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Building the Event Engagement Platform Inside Salesforce for RainFocus

Context

RainFocus is a next-generation event marketing platform used by enterprise organizations to capture and analyze first-party attendee data across in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. Based in Lehi, Utah, the 300-person company powers event registration, content management, exhibitor activation, and attendee engagement for large-scale corporate events.

The problem RainFocus kept hearing from customers was straightforward: event data lived in one system, sales data lived in another, and the two never talked. Sales teams couldn't see which prospects attended their sessions, who visited their booth, or what content resonated — at least not in real time, and not where they actually worked: Salesforce.

RainFocus's roadmap called for a native Salesforce AppExchange application — "RainFocus for Salesforce: Event Insights and Activation" — that would embed real-time event engagement data directly into Sales Cloud. They needed a development partner who could architect the Salesforce side, navigate the ISV security review, and stay involved across multiple initiatives as the product evolved.

Challenge

Event data is uniquely complex. A single conference generates thousands of data points — registrations, session attendance, meeting bookings, content downloads, booth visits, survey responses — spread across hundreds or thousands of attendees. Surfacing this data meaningfully inside Salesforce meant more than building a simple connector.

RainFocus needed the app to deliver real-time engagement insights embedded in Account, Contact, and Opportunity records. Sales reps should see at a glance which contacts from a target account attended, what sessions they joined, and whether they booked meetings — without leaving Salesforce. The data model had to be extensible so customers could add custom attributes for their specific reporting needs.

Beyond the core integration, the app needed to support meeting management (scheduling meetings directly from Salesforce), nomination workflows (sales teams nominating VIP attendees for events), targeted agendas (personalized event landing pages sent to specific accounts), and pipeline attribution (connecting event engagement to deal progression). All of this had to work as a managed package across Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions, pass Salesforce's ISV security review, and scale to support the data volumes generated by large corporate events.

Approach

This wasn't a single-project engagement. Aquiva embedded with RainFocus's product team across multiple initiatives, providing architectural guidance alongside hands-on development.

Data model and integration architecture. We designed a Salesforce-native data model that could represent the full event engagement lifecycle — from registration through post-event follow-up — while remaining extensible for customer-specific attributes. The integration delivers real-time updates so sales teams work with current data, not yesterday's export.

Native Salesforce experience. Rather than building a separate UI, we embedded event insights directly into the objects sales teams already use. Custom reporting and dashboards give teams at-a-glance visibility into engagement patterns across events, accounts, and opportunities. Meeting management, nomination workflows, and targeted agendas all operate within the Salesforce UX.

AppExchange packaging and security review. We architected the managed package (2GP) for multi-tenant enterprise environments, prepared for and passed Salesforce's ISV security review, and established release patterns that support continuous iteration — the app has shipped over 160 releases since its initial launch.

Ongoing evolution. The engagement didn't end at launch. Aquiva continued working with RainFocus to extend the platform — adding pipeline attribution capabilities, refining the data model, and presenting joint updates at the RainFocus INSIGHT conference.

Outcome

RainFocus for Salesforce launched on the AppExchange and is now used by enterprise event teams who need their sales organizations to actually act on event data. Sales reps see real-time engagement snapshots directly in Salesforce for Accounts, Opportunities, and Contacts — no context-switching, no waiting for post-event reports.

The app gives event teams data to demonstrate ROI by connecting attendance and engagement directly to pipeline movement. Sales teams use nomination workflows to drive attendance from target accounts, send personalized agendas, and book meetings — all without leaving Salesforce. Post-event, engagement data feeds follow-up campaigns with context about what each contact actually did at the event.

"I'm continually impressed with the way in which the Aquiva Development team is able to adapt and help each other with a shared understanding of the problems RainFocus are solving, without losing sight of the end user and the jobs they need to undertake. The team has done an outstanding job with architectural guidance, project execution and strategic considerations."

"Aquiva has been a trusted partner for us as their expertise has brought in reliability and extensibility of our Salesforce platform while being involved on multiple initiatives. What stands out especially is their proactiveness and eagerness to transform and evolve our systems with high industry standards."

Metrics

  • 160+ · App releases shipped since launch
  • Real-time · Event engagement data synced to Salesforce
  • 3 · Salesforce editions supported (Enterprise, Unlimited, Developer)
  • Multi-initiative · Ongoing engagement beyond the initial build