails countless integration projects.
This happens way more often than anyone in our industry likes to admit. Salesforce integration sounds straightforward on paper but gets messy fast in the real world.
Forget the neat diagrams in PowerPoint presentations. Real Salesforce integration is messy, unpredictable, and rarely goes according to plan.
One day, you're mapping fields between systems, feeling good about your progress. The next day, you discover that Sales and Operations have been using completely different product codes for the past five years, and nobody thought to mention it.
Our team has handled enough Salesforce integrations to know that each company has its own weird data quirks and process exceptions. Those exceptions will absolutely come back to bite you if you don't uncover them early.
That manufacturing client? They had three different product coding systems floating around different departments. No wonder their previous integration attempts crashed and burned.
A healthcare client called us in a panic when patient information started vanishing during their integration. Some records transferred perfectly, others partially, and some just disappeared.
After digging through logs until midnight, we found the issue: their patient system allowed 500-character notes while Salesforce fields were capped at 255. When longer entries hit Salesforce, the entire record failed silently.
How we fixed it:
Lesson learned: Data rarely fits perfectly between systems. Plan for exceptions, or watch your data vanish into the void.
Nothing like a Sunday night emergency call. A retail client's inventory updates suddenly stopped during their busiest weekend of the year. Orders kept coming in for products they'd actually sold out of hours ago.
The problem? They'd hit Salesforce API limits as holiday shopping peaked. Their integration made a separate API call for every inventory change instead of batching them.
How we fixed it:
Now, we start every project by asking about volume spikes. Nobody wants to explain to the CEO why the system crashed during Black Friday.
A financial services client nearly failed their audit after implementing what seemed like a perfectly secure Salesforce integration.
The connection itself was locked down tight, but they hadn't thought about how customer financial data would be protected once it moved between systems. Information that was properly restricted in their legacy system became visible to too many eyes through Salesforce reports.
How we fixed it:
Security isn't just about the connection—it's about protecting data throughout its entire lifecycle.
The saddest integration projects are the technically perfect ones that nobody uses. We inherited a manufacturing client who'd spent $180K on Salesforce-ERP integration that their sales team completely ignored.
They kept using their clunky spreadsheets instead of the shiny new system because nobody had bothered to understand their actual workflow needs.
How we fixed it:
Technical success means nothing if people don't use what you build. We now make adoption planning part of every project from day one.
A retail client watched in horror as their entire integration framework collapsed after a routine Salesforce update. Functions that worked perfectly for months suddenly failed, creating a massive backlog of unprocessed orders.
The investigation revealed they'd built custom integrations using API elements that weren't officially supported—a shortcut that worked until it suddenly didn't.
How we fixed it:
We now insist on proper testing environments for every client, even when they push back on the cost. It's infinitely cheaper than emergency repairs.
Companies who come to us after integration struggles elsewhere usually mention the same things:
"You actually asked about our business processes before talking about APIs."
"Your team included people who understood our industry, not just Salesforce."
"You didn't promise everything would be easy—you were honest about the hard parts."
At AD InfoSystem, we've built our integration practice on a few simple principles:
Our team brings together people with both technical expertise and specific industry experience—healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail. This combination helps us anticipate the unique challenges each sector faces.
We're not the biggest Salesforce partner out there. What we do offer is battle-tested experience with complex integrations that deliver actual business value, not just technical connectivity.
Salesforce integration doesn't have to be a constant source of stress. With realistic planning, business-focused design, and proper attention to both technical and human factors, it can deliver the operational improvements you wanted when you invested in Salesforce.
The key is recognizing that integration is never just a technical exercise—it's a business transformation that happens to involve connecting systems.
If your Salesforce integration is causing more problems than it solves, or if you're planning a new connection and want to avoid the common pitfalls, reach out. We've probably already helped someone overcome exactly what you're facing.
After all, in system integration, experience isn't just helpful—it's everything.