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The Salesforce Update contact action updates existing contact records in your connected Salesforce org. This action updates only the specified fields and does not overwrite unspecified fields on the contact.

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Limitations

  • As with other Salesforce actions, the exact parameter set, field coverage, and behavior may change over time. Confirm how the action behaves in your environment before relying on it for large-scale or fully automated updates.

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Prerequisites

  • Your Salesforce org must be connected as a data source in Glean, and an admin must enable the Salesforce action pack and complete Salesforce Actions Setup including OAuth configuration.
  • Users must authenticate for Salesforce actions on first use and have permission to update Contact records and write to relevant fields.

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Supported parameters

ParameterTypeDescription
Contact IDStringSalesforce ID of the Contact record to update.
Account IDStringUpdated Account ID association. Leave empty to keep unchanged.
First nameStringNew first name to set on the contact.
Last nameStringNew last name.
EmailStringUpdated email address.
PhoneStringPrimary phone number for the contact.
Mobile phone numberStringMobile phone number.
TitleStringJob title.
DepartmentStringDepartment name.
DescriptionStringFree-form description or notes about the contact.
BirthdateStringContact’s birthdate.
Mailing streetStringStreet portion of the contact’s mailing address.
Mailing address (city)StringCity for the mailing address.
Mailing address (state/province)StringState or province for the mailing address.
Mailing address (postal code)StringPostal or ZIP code for the mailing address.
Mailing address (country)StringCountry for the mailing address.

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Usage example

You need to update a contact’s job details after they changed roles at their company, searching for them first to confirm you have the right person. Instruction to an agent: “Find the contact for [email protected] in Salesforce and update her title to VP of Product, department to Product Management, and phone to 111-555-9999.” Resulting behavior:
  • Calls Search Salesforce with SOQL to find contacts with email “[email protected]”.
  • Retrieves the Contact ID (for example, “003xx000001234567”).
  • Calls Update contact with:
    • Contact ID set to “003xx000001234567”.
    • Title set to “VP of Product”.
    • Department set to “Product Management”.
    • Phone set to “111-555-9999”.
  • Updates the specified fields on the Contact record.
  • All other fields (First name, Last name, Email, Account association, Mailing address, etc.) remain unchanged.
  • Confirms the contact was updated successfully.
Workflow tip: Always search for the contact first to get the Contact ID before updating. Only the fields you specify will be changed; all other fields remain as they are. Combine this action with Salesforce Search, Search Salesforce with SOQL, Send email, or Log email activity to build complete contact management workflows that find contacts, update their information, and track outreach.

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Troubleshooting

  • Possible cause: The Salesforce action pack is not enabled or not linked to your Salesforce data source in the Glean admin console.
  • Fix: In the Glean admin console, go to Platform → Actions, add the Salesforce action pack if needed, link it to your Salesforce datasource instance, configure authentication, update publish settings, and save. After that, Salesforce Update contact must appear under Actions → By datasource → Salesforce in the agent builder.
  • Possible cause: The Salesforce profile of the user or permission set does not have write access to one of the fields included in the update.
  • Fix: In Salesforce setup, adjust field-level security or permission sets so that the user has write access to the affected Contact fields, or remove those fields from the action configuration, then re-run the agent.

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FAQs

No. The action updates only the specified fields. Only the fields you pass into the action are modified; all other fields remain unchanged on the record.
Use Salesforce Search or Search Salesforce with SOQL to find the contact by email, name, or other criteria first. These search actions will return the Contact ID, which you can then pass to Update contact.
Yes. You can combine Update contact with Salesforce Search, Search Salesforce with SOQL, Send email, Log email activity, Create contact, or other Salesforce actions to build complete workflows that find contacts, update their information, and track outreach.