How to Create Your First Recipe in Sitecore Connect

Learn how to streamline workflows and enhance automation by building and integrating your first recipe in Sitecore Connect

September 12, 2024

By Hunter Ullett

Implementing Your First Recipe in Sitecore Connect

To ensure all your systems work together, integrating and automating workflows is key to maintaining efficiency and effectiveness. That's where Sitecore Connect steps in. This powerful tool enables effortless integration of various services and automation of processes, helping to streamline your business operations and boost productivity. If you’re unfamiliar with Sitecore Connect I’d recommend checking out my first blog on the topic “What is Sitecore Connect”.

In this blog, I will guide you through the process of implementing your first recipe in Sitecore Connect by building one out yourself. From learning what a recipe is and why you should use them to creating recipes for production use, I will cover all the essential steps and provide tips to help you get started with basic recipes. By the end of this guide, you'll have a solid understanding of how to leverage Sitecore Connect to build your own recipes to enhance your business through automation.

Please note as well that to comply with Sitecore Connect licensing rules you will need to integrate at least one Sitecore product within your recipe. This tutorial, for demonstration sake, does not include a Sitecore product and is to show the process of building rather than be an integration to use. I have an example of how it can be used with Sitecore Send in a section further down that isn’t an in-depth tutorial.

What is a Recipe and Why Should You Use One?

In my previous blog Implementing Your First Recipe in Sitecore Connect Using the Community Library I go through a very similar explanation of what a recipe is and why you should use one, if you’ve read that blog feel free to use this link to skip ahead. Otherwise you can continue down below.

A Sitecore Connect recipe is a predefined workflow that automates a series of tasks based on specific triggers and actions. Think of it as a set of instructions that tells Sitecore Connect what to do when certain conditions are met. Triggers initiate the workflow, while actions define the tasks that the workflow will perform once activated. With thousands of apps available for integration, Sitecore Connect offers endless possibilities to help your business stay streamlined and efficient.

Why You Should Use a Sitecore Connect Recipe

There are numerous reasons to leverage Sitecore Connect and start using recipes. Here are some key benefits:

  • Save Time and Effort: Automating repetitive tasks allows you and your team to focus on more strategic work. Recipes handle routine processes, freeing up valuable time.
  • Ensure Consistency: Recipes ensure that tasks are performed consistently, reducing the risk of human error and maintaining uniform standards across your workflows.
  • Improve Efficiency: By linking different services and automating their interactions, recipes make your overall marketing process more efficient, leading to faster execution and better results.
  • Enhance Integration: Sitecore Connect recipes allow for seamless integration of various tools and platforms, ensuring smooth data flow and enhancing the overall functionality of your digital ecosystem.
  • Boost Customer Engagement: Automated workflows help you respond to customer actions more quickly and accurately, leading to improved customer satisfaction and engagement.

Using Sitecore Connect recipes can revolutionize how you manage operational tasks, making them more efficient and your strategies more effective. In the next sections, I will guide you through the Sitecore Connect dashboard and walk you through the process of creating your first recipe."

Getting Started With Your First Custom-Built Recipe

The Sitecore Connect Dashboard

When you first login to Sitecore Connect you will be met with the dashboard. This is the home of Sitecore Connect and offers different insights into how your recipes are performing and acts as a launchpad to access all the features Sitecore Connect has to offer. Since this is assumably your first time here it will display a generic screen that stays until your first recipe is built. This is the first stop along our journey of creating our own Sitecore Connect recipe but just serves as the launch point.

Sitecore Connect dashboard with options to explore guides, FAQs, and community recipes.

The Projects Page

Before we get into the meat of actually building out our recipe we’ll first need to navigate to the Projects tab from the Sitecore Connect Dashboard. This will bring you to a page that looks like the following.

Connect dashboard with project tab highlighted and guide links

Connect project dashboard showing empty state with create project button

The project page is where you will be able to find everything you’ve created in your Sitecore Connect instance. You will notice an Assets menu on the left that has options for Connections, Recipes, and Trash this is where all of your work will live within the app. New recipes and connections can be created from the assets menu on the left and deleted items will be put into the trash where you can restore or delete them forever. For the sake of this tutorial we will be ignoring these tabs as creating connections or recipes requires a created project to do so and we can do all of that from within the project menu which we will go over shortly.

