Integrating CRM & Project Management Tools for Better Productivity
In today’s digital age, businesses rely on various tools and systems to manage different aspects of their operations.
In the quest for achieving organizational efficiency, CRM and project management tools are crucial.
At the same time, platform integration is key to unlocking better workplace collaboration and driving productivity.
A CRM system such as Salesforce and Zendesk acts as the nerve center of customer interactions, allowing you to manage and nurture customer relationships.
On the other hand, project management tools enable you to track and manage tasks, issues, and tickets throughout the entire project development lifecycle.
Integrating these tools enables you to break down team silos, deliver exceptional customer experiences, optimize project outcomes, and drive organizational success.
In this blog post, you’ll learn more about the benefits of integrating CRM and project management tools.
Let’s begin!
Benefits of Integrating CRM-Project Management Tools
Integrating CRM systems and project management tools enables seamless collaboration between support, sales, marketing, and project management teams.
It allows improved collaboration with streamlined workflows, enhanced customer insights, efficient resource allocation, and quick decision-making.
The integration enables you to:
Manage Projects Better
Manage customer data effectively. Get real-time project tracking within the CRM system. Monitor project progress, track milestones, and allocate resources.
Generate reports, analyze project performance, and identify areas for improvement, leading to more successful project outcomes.
Foster Better Collaboration
Enable seamless communication and collaboration between teams.
Facilitate the exchange of information, tasks, and updates, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.
Enhance Efficiency
Increase efficiency by streamlining processes, enhancing communication, and providing a centralized platform for project and data management.
Streamline Workflows
Establish a seamless workflow between sales and development teams.
Streamline the overall process, reduce manual effort, and minimize the chances of miscommunication or information gaps.
Enhance Data Sync
Build a seamless flow of data between CRM and project management tools.
Eliminate the need for manual data entry or duplication of information, saving time and reducing errors.
Access Comprehensive Customer Data
Access a comprehensive view of customer information, including contact details, communication history, preferences, and more.
Having all this data readily available enables better customer engagement and personalized interactions.
Best Practices for CRM-Project Management Integration
Define Integration Objectives: Clearly define integration goals and identify the specific data or processes you want to synchronize between your CRM system and project management tool. This could be syncing customer information, sales opportunities, support tickets, or other relevant data.
Choose the Right Integration Method: Evaluate available integration methods and select the one that best suits your needs. Some options include using pre-built connectors, utilizing APIs, or leveraging third-party integration platforms.
Map Data Fields: Map the data fields in your CRM and project management systems to ensure proper synchronization. Determine how the data will flow between systems and establish rules for handling conflicts or inconsistencies.
Establish Data Governance: Develop guidelines and protocol for data governance to maintain data accuracy and integrity. Determine who has access to modify or update data in both systems and define the rules for data synchronization.
Customize and Extend Functionality: Take advantage of customization options available in your CRM and project management platforms to tailor the integration to your specific requirements. This might involve creating custom fields, workflows, or triggers to enhance functionalities.
How to Integrate CRM Systems and Project Management Tools
Via Custom Integration
In the custom approach, you need to develop code to integrate CRM systems and project management tools.
This process needs to be carried out in a manner that a one or two-way flow of data is enabled between the two instances.
However, this is a short-term solution. Once you’re done with the integration, you can’t do much except for adding more functionalities.
In essence, custom integration is limited to enabling data flow between your CRM system and project management tool.
Via a Connector
Businesses prefer a connector over custom integration. This is because a connector enables you to build a bi-directional data flow and a set of workflows to manage tasks.
A connector is a long-term solution, is scalable, offers more use-cases & functionalities, is easy to set up, and can be customized on the basis of requirements.
Clearly, a connector will enable you to seamlessly integrate your CRM system and project management tool when compared with custom integration.
Integrating Salesforce or Zendesk and Jira With a Connector
When you use Salesforce or Zendesk for support operations and Jira for project management, chances are that you’ll encounter a few challenges.
Key among these is that your teams will need to keep switching between the two platforms in order to access required data.
By integrating Salesforce or Zendesk and Jira with the connector you’ll be able to channel all CRM tickets directly into Jira while keeping communication open between platforms.
In addition to this, you’ll be able to set up a seamless, end-to-end data flow, boost organizational efficiency, and streamline workflows.
At Grazitti, we’ve built Sinergify, a Salesforce-native, Lightning-ready connector.
It enables you to integrate your CRM and project management platforms, such as Salesforce or Zendesk, and Jira.
Real-Life Application of Sinergify
One of our customers, a leading provider of highly scalable development and DevOps solutions, had acquired 5 organizations and each had a separate engineering team.
Additionally, every organization had a separate CRM platform used by their support teams.
After the acquisition, the customer wanted to use a single Salesforce instance for support. They wanted to:
- Save the time required to migrate data from respective organizations to their Jira instance
- Minimize the cost required in integrating multiple Jira instances of organizations situated in different countries
This is where team Grazitti helped the customer with Sinergify.
By implementing the solution, the customer was able to adapt to new acquisitions in a very short timeframe.
They were able to auto-migrate data from multiple Salesforce instances and create a common instance for the support team.
Finally, we helped them integrate multiple Jira instances to a single Salesforce Org, which minimized manual effort and enhanced the overall productivity of the organization.
A Brief Round-Off
In today’s fast-paced business landscape, integrating CRM and project management tools has emerged as a crucial strategy.
It breaks down silos between teams, streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration and makes resource allocation a breeze.
