Learn what CRM, AWS ACE, and Marketplace data ISVs should connect to reduce manual updates and give sales and alliances a shared view of each deal.
Your sales rep is updating the forecast. Your alliances lead is chasing an ACE update. Your Marketplace team is checking whether a private offer was accepted.
Everyone is working the same deal. Nobody has the full picture.
For ISVs selling through AWS Marketplace and co-selling with AWS, disconnected records create more than administrative work. They make it harder to see what AWS needs, where procurement stands, and who should act next.
The answer is not another dashboard. It is a connected data model that links the customer, sales opportunity, ACE opportunity, and Marketplace transaction—and makes that context usable across the team.
What should your CRM, ACE, and Marketplace integration connect?
Start with five records. Each answers a different question.
| Record | Essential information to connect | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Customer account | CRM account ID, company name, website, relevant AWS account IDs | Are we working with the right customer and purchasing account? |
| CRM opportunity | Opportunity ID, sales owner, stage, forecast amount, currency, target close date | Who owns the deal, and where does it stand commercially? |
| ACE opportunity | ACE opportunity ID, CRM reference, stage, review status, customer business problem, support requested, next steps | What does AWS need to know, and what needs attention? |
| Marketplace offer | Offer ID or ARN, product ID, intended buyer account, status, expiration date | Has the right offer been issued, and is action needed before it expires? |
| Marketplace agreement | Agreement ID, acceptance date, start date, end date, related offer and product | Has the customer purchased, and what happens next? |
This is a recommended working model, not an AWS-required field checklist. AWS documents the underlying Partner Central opportunity fields and Marketplace offer and agreement information.
The distinction matters: CRM stage, ACE review status, and Marketplace agreement status describe different parts of the deal. They should be visible together—not collapsed into one status.
Link the records before automating the updates
Company names are useful for people. They are not enough to reliably connect records.
Store the CRM opportunity ID alongside the ACE opportunity ID. AWS provides a field called PartnerOpportunityIdentifier for the partner’s CRM opportunity reference, making it possible to reconcile the two records. Its Partner Central opportunity API also supports related entity identifiers for Marketplace offers.
Your internal model should preserve the relationship between the deal, its offers, and resulting agreements. Keep revised offers and renewals distinguishable from the original purchase rather than overwriting the history.
The goal is straightforward: someone opening a deal should be able to identify the customer, the AWS engagement, and the relevant Marketplace transaction without searching three systems.
Build the data flows around the next action
CRM to ACE: give AWS a clear reason to engage
An opportunity record should explain the customer’s problem, the proposed solution, the expected timeline, and the specific support needed from AWS.
Partner Central’s opportunity fields include the customer business problem, use case, target close date, and requested AWS support, such as architectural validation, technical consultation, or a joint business presentation.
Use those fields to make the request actionable. “Help us co-sell” is not the same as “Join a customer discussion to validate the architecture before the technical decision.”
Before sending updates, check for missing information, duplicate records, and stale dates. Moving incomplete data faster does not make the opportunity more useful.
ACE to CRM: bring co-sell progress back to the deal
Sales should not need to ask alliances whether AWS has requested more information.
Bring ACE review status, review comments, stage, and next steps into the shared deal view. AWS exposes these as distinct opportunity lifecycle fields, so your integration should preserve those distinctions.
Then define what requires action. A review comment that needs a response should reach an owner—not sit unnoticed in a synchronized field.
Marketplace to CRM: make procurement progress visible
A private offer sent is not a purchase completed.
AWS distinguishes the date a buyer accepts an offer and creates an agreement from the date that agreement starts. With future-dated agreements, those dates can differ.
Keep offer and agreement information connected to the opportunity so the team can act on:
- An offer approaching expiration without acceptance.
- An accepted offer that needs a customer handoff.
- A future agreement start date that affects onboarding.
- An agreement end date that should trigger renewal planning.
Acceptance, activation, and renewal are different moments. Your workflow should treat them that way.
Decide who owns each field—and each exception
Two-way synchronization should not mean every system can overwrite every field.
A practical starting point is:
- CRM owns the internal sales owner, forecast, and sales stage.
- Partner Central is the source for AWS review status and review feedback.
- Marketplace is the source for offer and agreement transaction status.
- RevOps and alliances define the mappings, update rules, and escalation paths.
Document what each revenue field means, too. Do not automatically treat a CRM forecast, an AWS spend estimate, and Marketplace contract terms as interchangeable.
Make failed updates visible. Every exception needs an owner, a reason, and a next step. Otherwise, the integration simply creates a new place for work to stall.
From connected data to agentic co-sell
Connected data is the foundation. The next step is using it to move work forward.
CloudSmart’s AiR approach brings together agents, intelligence, and results across the lead-to-launch co-sell lifecycle. Its workflows include cleaning and deduplicating leads, drafting ACE opportunities, sharpening the customer business problem, and flagging stalled deals.
That is where the data model becomes operational. A workflow needs to know which customer and opportunity it is acting on, what has changed, and which system holds the authoritative information.
It also needs boundaries. Define which actions can run automatically, which require approval, and when a person must handle an exception. The level of autonomy should match the task and the guardrails your team has established.
The point is not to automate every field update. It is to reduce the manual coordination between identifying a problem and taking the next useful action.
Start with one deal, end to end
Before expanding the integration, test one representative deal.
Can sales, RevOps, and alliances see the same customer, the current ACE status, the relevant offer or agreement, and the next action? Can they tell who owns that action—and whether an update failed?
AWS supports several CRM integration options, including its Salesforce connector, third-party integrations, and custom integrations using AWS APIs. The right choice depends on your CRM, workflows, and maintenance requirements.
But the test is the same: does the connection help your team move the deal forward?
Put your co-sell data to work
Talk with CloudSmart about connecting your CRM, ACE, and AWS Marketplace workflows—and applying an agentic approach where it can reduce manual work and keep co-sell opportunities moving.