Setting Up to Build Your Recipe

Now that you’re aware of the two basic page options relevant to this tutorial in Sitecore Connect, it’s time to start building out our project and recipe. For this tutorial we will be building out a recipe that takes Google Sheets data and turns it into Salesforce records. Before we get into it though there are a few things that you will need:

  • Google Account: This is needed to access Google Sheets and is what we will be connecting to Sitecore Connect.
  • Salesforce Developer Account: To connect to Salesforce you will need an account. The easiest way to do this is by signing up for a free developer account, giving you access to a sandbox environment we can use for this tutorial.
  • Google Sheets Example Document: I’ve created an example document for you to connect with Sitecore Connect that holds some basic records that we can turn into Salesforce records. This is what I will use through this tutorial so I recommend clicking in and going to File > Make a Copy so that you have a copy of it within your drive.

Creating a Project

Creating a project This is the first stop on our journey of building out a recipe together. So we’ll want to click on the Create Project button. From there it will ask you to name and give a description for your project. I will be naming the project Building Your First Recipe and since the description is optional I will be leaving it blank, however, feel free to name it in whatever way you’d like.

Connect project dashboard showing empty state with create project button

Project setup form with a field for name and description

Initial Setup of Your Recipe and Creating Connections

Now that we have a project created we will be taken inside of that project, this is where we can create new connections, recipes, and folders that pertain to the project. From here what we are going to want to do is create our first connections. To do this we will go to create in the top right corner and in the dropdown we’ll select connection.

Screen in Connect app showing how to create a new connection for a project.

After clicking on create > connection you will be taken to the pre-built connectors library. We will then search for “Salesforce” and select it.

GIF showing the process of setting up a new connection in Salesforce.

You’ll then be taken to a screen asking you to connect to Salesforce. Within here you don’t have to change anything, you may think you’ll need to switch the setting Sandbox from No to Yes but that is not the case. All you have to do is select Connect

Salesforce account connection interface for OAuth setup.

Once you hit Connect you will be asked to sign into Salesforce in a new window. Once you login using the credentials of your free developer account you will see a new screen showing that it is connected.

Salesforce sandbox login page with fields for username and password

Salesforce connection page confirming that the Salesforce is connected

Now that Salesforce is connected you can follow the same steps to connect your Google Sheets account. I will not be outlining them here in the same way but if you follow the same process instead searching Google Sheets when you get to the app selection page should be able to connect it without a hitch. Once you are done connecting both accounts your project page will now look like the screenshot below and we’re good to start building our recipe.

Overview of connected accounts including Google Sheets and Salesforce in a recipe dashboard.

If you need a more in-depth tutorial for setting up connections you can also read through it in my blog “Enabling Your First Connections in Sitecore Connect

Building Your Recipe

So now that our connections are within our project page, it’s time to start building our recipe! First we will go to that same create button in the top right corner and instead of hitting connection we will hit recipe.

Recipe creation screen in the project dashboard in Connect.

Setting Up Your Recipe

Once you’ve selected recipe from the create menu you will be greeted by a new page to start setting up your recipe. In this step you’ll name your recipe, select the location to hold it (this will default to your Building Your First Recipe folder), and pick one of the default starting points. There are many default starting points to choose from. I will briefly describe each for your own knowledge but for today’s tutorial we only have to worry about Trigger from an app.

  • Trigger from an app: Start your recipe by initiating actions from an external app. This could be when something happens in a specific application, like a form submission or data update.
  • Run on a schedule: Set your recipe to run automatically at specific times or intervals, allowing for regularly scheduled tasks or updates.
  • Trigger from a webhook: Create a recipe that is activated by a webhook, which can be sent by an external service when an event occurs, like when a new customer is created.
  • Manage other recipes: This allows you to build recipes that organize or control other recipes, giving you more automation and control over your processes.
  • Build recipe function: Develop reusable functions that can be utilized across different recipes, ensuring consistent logic and saving development time.
  • Build an API endpoint: Create an API endpoint that external applications can interact with, allowing data or commands to be sent to trigger your recipe.
  • Build a Slack bot command: This option helps you create commands specifically for Slack bots, allowing interaction with Slack directly through your recipe.

I’ve named this recipe Turning Sheets Data to Salesforce Records to describe what the recipe is doing. If you’re Sitecore Connect instance is shared between multiple people at your company it is best to write in a way that describes the recipe’s function, however, you can name it whatever you’d like at the end of the day.

