Salesforce sync error "There's a problem with this state"

  • Updated

When pushing data to Salesforce such as a new lead or a contact update, the State/Province and Country fields may require specific data values to be accepted by Salesforce.

If the field value is incorrect, the record will fail to sync which can result in missing new leads or out-of-date contact information in your Salesforce account.

This error message may appear in your list sync report and/or your form push errors:

There's a problem with this state, even though it may appear correct. Please select a state from the list of valid states.: State/Province

There's a problem with this country, even though it may appear correct. Please select a country/territory from the list of valid countries.: Country

 

There are multiple solutions to this error, depending on what your organization needs.

Solution Pros Cons

Update the field(s) in your Act-On form(s)*
  • Maintain standardized field values in Salesforce
  • This is the best practice to maintain consistent data across your businesses information systems
  • It may take some time to update all of your forms.
  • You may also need to update the data in your Act-On Form Submission list to push the missing contacts into Salesforce
Disable State/Country Picklists in Salesforce
  • You can easily push your leads into Salesforce after the setting is disabled
  • No changes necessary to your Act-On Forms
  • Field values in Salesforce and Act-On may not be standardized. This can impact reporting, lead assignment, alerts, segmentation, etc.

 

Solution 1: Update your Act-On Form(s) to match Salesforce

Step 1: Correct the Act-On Form(s)

Ask your Salesforce administrator if you are using the default picklists for State and Country/Territory, or if these lists have been customized.

Default Picklists

Act-On has content fragments available which are compatible with the default settings on Salesforce State (US only) and Country address fields.

  1. To access these, go to Content > Catalog > Content Fragments.
  2. Download the Country Dropdown (full names) and/or State Dropdown (full names).
  3. Replace your Country and/or State field in the form with this content fragment.

Custom Picklists

If you are using a custom State and/or Country dropdown, or you need a State picklist for a country other than US, ask your Salesforce administrator to provide a listing of Country and/or State names and values in a two-column .CSV file (where column 1 is the Label that shows on the picklist and column 2 is the Value that goes to Salesforce). You can upload this to your form and create a custom picklist with ease.

As a best practice, create this as a Content Fragment for use in future forms.

More on Content Fragments here: Content Fragments and Saved Sections in Forms

Step 2: Recover Missing Leads

  1. Manually update the data values in the missing form submissions to match the values accepted by Salesforce.
  2. Push the Act-On form submission list to Salesforce for the missing leads to appear.

Solution 2: Disable Picklist in Salesforce

Step 1: Correct the Form push

This must be performed by your Salesforce Administrator.

  1. In Salesforce, go to Setup > Data Management > State and Country/Territory Picklists
  2. Click Disable

Step 2: Recover Missing Leads

The Act-On admin or marketing user may now push the Act-On form submission list to Salesforce for the missing leads to appear.

Note: Disabling the picklists in Salesforce impacts the fields and values for existing records as well as new ones. This may cause data disruption. Review the warnings from Salesforce and determine if this is the best choice for your organization. 

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