CRM Policy Context
If your organization uses Salesforce (NPSP) or Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, you can connect your CRM directly to Chariot. Once connected, your Policies can automatically look up constituent records, opportunities, campaigns, funds, appeals, and other coding values directly from your CRM.
The integration is read-only. Chariot never creates, edits, or deletes records in your CRM. CRM data is only accessed when a Policy explicitly requests it.
Before You Begin
Administrator Access Required
The CRM connection must be authorized by a user with sufficient permissions. For most organizations, this is a Salesforce System Administrator or Blackbaud user with API access.
If your gift processing team doesn't have these permissions, have someone from your IT or database team complete the connection. The setup takes approximately two minutes.
Connecting Doesn't Change Anything
Connecting your CRM does not automatically import or sync data.
The connection simply makes your CRM available to your Policies. CRM lookups only occur when one of your Policy rules references your CRM.
Step 1: Connect Your CRM
Navigate to Integrations
Select Connect next to Salesforce or Raiser's Edge NXT
Sign in and authorize the connection
Authentication happens directly through Salesforce or Blackbaud using OAuth. Chariot never sees or stores your CRM password.
Step 2: Create Properties For CRM Values
Policy rules store CRM information inside Properties. Create a Property for each CRM value you'd like to populate, such as:
Constituent ID
Opportunity ID
Campaign
Fund
Appeal
Account ID
When creating Select Properties, enable Auto-Creation. This allows values returned from your CRM to automatically become selectable options inside Chariot and link directly back to the original CRM record. For example, clicking a Constituent ID in Chariot can take you directly to that constituent in Salesforce or Raiser's Edge NXT.
Step 3: Create Policy Rules
Once connected, your Policies can search your CRM and populate Properties automatically.
Raiser's Edge NXT: Constituents and their related details, gift records, campaigns, funds, appeals, and code table values.
Salesforce: Whatever the connecting user can read, most commonly Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, and Campaigns. Custom objects and fields are supported.
In the Policy editor, describe the lookup you want in plain language, the same way you would for any other rule:
"Search Raiser's Edge for a constituent matching the donation's donor name and email address. If a matching constituent is found, set @soft_credit_constituent_id to their lookup ID."
"Use the Salesforce integration to find a matching open opportunity using all available donor information. If there is a match, set @opportunity_id to the corresponding ID."
"Look in @purpose and @note for text matching a campaign in Salesforce. If a match is found, set @campaign to that campaign."
Common workflows include matching donors to existing constituent records, pulling in open opportunity IDs to prevent duplicates, flagging large gifts that have no matching opportunity, and applying campaign or appeal codes that already live in your CRM.
Be specific about which field you want. CRMs often have multiple identifiers for the same record. For example, Raiser's Edge NXT has both a system record ID and a lookup ID, and most organizations want the lookup ID. If the wrong value comes back during testing, clarify the field name in your rule and run it again.
Step 4: Test Your Policies
Before activating your workflow, test it using several donations with known CRM records. Click Enrich on a donation to manually run your Policy.
After the Policy runs:
Verify the populated values against your CRM
Review the Activity Log to see each lookup performed
Adjust your Policy until the results match your expectations
Once your Policy is activated, every new donation will automatically follow the same workflow.
Step 5: Update Your Export Templates
If your CRM import process relies on the fields populated by your Policies, be sure to add those Properties to your Export Template.
Coordinate this change with whoever manages your CRM imports, as changing export columns without updating your import mapping may cause imports to fail.
Security & Data Access
Read-only
The integration can only read data. It cannot create, update, or delete anything in your CRM.
Scoped to your permissions
Chariot reads your CRM as the user who authorized the connection and can never see more than that user's account can see. To limit what Chariot can read, connect with a user whose permissions match what you want to share.
Only on request
Chariot looks up data when a policy rule calls for it. There is no background sync or bulk copy of your CRM.
Secure sign-in
The connection uses OAuth, the same standard used to "sign in with Google." Your password stays with Salesforce or Blackbaud, and connection tokens are encrypted.
Revoke at any time
Disconnect from Chariot's Integrations page, or from Salesforce or Blackbaud directly. Access ends immediately.
If the connection expires or the connecting user's CRM account is deactivated, the integration will show as disconnected and policies will stop pulling CRM data until it is reconnected from the Integrations page. If the person who connected your CRM leaves your organization, plan to reconnect with another user.
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