Recipe setup screen for automating integration between Salesforce and Google Sheets.

Start Building Your Recipe

Now that we’ve added a name, location, and selected Trigger from an app as our starting point you can hit the Start building button. Once you do so you’ll be taken to the Sitecore Connect recipe builder. This is where the magic happens!

Screen for selecting a trigger app in a recipe workflow, showing Salesforce and Slack as connected apps.

Note: As you can see from the screenshot my “Connected Apps” section may look a little different to yours and also doesn’t include Google Sheets. This doesn’t mean it isn’t connected and if your instance also doesn’t show Google Sheets you can use the search bar to find it.

Setting Up Your Trigger

Now that we’re in the recipe builder it’s time to define your trigger. First you’ll want to select Google Sheets like I had put in the note above this may or may not be in the “Your Connected Apps” section, if it’s not search “Google Sheets” and select it. Now I’ll walk you through the steps to properly set up this trigger.

  1. Select an Event: First we’ll need to select an event for our app to run off of. Once you click into the Google Sheets connection you’ll see quite a few different options. For our tutorial we will be selecting New/updated row in sheet in My Drive. (You can also select the Team Drive option if this is where you’ve created a copy of the example sheet.)

    Options to select a new or updated row trigger event in Google Sheets for a recipe.

  2. Selecting Your Connection: In this step you’ll select which connection to use. In some cases you may have multiple connections to a singular app, In my case I only have one connected Google Sheets account, this will likely be the same for you but if it’s not make sure you select the one that you created earlier in the tutorial. You can also set up a new connection right from inside the editor.

    Screen showing active connection to a Google Sheets account for use in a trigger.

  3. Setup: In this final step you will complete the setup of your trigger. In our example use case there is only three required fields you need to fill out for setup to be complete and that is Spreadsheet, Sheet, and Columns to monitor. We will need to go to the Select a value dropdown and search for the example sheet Fishtank Consulting - Creating Your First Sitecore Connect Recipe. Once that is selected you’ll choose the sheet Customer Contact List - Sheet1 and set columns to monitor to All columns.

    GIF showing the setup process for selecting a spreadsheet and configuring a trigger in Google Sheets.

Setting Up Actions

Now that our trigger is all set up we can start implementing the actions we want our recipe to take. This is where we will integrate Salesforce and configure our recipe to take Sheets data and create a contact in Salesforce. This requires a few steps and data mapping between the Sheets values and Salesforce values. Here are the steps to follow to set up your action:

  1. Add a Step: First you’ll need to hit the “+” icon underneath actions in your recipe builder to add a new step to your recipe.

    Option to add a new step in a recipe workflow in Connect.

  2. Select the Type of Step: There are quite a few different options you can select when adding a step. There are quite a few options here but for this tutorial we need to select Action in app.

    Action options in a Salesforce workflow including Action in app, Recipe function, IF condition, Repeat for each, and Stop job.

  3. Select Your App: Now you will need to select which app you want to have this action take place. Similarly to the trigger step you will see your connected apps, here you will want to select Salesforce. Again, if it isn’t showing up you can use the search bar to find the app.

  4. Choose an Action: Now we need to select the action we want Salesforce to take. For Salesforce there are many different actions you can perform based on your business needs but we will select Create record which should be in the recommended section.

    Action selection screen for creating a record in Salesforce.

  5. Select Your Connection: Again this step is exactly the same as when setting up your trigger. Just ensure you are using the right Salesforce account if you have multiple.

  6. Setting Up Your App: This step is our last in setting up our action and is also very similar to the step in setting up your trigger, but because we need to map some data I’m going to break it into two more steps:

    1. Selecting an Object: First we are going to have to select the object that we want to create in Salesforce. Salesforce is a complex app with a lot of different objects attached to it but for our example we are going to want to create a Contact. Because there are so many options it is easiest to search for it than scroll through the list.

      Setup screen in Sitecore Connect to create a contact object for Salesforce.

    2. Mapping Data to Fields: Now that Sitecore Connect knows which object we’d like to use we need to map the data from Google Sheets to fields in the Contact object. To start mapping your data you will want to click the Recipe data box towards the bottom of your screen. From there you will see the data from our connected Google Sheet. There will be some basic information that you can pull but what we want to do is scroll down until you see Columns, this is the data we need to map. Now we will use the column data to map the matching fields. For example First name to first name, last name to last name, and so on and so forth. This is super easy and all it requires is dragging and dropping the data into the correct slot on the object. You can also ignore the optional fields section as none of them are relevant for this tutorial.

