How-to

How to connect a CRM to DataLens

CRM data is where the customer truth lives and where it is hardest to get out. Connect once, pick your objects, and have them beside your other data.

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What you will do

You will authorise a CRM connection, choose which objects to bring across, and load them as datasets that join with your finance, product or operational data.

The point is not to replace CRM reporting. It is to get CRM objects into the same place as everything else so you can join across them.

When this is useful

  • You need to join pipeline data with revenue or delivery data that lives elsewhere.
  • CRM reporting cannot answer a question that spans systems.
  • You are building a Customer 360 view and the CRM is one of its sources.
  • You want to assess CRM data quality — duplicate accounts, missing fields, inconsistent values.

Before you start

  • Admin access in the CRM — Connecting requires creating an app or registration in the CRM itself — a Connected App in Salesforce, a private app in HubSpot, an app registration for Dynamics 365.
  • The credentials that produces — Typically a Client ID and Client Secret, and for some CRMs an environment or region.
  • A view on which objects you need — Accounts and Opportunities are the usual starting pair.

Steps

  1. Open Data → Connections → CRM

    Select Data, then Connections, then the CRM tab.

    The CRM Connectors panel listing the available CRMs.

  2. Choose your CRM

    Pick the CRM you are connecting. The form changes to what that CRM needs — Salesforce asks for a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret and whether the target is Production or Sandbox; HubSpot and Dynamics 365 ask for a Client ID and Client Secret; Zoho CRM also asks for a Data Centre Region, because Zoho accounts are region-bound.

  3. Create the app on the CRM side

    Each CRM requires an application to be registered before it will issue credentials. The connector links to the right place — New Connected App for Salesforce, Create a private app for HubSpot, New Registration for Dynamics 365.

    This step happens in the CRM, not in DataLens, and usually needs an administrator.

  4. Enter the credentials and environment

    Paste the Client ID and Client Secret the CRM issued, and set the environment — Production or Sandbox for Salesforce, the Environment URL for Dynamics 365, the Data Centre Region for Zoho.

    Name the connection so you can tell a sandbox from production at a glance later.

  5. Choose the objects to load

    Once connected, pick the objects you want. Salesforce exposes its standard objects — Accounts, Opportunities and others, each with their standard fields.

    Load the objects you have a use for rather than everything. Each becomes its own dataset.

    The chosen objects appear as datasets under Data → Datasets.

  6. Save the connection

    Select Save Connection so you can load more objects later without repeating the app registration.

What happens next

CRM data is famously inconsistent. Prepare is the next stop — Standardise Values for country and status fields, Drop Duplicates for repeated accounts, Normalise Text for names.

Once clean, join CRM objects with other datasets in Model to build the cross-system view the CRM could not give you.

Example

A revenue team wants win rate by industry, but industry is on the Account and the outcome is on the Opportunity. They connect Salesforce, load both objects, join them on AccountId in Model, and chart the result in Analyse — a question their CRM reports could not answer.

Tips

  • Connect a sandbox first if you have one. It proves the credentials work without touching production limits.
  • Load the objects you need. CRMs have many objects and most of them will not be relevant to your question.
  • Expect to clean. Standardise Values in Prepare is built for exactly the country and status inconsistency CRM data carries.
  • Name connections to distinguish sandbox from production. That distinction is invisible once the data is loaded.

Limitations

  • Connecting requires an app registration inside the CRM, which usually needs administrator rights you may not have.
  • A load is a point-in-time snapshot. It does not stay in step with the CRM by itself.
  • DataLens reads CRM data. It does not write back to the CRM.
  • Available CRMs are those listed on the CRM tab. Others are not offered.

Related how-to guides

Build a data productPro

Turn scattered datasets into a defined, governed product with a named owner and a documented schema.

Clean a messy dataset

Drop nulls, fill gaps, remove duplicates and cap outliers — with a live preview before anything is applied.

Join datasets and create views

Join datasets on the keys that relate them and save the result as a reusable view.

Pull data from a REST API

Call a JSON API with the auth it needs, point at the array inside the response, and load the result as a dataset.

Related questions

More of these on the DataLens FAQ page.

Which CRMs does DataLens connect to?

The CRM tab offers Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365 and Zoho CRM. Each requires an app to be registered on the CRM side to issue the client credentials the connector uses.

Does connecting a CRM change data in the CRM?

No. The connector reads objects out of the CRM into DataLens datasets. Nothing is written back.

Try this in DataLens

DataLens is in private beta. Request access and work through this guide on your own data.

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