How the commerce pipeline works
Some fundraising platforms sell merchandise, event tickets, or other products alongside donations. MoveData processes these through a dedicated commerce pipeline that extends the standard donation pipeline with additional phases for product catalogue management and order line items.
Warning
The commerce pipeline requires a commerce-capable extension (NPSP Commerce or Nonprofit Cloud). If you do not have one installed, commerce data will not be processed. See Managing MoveData settings for details on installing extensions.
The commerce pipeline#
Like the donation pipeline, the commerce pipeline processes every notification through a series of phases in a fixed order. Each phase finds or creates a Salesforce record before moving to the next.
- Account — find or create the organisation account (if applicable). For individual supporters, the account is handled by Salesforce (NPSP creates the household account automatically; Nonprofit Cloud uses a person account).
- Contact — find or create the buyer's contact record.
- Campaign — find or create the campaign the transaction belongs to.
- Catalogue — find or create the product (Product) and its price book entry (Price Book Entry). If the product already exists (matched by platform key), MoveData updates it rather than creating a duplicate.
- Order — create the transaction record as an Opportunity.
- Order Item — create one line item (Opportunity Product) per product or ticket in the order.
At each phase, MoveData checks whether the record already exists using platform keys and your Salesforce duplicate rules. If it finds a match, it updates the existing record rather than creating a duplicate. For more on how duplicate matching works, see Duplicate rules.
Note
The Account, Contact, and Campaign phases work the same way as the donation pipeline. See How the donation pipeline works for details on these phases.
What MoveData creates in Salesforce#
The commerce pipeline uses Opportunity and Opportunity Product (OpportunityLineItem) records for both NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud.
| Phase | NPSP record | Nonprofit Cloud record |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Organisation Account (for organisational buyers only — NPSP creates household accounts automatically) | Person Account |
| Contact | Contact | Contact (part of the Person Account record) |
| Campaign | Campaign | Campaign |
| Catalogue | Product (Product2) + Price Book Entry (PricebookEntry) |
Product (Product2) + Price Book Entry (PricebookEntry) |
| Order | Opportunity | Opportunity |
| Order Item | Opportunity Product (OpportunityLineItem) |
Opportunity Product (OpportunityLineItem) |
Why Opportunity in Nonprofit Cloud?
In Nonprofit Cloud, the commerce pipeline creates Opportunity records rather than Gift Transaction records. This is because Gift Transactions are designed to represent donations only and cannot easily hold equivalent order item information, such as different types of tickets or merchandise being purchased. Opportunities with Opportunity Products provide the structure needed for commerce data.
Standard Price Book
The standard price book must be active in your Salesforce org for the commerce pipeline to function correctly. MoveData creates Price Book Entry records linked to the standard price book when processing catalogue items.
Post-processing#
After MoveData creates the core records, a post-processing step handles additional records. These include:
- Campaign members — linking the buyer to the campaign with the appropriate status.
- Matching gifts — if the platform supports corporate matching, MoveData creates the matching gift record.
Campaign member statuses follow a priority order, where higher statuses are never downgraded:
Team Leader > Fundraiser > Recurring Donor > Donor > Sale > Ticket Holder > Prospect
If a contact already has a higher status (for example, Donor), a ticket purchase will not downgrade them to Ticket Holder.
See Campaign attribution for more on how campaign hierarchies work.
Supported platforms#
Platforms that support commerce data include Funraisin, Raisely, and custom integrations. Check your platform's integration article for details on which commerce events are available.