Open Office Hours Season 1: Session 4 - Connections: Salesforce & HubSpot

Getting your Salesforce or HubSpot connection right from the start saves you from headaches later. This guide covers best practices for both platforms and shows you, step by step, how to configure connections in MyRapidi.

In the 4th Session of our Open Office Hours series, we will explain how to connect to Salesforce and HubSpot via Rapidi.

How to Set Up Salesforce and HubSpot Connections

Watch the Replay of our fourth session: Connections - Salesforce and HubSpot

Salesforce Connection Best Practices

Use a Dedicated Integration User

Don't use your personal Salesforce login for your integration. Create a dedicated integration user instead.

Why? Two reasons. First, if someone leaves the company and their account gets deactivated, your integration breaks. We've seen this happen with customers, and it's not a fun fix. Second, a dedicated user gives you a clean audit trail. You can see exactly which changes came from the integration versus manual edits.

Good to know:
Salesforce includes an integration user license by default. You don't need to buy a separate license. Just assign the right permission sets, and you're ready to go.

Set Up the Right API Permissions

Give your integration user only the access it needs. No more, no less. That means:

• Read and write access to the specific fields used in the integration
• Access to the objects you're syncing (accounts, contacts, opportunities, custom objects, etc.)
• Proper field-level security so the user can actually read and write every field in your transfers

If you skip field-level security, the integration might run but silently miss fields. Check this early.

Keep API Limits in Mind

Salesforce sets a cap on API calls per 24-hour period for each org. Know your limits and plan around them, especially if you're running frequent syncs or handling large data volumes.

Always Test in a Sandbox First

Salesforce makes it easy to create a sandbox environment. From your production org, you can request a full or partial copy. Use this sandbox to build and test your integration before touching production data.

A few things to know about Salesforce sandboxes:

• When you create the sandbox, you automatically become its admin. You log in with the same credentials. If teammates need access, you'll have to add them.
• When you refresh a sandbox, the Salesforce org ID changes. That means you'll need to reauthorize your Rapidi connection afterward.
• Refreshing is useful when you need updated data from production for testing.

HubSpot Connection Best Practices

1 Use a Dedicated User

HubSpot doesn't have a built-in "integration user" type like Salesforce does. But you can still create a separate user account for integration. This keeps your audit trail clean and avoids the same continuity risks.

2 Choose the Right Scopes

When authorizing your HubSpot connection, you'll need to grant access to the right objects. Make sure the integration user can reach everything you plan to sync.

3 Watch Your Rate Limits

HubSpot handles rate limits differently from Salesforce. You'll deal with both per-second burst limits and daily limits. The exact numbers depend on your HubSpot subscription tier, so check what applies to your account.

4 Check Custom Object Access

If your integration uses custom objects, verify that your HubSpot subscription supports them. Not all HubSpot plans include custom object access, and this can be a blocker if you don't check upfront.

5 Test in Sandbox

Just like Salesforce, use a HubSpot sandbox environment for testing. Build your integration there, validate it works, then deploy to production.

Setting Up Connections in MyRapidi

Once you've prepared your users and permissions, here's how to create and configure connections in the Rapidi platform.

1 Creating a New Connection

1. Log in to MyRapidi and go to the Connections section.
2. Click to add a new connection and select Salesforce or HubSpot.
3. Rapidi automatically assigns a unique connection code. You can edit the description to something meaningful, like "Salesforce Production" or "HubSpot Sandbox."
4. Save the connection.

2 Authorize

Click the Authorize button to link the connection to your instance.

Salesforce

You'll be redirected to a Salesforce login page. Before logging in, check the URL. By default, it shows login.salesforce.com, but you may need to replace this with your org-specific URL. If you're already logged into a different Salesforce org in your browser, log out first. Otherwise, you might accidentally authorize the wrong org.

HubSpot

You'll be redirected to HubSpot to approve access. Select the right account and confirm.

After authorization, Rapidi displays a confirmation with the date, time, and user who authorized the connection.

3 Test

After authorizing, click Test to confirm that Rapidi can connect to your instance. Wait for the success message before moving on.

4 Read design

This is the step people most often forget. Click Read Design to have Rapidi read all the objects and fields your integration user can access.

How long this takes depends on your access level. If the user has admin access to hundreds of objects, it could take a few minutes. If access is limited to a handful of objects, it finishes quickly.

Common mistake
If you skip the 'read design' step, your transfers won't see new objects or fields. This is one of the most common troubleshooting questions we get.

Browsing the Object Layout

After the read design completes, you can verify what's available by going to any transfer and clicking Browse Table Layout. Search for a specific object (such as "Contact" or "Order") to view all its fields. If an object or field is missing, either read the design again or check your user's permissions.

