S4S and Sitecore 9 Analytics - How does it work?

Sitecore visitors who complete and submit a web form have the option of pushing the analytics to Salesforce. In the CRM this information is invaluable to the sales team who can use it to get a greater understanding of their prospect. But how does it work? 

Sitecore has three types of form, Web Forms for Marketers (WFFM), Sitecore Experience Forms, and custom forms. The following applies to all three when they are mapped to a Salesforce lead or contact (via one of the mapping wizards or programmatically).

1. A visitor browses the website, completes a form and submits it
2. S4S runs the IdentifyAs method to determine if the visitor has been on the website before using a different device (typically by matching the email address on the form). If a match is found, the Sitecore contact is retrieved from xDB
3. S4S uses xConnect to call the xDB database and collects the visitor's previous behavior
4. S4S pushes the form data, Alias Id, and analytics to a new or existing Salesforce record. An update will occur if a Salesforce record is found with an existing Alias Id or other criteria as determined by the wizard or code
5. In Salesforce, the data appears as seen in the following image (lead and contact record look the same)

Sitecore Analytics: Contains the cumulative values from all visits and the Sitecore Alias ID

SitecoreXDBContacts: Salesforce reference object that maps to the corresponding xDB contact.  This Salesforce object contains reference data that can be attached to a lead or a contact (so is passed from one to the other when converting a lead). This section does not need to be exposed

Sitecore Visits: A list of website visits made by the contact. More detail can be seen by clicking the Sitecore visit link. The Get Latest Visits button can be used to populate the analytics values in Salesforce from the latest data in Sitecore. A Sitecore scheduler can also be configured to update the analytics data in all lead and contact records on a regular basis 

Sitecore Goals: A list of goals encountered by the contact

Sitecore Profiles: Sitecore personalization values. More detail can be seen by clicking the Sitecore Profile name, including the profiles keys. The key values can be edited then pushed back to Sitecore the visitor receives a personalization driven from Salesforce.