Your customer data lives in Salesforce. Your documents live in SharePoint. And somewhere in between, your team spends time searching, downloading, re-uploading and wondering which version is the right one. We’ve all been there. In this blog, we’ll explain what a Salesforce SharePoint integration should do for you, which options you have, and what to check before you choose one.
Why connect Salesforce and SharePoint at all?
Salesforce is great at records: accounts, opportunities, cases, contracts. SharePoint is great at documents: co-authoring, version history, permissions and retention. Most organisations use both, but without a connection they live side by side rather than together.
That leads to familiar problems. Files are attached in Salesforce and saved in SharePoint, so there are two versions. Colleagues email attachments around instead of working in one document. And Salesforce file storage fills up with documents that really belong in SharePoint.
A good Salesforce SharePoint integration brings the two together: you work from the Salesforce record, while the files themselves are stored and managed in SharePoint. The best of both worlds.
What a good integration should do
Not every integration works the same way. These are the points that make the difference in daily use.
1. Everything is organised automatically
Nobody wants to decide where each file should go. A good integration creates the right SharePoint folder (or site) for a Salesforce record automatically and stores files there, following rules your administrator sets once. Your users just add the file to the record.
2. Two-way sync
A file added to a Salesforce record should end up in SharePoint. And a file added to the related SharePoint folder should appear on the Salesforce record. Renaming or deleting in one place should be reflected in the other. That way, there is only ever one version of the truth.
3. One click to open and edit
Opening a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file from Salesforce shouldn’t mean download, edit, re-upload. With the right integration, you open the file in Microsoft 365 with one click, edit it, and your changes are saved straight back to SharePoint. Colleagues can co-author the same document at the same time.
4. Security that you already trust
Your documents often contain sensitive information: contracts, financial details, personal data. A good integration builds on the security you already have, using the Salesforce sharing model and SharePoint permissions, rather than adding another set of access rules to maintain. For records that need extra protection, storing files on separate SharePoint sites gives you more fine-grained control.
5. Version history and audit trail
SharePoint keeps track of who changed what, and when. When your Salesforce files are stored in SharePoint, that version history, audit trail and your existing retention and compliance settings apply to them too. For organisations in regulated sectors, such as finance, leasing or the public sector, that’s often a requirement rather than a nice-to-have.
6. It works wherever you are
Sales teams visit clients. Engineers work on site. Your files should be available in the Salesforce mobile app just as easily as on a laptop.
Your options at a glance
Broadly speaking, there are three ways to connect Salesforce and SharePoint.
Salesforce Files Connect. Salesforce’s own feature lets users browse and reference files in external systems such as SharePoint from within Salesforce. It’s a useful starting point for access, but it’s mainly about finding and linking existing files, not about organising them per record automatically.
Custom integration or automation tools. With Power Automate, middleware or custom code, you can build almost anything. The trade-off is that someone needs to build it, maintain it and fix it when either platform changes.
An AppExchange app. A dedicated app installs into your Salesforce org and is configured with clicks rather than code. This is where File 365 fits in.
How File 365 handles it
File 365 is a native Salesforce app that embeds SharePoint in Salesforce. Files added to a record are stored in SharePoint automatically, in a folder structure your administrator chooses per object, such as a folder per record, a site per record, or folders for related records within a parent. File 365 creates those folders automatically.
From there, it’s two-way sync: work in Salesforce or in SharePoint, and both stay up to date. You open Office files with one click, use the preview feature to see a record’s files in one view, and use File 365 in the Salesforce mobile app.
A few things that are worth knowing:
- Your files stay in your own SharePoint. File 365 creates a direct connection between Salesforce and your Microsoft 365 environment, without storing your files itself or routing them through middleware.
- It saves Salesforce storage. Files move to SharePoint instead of taking up Salesforce file storage.
- Large files are supported. Since version 5.0, File 365 can move files of up to 2 GB to SharePoint. Read more in our blog on large files.
- Email-to-Case attachments are stored in SharePoint automatically, linked to the case.
- Setup is point-and-click. Since version 5.0, a guided connection setup helps you link Salesforce and SharePoint. See the release notes for what’s new.
Want to see how automatic uploads work in practice? Read how to automatically upload Salesforce files to SharePoint.
Questions to ask before you choose
Whichever route you take, these questions help you compare:
- Are folders created and linked to records automatically, or do users have to do that?
- Does sync work both ways, including renames and deletions?
- Can users edit Office files directly, without downloading them?
- Does it use your existing Salesforce and SharePoint permissions?
- Where are your files stored, and does any third party process them?
- How much maintenance does it need after setup?
- Is there support from a partner who knows both Salesforce and Microsoft 365?
Interested?
Curious what a Salesforce SharePoint integration could look like in your own organisation? Request a free demo now! We’d love to get to know you.
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