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Best answer

Xero - Update Contact Name

  • 18 June 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 222 views
lxch

Hi everyone,

Zapier works fine when you send outbound message from salesforce, then Create or Update Contact. Only when you try updating Contact Name, no way. Does anyone know if we can do this zap:

  1. Get outbound message from Salesforce (Salesforce)
  2. Find record by Account Number (Xero)
  3. Update the Contact Name of the record found at (2) replace the Account Name sent from (1)

3 is impossible because Zapier/Xero don’t offer simply Update action. (Only we have Create or Update Contact)

Thank you!

 

 

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Best answer by lxch 18 June 2021, 07:59

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4 replies

robschmidt
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hi @lxch,

Create or Update action should just be able to do that. If your Zap finds a record previously you can be sure that it’s going to update the contact using “Create or Update” action.

Xero has no API endpoint for just updating contact, the create or update contact integration is from Xero.

Outliant.com | Zapier Expert
lxch

Hi @robschmidt , thank you for your comment. It does update other fields but not Contact Name.

SF => Xero New Contact Name Contact ID
Shift-Ctrl AAA expected Shift-Ctrl Shift-Ctrl AAA c93e2996-0f4b-478d-9053-4d29f130e150
  actual Shift-Ctrl AAA   e3a8596c-c2a2-4b2b-a392-897a5c9e53a3

 

I was expecting the found Contact Name (Shift-Ctrl) in Xero to be updated to the Shift-Ctrl AAA, but actually Create or Update Contact action made a new Contact as the above table.

 

 

2 step, I have found Contact record in Xero by account number, this account number is given by Salesforce and it is unique. So Step 1) send outboundmessage is ok, 2) find Contact in Xero is ok too. Only 3rd step, update the Contact Name doesn’t work. Any idea? Thank you!

lxch

Hi @robschmidt I got a mail from Zapier support. It seems that it's not currently possible to update Contact Name due to Xero’s setup.

You're exactly right. At the moment, it's not currently possible to update a contact's name because the Create/Update contact only uses the provided "Contact Name" value to try and identify an existing contact when it runs.

That being said, we do have a feature request to switch to using the contact's ID as the identifier when creating/updating contact's which would free up the "Contact Name" value to be used as the value to update the contact's record with if found. Although I don't have a solution or workaround for you at the moment, we will be sure to send you an update if/when this change is implemented.

2021.6.18

Hope Xero realize that they should use Contact Id or Account Number as a matching key, Contact Name is changeable. It’s non-sense to use that as a matching key.  And hope this post helps for any other users who encounter this issue.

christina.d
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Ah, thanks so much for this, @lxch! We’ll be sure to keep you in the loop and update the thread if this gets implemented down the line. :) 

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