Data Strategy
Top data quality Steps
Step 1: Profile your data
Data profiling is all about understanding your data. You should know where your data comes from: spreadsheets, backend systems, or sticky notes all over reps’ desks.
Step 2: Control your data
Data control is about achieving data accuracy and ensuring the right users have access to the right information, which also means blocking access, as needed. To control your data, you first need to “clean” it by removing duplicates and errors, and then set up processes and use technologies to keep it clean.
Step 3: Integrate your data
Most organizations have data in more than one system. Whenever there’s duplicated data in several systems, it’s easy for information to get out of synch. One way to avoid this problem is to integrate your systems so that updates in one system automatically update the others, resulting in a single source of “truth” and making it easier for end users to access information.
Step 5: Monitor your data
Achieving high-quality data isn’t a one-shot effort, but requires ongoing vigilance. Establishing policies, processes, and tools for monitoring data is crucial to maintaining data quality.
Step 6: Assign ownership, train users, and commit to a data-quality process
Users need to know the importance of data integrity and how to do their part in any data-quality initiative. In training users, show them how data quality directly affects their work. It’s also a good idea to assign ultimate responsibility for each region’s data to a super user, geographic lead, or other business owner.
Salesforce.com offers native connectors to Oracle and SAP systems for easy integration of customer-master records.
Metadata Migration Tool
The Force.com Migration Tool is a Java/Ant-based command-line utility for moving metadata between a local directory and
a Salesforce organization. You can use the Force.com Migration Tool to retrieve components, create scripted deployment and repeat deployment patterns. Migration can happen in two ways.
Manual migration—Changes to components that are not available in the Metadata API must be manually migrated in each environment. That is, you must repeat the exact same modifications in every production or development organization. Manual migration is made easier by diligently tracking changes.
Metadata migration—Components that are available in the Metadata API can be migrated using desktop tools or change sets.
Best Practices for Loading Data
- Identify the data you want migrate.
- Create templates for the data.
- Populate the templates.
- Migrate the data.
- Validate the data.
- Re-migrate or update data as needed.
Data Migration Tools
Salesforce.com is replacing individual import wizards for accounts, contacts, and other objects with the unified Data Import Wizard.
| Tool | Editions supported | Number of records | Import | Export | Additional information |
| Data Import Wizard (unified) | All editions exceptDatabase.com | Up to 50,000 | Yes | No | An in-browser wizard that imports your organization’s accounts, contacts, leads, solutions, and custom objects. |
| Data Loader | Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, Developer, and Database.com Editions | Between 5,000 and 5 million | Yes | Yes | Data Loader is a client application for the bulk import or export of data. Use it to insert, update, delete, or export Salesforce records. Read more. |
| Import Wizard for Accounts and Contacts, Person AccountsLeads, SolutionCustom Object | Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer Editions | Up to 500 records for an individual userUp to 50,000 records for multiple users | Yes | No | An in-browser wizard that imports personal contacts and accounts from ACT! and Outlookor from other sources; or your organization’s business accounts and contacts. |
| Data Export | Weekly export available in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Performance, Editions. Monthly export available in all editions, except Database.com | No limit | No | Yes | An in-browser wizard that exports data in .zip files that are up to 128 MB each on a monthly or weekly basis. |
| Third-party tools in AppExchange | Varies | Over 5 million | Varies | Varies | See the AppExchange for available tools. |
| Jitterbit Data LoaderTM for Salesforce (third-party tool) | All editions | Over 5 million | Yes | Yes | Free data migration tool offered by a salesforce.com, inc.partner. |
| Workbench | Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, Developer, and Database.com Editions | One record at a time or a batch containing up to 10,000 records | Yes | Yes | Workbench is a free, open source, community-supported tool. Salesforce.com provides a hosted instance of Workbench for demonstration purposes only. If you want to use Workbench for your production database, you can download, host, and configure it using your own resources. |
Salesforce.com provides APIs that enable data integration with Salesforce. Use the table below to determine which API to use, based on how many records you need to import or export and the integration technologies required in your scenario.
| API | Editions supported | Number of records you can import or export | Import | Export |
| REST / REST API | Developer, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Database.com | Integration scenarios where you have less than 200 records | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk API | Same as above. API Enabled Editions | Over a million | Yes | Yes |
Workbench
Workbench is a powerful, web-based suite of tools designed for administrators and developers to interact with Salesforce.com organizations via the Force.com APIs.
Workbench includes robust support for the Force.com Partner, Bulk, Rest, Streaming, Metadata, and Apex APIs that allows users to describe, query, manipulate, and migrate both data and metadata in Salesforce.com organizations directly in their web browser with a simple and intuitive user interface.
Workbench also provides many advanced features for testing and trouble-shooting the Force.com APIs, such as customizable SOAP headers, debug logs for API traffic, backward compatibility testing with previous API versions, and single sign-on integration within the Salesforce application.
Excel Connector
This Excel Add-in provides bi-directional access to the Force.com API via the Toolkit for Office, and is useful for cleaning and mass-updating salesforce.com-based data from within a spreadsheet.
This is an open source tool and it is not a supported product.
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