Preparing for Integration Implementation

Overview

Below are pre-work activities that a bank must complete prior to integration setup. These steps are necessary if the bank has purchased any of the PrecisionLender integrations, which include: Salesforce Connector, Dynamics Connector, Force.com LOS, Force.com CRM, and the Rate Sheets Connector.

Setting up a Test Region

For a bank to connect PrecisionLender to a CRM or LOS sandbox, a test region first needs to be set up within PrecisionLender. This can be completed by the PrecisionLender CSM or a bank admin. Typically, if the bank is going through a new implementation of PrecisionLender, then the PrecisionLender CSM should be able to set up the test region on behalf of the bank. If the bank is implementing an integration after PrecisionLender has been live for some time, this responsibility can be completed by the bank’s PrecisionLender admin(s).

If you are planning to or have started to implement any integration, please see the Setting Up a Test Region article for instructions on how to add a test region.

Setting up Security Profiles for Integration Test Users

Once the test region is created, it is recommended that the bank creates one or more security profiles for their test users. This allows the bank to control regional visibility and integration specific access for testing while not granting the same access to their standard users in PrecisionLender.

The security profile for integration test users should closely mirror that of the most common user of PrecisionLender. The bank can clone an existing security profile and modify the settings to include integration specific access.

When configuring a security profile for test users, the following integration-specific settings are recommended:

Disable Application Login: This should be set for test users as they will only be accessing PrecisionLender via the integration.
Enable Submit to Origination: This setting will only be visible to bank’s implementing the Force.com LOS Integration. In the case that this integration is being tested, this setting should be enabled so that the test user has access to submit loans from PrecisionLender into their LOS system.
- If a bank is implementing the Force.com LOS integration, it is important to understand what users should have access to submit the PrecisionLender opportunity to the origination system. If all standard users should have this access, then the bank should create a test user security profile that can be assigned to those testing so that the ‘Send to LOS’ button is visible to them. Then, once the bank is ready to move the integration into production, they can just enable the setting on the standard user security profile. If not all users with the standard user security profile should have this access, then the bank can create a specific 'LOS User' security profile for those that should be granted this access.
Visible Regions: It is recommended for all regions to be visible to the test user so the user can view production relationships while testing.

For additional details and steps for setting up security profiles, please see the Setting Up Security Profiles and Permissions article for instructions on how to create and edit security profiles.

Setting up Test Users

The best practice for integration testing is to create separate test user accounts for anyone testing the integration. Banks can create new users and add ‘.test’ to the end of the username to make a clear distinction between the production and test username (i.e. production user: janedoe@precisionlender.com and test user: janedoe@precisionlender.com.test). Additionally, include a description (i.e. Integration Test User) in the last name to clearly denote this as a test user.

Integration test users will not need an actual PrecisionLender password because they should only be accessing PrecisionLender via the integration. Because of this, if the bank would prefer to create the user but not send out an automated email to reset that password, that may help avoid any user confusion with their production user and test user credentials.

The test region created during this integration pre-work setup should be assigned as the home region for all test users. The reason for this is because the connection between PrecisionLender and the bank's CRM/LOS instance is based on region. This will allow the bank to keep a connection to their CRM/LOS sandbox in place even once they move to connecting with their production CRM/LOS org.

If the integration is being implemented in parallel with an external CRM/LOS implementation, and as a result, the integration is connected initially with the production CRM/LOS instance, the bank should still be connecting with a PrecisionLender test region. This is because, if the PrecisionLender pricing module is live already, then the bank will not want to have test scenarios priced and visible in production region(s) of PrecisionLender.

The pricing region on an opportunity is set based on the home region assigned to the user, and additionally we use the home region to determine the appropriate CRM settings. In order to ensure the regions/users are setup effectively both for testing, the test region should be assigned as the home region for all integration test users.

For additional details and steps for setting up test users, please see the Setting Up Users article for instructions on how to create, edit, and disable users.

Aligning Opportunity and Loan Stages

In PrecisionLender, a bank can configure stages to represent the status in which a deal is in. If a bank is implementing the CRM and/or LOS integration, the opportunity stages as well as the loan stages (if integrating Force.com LOS) will need to match between PrecisionLender and the CRM/LOS systems.

The main difference between PrecisionLender stages and those that live within a CRM and LOS is the fact that the stages within the CRM and LOS live on two separate objects: Opportunity and Loan. In PrecisionLender, all stages are pulled from a single list. Because of this, the stages that will need to be configured are dependent on the integration(s) being implemented:

If implementing CRM + LOS integration: When implementing the CRM + LOS integrations, both the CRM Opportunity and LOS Loan stages will need to have matching Opportunity stages configured in PrecisionLender.
If implementing CRM Integration Only: When implementing the CRM integration stand-alone, only the CRM Opportunity stages will need to have matching Opportunity stages configured in PrecisionLender.
If implementing LOS Integration Only: When implementing only the LOS integration stand-alone, only the Loan stages will need to have matching Opportunity stages configured in PrecisionLender.

There are also additional stage settings that will impact the integration and how stages update. For more information on these settings, please see the Understanding PrecisionLender Stages and Integrations Impacts article.

For any additional details and instructions for how to create, edit and delete stages, please see the Setting up Opportunity Stages article.

Defining Relationship Identifier Source Field

For banks using Relationship Awareness in PrecisionLender (a requirement for the Force.com LOS connector), we will need to work with the CRM and Data Experts at the bank to understand what unique and persistent identifier is going to be used in the bank's regular Relationship Awareness data file. We will then need to identify the API field name where this same identifier is being stored in the CRM and/or LOS system. Here are a few additional considerations for this identifier:

For all current CRM Connectors, that field must live on the CRM 'Account' object.
For the Force.com LOS connector, a custom relationship object can be used if the connector package is not being used in conjunction with the Salesforce CRM package.
Have the Relationship ID used in RA data files available in the CRM/LOS system is required to be able to price in PrecisionLender in the context of an existing bank relationship.