Quick Reference

Frequently Asked Questions about Salesforce

1. Do I need to buy a separate license for an integration user?

No. Salesforce includes five free integration user licenses by default. You assign the "Salesforce Integration" user license and the "Salesforce API Only System Integrations" profile. No additional purchase is needed.

This is widely misunderstood. Threads on the Salesforce Trailblazer Community and Salesforce Ben consistently clarify that these licenses come standard with every org.

2. Why can't my integration user access objects or fields after setup?

This is the #1 frustration in forums. The Salesforce Integration user license only works with permission sets, not profile-based permissions. You can't add object access to the profile itself.

You must: create a permission set that grants read/write access to specific objects and fields, assign the Salesforce API Integration permission set license (PSL), and then assign the permission set to the user.

Most orgs still manage access through profiles, so this new model catches people off guard. One blogger described it as "assembling the worst IKEA project ever."

3. Why did my integration break after a sandbox refresh?

When you refresh a sandbox, the Salesforce org ID changes. Any integration connected to the old sandbox loses its connection immediately.

You need to reauthorize (not just re-test) the connection, log into the new sandbox instance, and often update the URL. Some tools won't let you simply reauthorize — you have to remove and re-add the connection entirely.

Also note: after a sandbox refresh, it can take up to 48 hours before you can log in via test.salesforce.com. During that window, use your sandbox's My Domain login URL instead.

4. How do I check my API usage, and what happens when I hit the limit?

Check usage in Setup → System Overview → API Requests, Last 24 Hours. For monthly usage, go to Setup → Company Information → Usage-Based Entitlements.

The daily limit is a soft limit. Salesforce allows you to exceed it temporarily, but if usage keeps climbing, a hard cap kicks in and returns a 403 REQUEST_LIMIT_EXCEEDED error. Calls stay blocked until the rolling 24-hour usage drops back below the limit.

You can set up email notifications at custom thresholds (like 50%, 80%, 90%) to catch spikes early. Enterprise Edition orgs start at 100,000 requests per 24-hour period, plus additional calls based on user licenses.

5. Should I use my own Salesforce login for integrations?

Every best-practice guide says no. Using a personal login means the integration breaks when that person leaves the company. You lose a clean audit trail since integration changes and manual edits look the same. And the integration gets more access than it actually needs.

A dedicated integration user with least-privilege permissions is the standard recommendation across every Salesforce resource.

FreQuently ASked Questions about HubSpot

1. What are HubSpot's API rate limits, and why am I getting 429 errors?

The most common question on HubSpot Developer Forums. For both private and OAuth apps, the limit is 100 requests per 10-second period per account. Daily limits vary by subscription tier.

Hitting these limits returns an 429 Too Many Requests error. The community recommends batch APIs, incremental syncs using hs_lastmodifieddate, and honoring the Retry-After header. HubSpot also sells an API Add-On that increases the burst limit to 200 per 10-second period.

2. Can I use custom objects with my HubSpot plan?

Custom objects are only available on Enterprise plans. People on Professional or Starter plans often discover this limitation after they've already designed their integration around custom objects.

Additionally, Zapier doesn't support HubSpot custom objects, and most Marketplace integrations only sync standard objects. The community often recommends using the Tickets pipeline as a workaround for project management or onboarding.

3. How do I set up a sandbox environment in HubSpot?

HubSpot sandbox accounts are available on Professional and Enterprise plans. By default, you can create one standard sandbox. It can sync up to 5,000 contacts (and associated records) at creation, or you can manually import up to 200,000 records per object type.

A key limitation: integrations from your production account don't connect automatically to the sandbox. You have to set them up again separately.

Heads up: HubSpot is sunsetting legacy sandboxes on March 16, 2026, and replacing them with a new sandbox system. If you're using a legacy sandbox, plan your migration now.

4. Why did my OAuth token stop working?

HubSpot OAuth access tokens expire after 6 hours, and refresh tokens revoke the previous access token immediately when used. If your token management isn't handling refresh cycles properly, the integration fails silently or throws 401 Unauthorized errors.

The fix: implement proactive token refresh logic and monitor for 401 responses to trigger re-authentication. This catches many first-time HubSpot developers off guard because the 6-hour window is shorter than most platforms.

5. Can I use Salesforce's free integration user license with HubSpot?

This sparked a heated thread on the HubSpot Community. Initially, HubSpot's own team said the Salesforce Integration user license wouldn't work with HubSpot and that a full Salesforce user license was required.

But community members later confirmed it does work, provided you set up the right permission sets and permission set groups. The key is granting access to the specific objects HubSpot syncs (contacts, accounts, opportunities, etc.) through permission sets rather than profile-based access.

This question keeps resurfacing because the official guidance and real-world experience don't always match.

What's Next

Session 5 covers field mappings, formulas, and transformations. Learn how to configure how your data moves between systems.

Can't attend live? Register anyway, and we'll send you the recording and materials afterward.

Register for Session 5