Recently we got a use case that required a one to many relationship between contacts and a Custom Object. The requirement also stated the ability to merge out data from a specific Custom Object record.
Use Case: A contact signs up for multiple events. Data about each signup is saved to a Custom Object Record. All records are saved in the same Custom Object. The marketing department wants to sent out an email regarding one of these events and wants to merge in data from the Custom Object record the contact submitted when signing up to that specific event.
Problem Domain: Eloqua saves all custom object records in the custom object but as default it merges the latest modified record when using merge fields.
Solution: As a solution to the problem we have created a cloud connector that can find the Custom Object Record of the contact that matches a simple comparising criteria (CustomObject.FieldName is Equal to "EventName") and update that record, making sure that the record has the latest modified date of the records mapped to the contact. Thereby, making Eloqua merge data from the Custom Object Record of our choosing.
Hope this can inspire others to do similar.
Regards
Jonas Wolffsen