Webshop and Salesforce Integration for WWF Switzerland

The project went online with Drupal version 9 in April 2022. Drupal Commerce was used for this, both for the donations and for the shop. During the conception, the question was raised as to whether the shop should continue to be available under a separate domain, or whether it should be integrated into the existing main page wwf.ch. We decided to integrate it into the existing main page, mainly because all content can be managed centrally in a CMS and integration with the appropriate website content is of great importance for an optimal customer experience. Special page elements were programmed for this. So that products, depending on availability and category, can be listed and advertised on any content page. Nevertheless, the shop was given its own area, including a specific header and footer. See https://www.wwf.ch/en/shop.

Migration and enrichment of the products

Important factors in the relaunch were the migration of the existing products and the enrichment with additional data such as labels, availability, categories and media. For this purpose, extensive migration scripts were programmed and adapted to the needs of the WWF.

Salesforce integration

The connection of Salesforce was also a central point of this project. All orders and customer data should be stored in Salesforce and FinDock should be used as the payment interface. The Drupal Salesforce module proved to be a very good basis for this, especially the authentication and the linking of Drupal entities and Salesforce objects could be optimally implemented with it. This concept also proved to be robust in operation, because data can be sent again even in the event of potential Salesforce API failures. We have developed our own queue for this purpose, which does not overload the Salesforce APIs even with many simultaneous orders. In combination with detailed logging, this always ensures transparency and data security.

We therefore use the Past Log module for logging and notifications and have also created a small integration module for the Salesforce module and made it available to the community: https://www.drupal.org/project/salesforce_past

The product availability is synched directly with Salesforce, because not all orders have to be placed via the web shop. We have also created a small Drupal module for this: https://www.drupal.org/project/salesforce_commerce_stock

Salesforce integration for donations

Payments for donations should be made via FinDock. For this purpose, the old donation system was replaced and the forms were replaced with a separate Commerce Checkout. A special feature here is that no shopping cart is used, but orders are generated directly by the system for donations and data is taken from donation products. Configurable "donation teasers" that can be displayed on any website content take you directly to the checkout specially adapted for donations. See https://www.wwf.ch/de/spenden.

Salesforce integration for Webforms

Since webforms are also used very extensively, they are of course also connected to Salesforce (web-to-lead). A special feature here is that newsletter subscriptions are also sent to Salesforce from a third-party service via a Drupal API for Webform Submissions.

Multilingualism

One of Drupal's strengths is multilingualism. In this project, too, it was a requirement that all products, content pages and checkouts are available in at least three languages. This requirement could be optimally implemented with Drupal, both for donations and for the shop.

End-to-end testing with Cypress.io

The more services and APIs are responsible for the proper operation of an application such as a web shop, the more important it is to test the functionality regularly. Automated tests are essential for projects of this magnitude, especially after updates. We use a combination of PHPUnit kernel tests and end-to-end tests using cypress.io. Especially cypress.io makes it easier for us to test the processing of a donation and shop checkouts with a large number of combinations of products and payment methods (recurring payments, one-off payments, different payment providers, etc.).

An exemplary working environment

We really enjoyed working with the WWF, not only because we can identify very well with the goals of this organization. We would like to thank you for the trust you have once again placed in us and look forward to further cooperation. We would also like to express a special thanks to MD Systems for the support in working with the FinDock Drupal module and the exchange regarding Salesforce integrations. The design for the shop comes from getunik, here too the cooperation was exemplary and extremely pleasant.

Competent, fast, uncomplicated: acolono finds a solution for every problem. We look forward to further cooperation and are happy to be able to count on acolono.

Dominik Stolz / Manager Analytics & Customer Experience, Marketing Analytics & Applications WWF

Challenges

Efficient and technically sensible data exchange between Drupal Webshop and Salesforce

A particular challenge was the design of the data exchange between Drupal and Salesforce. Product management is missing in Salesforce and FinDock generally has no logical understanding of shopping carts. We were therefore forced to handle some of the communication with Salesforce directly and to synchronize it with payment data. Certain limits of the Salesforce API also made some special programming necessary.

Drupal Commerce without shopping cart functionality

Basically, Drupal Commerce is not designed for operation without a shopping cart. For the donation system, however, it was necessary to be able to link directly to the checkout and to take over data such as donation product, amount and frequency of donations contextually. However, the Drupal Commerce APIs are so flexible that we were able to find a good solution for this as well.