      An animated GIF showing the process of mapping data fields in Sitecore Connect while setting up a Salesforce contact.

Testing Your Recipe

Now that our trigger and action is setup that’s it for building! But before we completely call our recipe done first we’ll want to save and test it. To ensure it does work as intended you’ll also want to login to Salesforce and navigate to the Sales App and go to Contacts. It should look like the screenshot below with a bunch of default contacts already added.

A Salesforce screen displaying a list of 20 contacts with their names, titles, and account names.

Now that you’ve navigated to Salesforce to monitor your progress you can go back to Sitecore Connect in another tab and begin testing your recipe! To test your recipe go to the black ribbon at the top, click Save, and then click Test Recipe.

An animated GIF showing the process of testing a recipe that links Google Sheets to Salesforce contacts.

Now, if you’ve followed all the steps I’ve given the outcome should be a success with no errors. To double check that it worked for sure we can now head over to Salesforce, refresh the page, and scroll to the bottom of the contact list. When you scroll you should now see a contact record for John Doe. And voila, your first Sitecore Connect recipe is working! Give yourself a pat on the back but don’t click off just yet as there is one more thing we need to do.

A Salesforce screen showing an updated contact list with 21 total entries and details such as names and account information.

Activating Your Recipe

Now that the recipe is built we need to activate it for it to start running. To activate your recipe you can either click on Exit in the black ribbon at the top of the recipe builder or go to Projects > Building Your First Recipe > Turning Sheets Data to Salesforce Records. Once you’ve exited the editor and landed on the Recipe page you can click Start recipe in the top right hand corner and it’ll start to work it’s magic.

An integration recipe screen showing a trigger from Google Sheets and an action to create a contact in Salesforce.

And now you’ve successfully built and started your first recipe!

Keep Exploring Your New Recipe

Now that your recipe is built you can play around with the Google Sheet to see it in action. I’ve left some more potential contacts you can use in the second tab titled Customer Contacts. Try copying and pasting records into the Customer Contact List tab and you should start to see them pop up in Salesforce as the recipe runs.

Integrating With Sitecore Products

As I had mentioned in the introduction of this blog, depending on your license, this tutorial may not comply with the Sitecore Connect license you hold. Most licenses require at least one Sitecore product to be used for a recipe to comply. That being said, below are some potential next steps that you could take to make this recipe compliant to your license as well as potentially benefit your business.

For our tutorial you may want to integrate Sitecore Send to also add a new contact that you can send emails to through the app. For example after you create a contact in Salesforce you can add a new action to also create a subscriber in Sitecore Send with the same information. This way you are now able to both store your customer data in your CRM while building out a specific list of contacts that you can use Sitecore Send to communicate with. If you have access to Sitecore Send I encourage you to try and do this for your own practice as for the time being I do not have access to Sitecore Send. Not only does it continue to develop your skills in Sitecore Connect, it can be a great starting point to start building a contact list in Sitecore Send and further automation opportunities.

Wrapping Up Building Your First Sitecore Connect Recipe

Implementing your first recipe in Sitecore Connect may have seemed like a complex process, but I hope by following these steps, you can now easily streamline your workflows and enhance your business automation. Sitecore Connect offers a powerful toolset for integrating various apps and automating tasks, allowing your team to focus on more strategic initiatives. Whether you're transferring data between Google Sheets and Salesforce or connecting other apps, the potential for customization and optimization is unlike any other. Now that your first recipe is active, you can start exploring even more possibilities for using Sitecore Connect to elevate your business operations. Happy automating!



Photo of Hunter Ullett an employee at Fishtank

Hunter Ullett

Junior Digital Marketing Specialist

Hunter is a Junior Digital Marketing Specialist. Although this is his first marketing role, he brings 3 years of experience in varied roles in the e-commerce industry, along with 2 years of team management experience in the retail industry. His main experience lies in assisting clients with enhancing and fixing their websites to ensure brand success. He also spent time on an inbound sales team, assisting businesses of various sizes with their e-commerce needs. He graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Commerce specializing in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In his spare time, he enjoys weight lifting, playing mind games, doing puzzles, building LEGO, and listening to and playing music.