Data Management in Salesforce : A Comprehensive Guide for Salesforce Admins
A few years ago several top industry leaders foresaw the commencing of the ‘new age of big data‘. They rightly predicted that the future existence and growth of any company would largely depend on how it collects, stores, retains, accesses and uses its data. No one can deny that efficient data management and analytics play a crucial role in the success of any progressive global enterprise.
One of the major challenges faced by a majority of enterprises is the actual collection and storage of a large volume of data as there are various complexities involved. Having said this, there are also enterprises that have adopted advanced data management strategies to improve their business efficiency, cost savings and performance.
Salesforce as a platform has played a vital role in the growth journey of such enterprises driving innovation, customer success and digital transformation. But even then, life doesn’t become easy when it comes to managing the data considering the massive volume and limited storage.
Data Management in Salesforce is definitely the most viable solution for handling this massive volume of datasets. This administrative process takes care of the way in which data is acquired, validated, stored, protected, and processed, and by which its accessibility, reliability, and timeliness is ensured to satisfy the needs of the data users. An enterprise can drastically improve the way the data is managed in their organization by taking care of some of the following aspects:
- Assess the current quality of data — First of all it is extremely important to figure out if the data available in the system is reliable or not. There are various means to do this, either by using third-party ETL tools or by manually handling the data using Excel.
- Determine success metrics and build dashboards — It is also important to set up exact determiners of success before beginning any process. This should be followed by creating dashboards that offer an at-a-glance yet deep understanding of the system to any stakeholder in the organization.
- Establish a Backup & Archiving plan — Setting up a strategy for backing up important data and archiving the legacy data is detrimental to an organization, should the worst happen. Both internal as well as external records should be thoroughly maintained and stored in secure servers that are easily accessible.
- Document everything end-to-end — It is also important to document and record all the inherent processes that are carried out on a day-to-day basis as well as the real-world scenarios that occur. This comes handy when identifying the problems, following up after they are resolved, as well as training others during onboarding.
- Begin integration with other services — Lastly, exploring different third-party integrations for every possible function, from project management to data visualization, is valuable when there are budget constraints.
There are several means through which the highly coveted ‘efficient data management’ can be achieved:
- Salesforce Accelerators — On a more native level, Salesforce offers a number of ‘accelerators’ that simplify the data management process without having to leave the Salesforce system. The most prominent of these accelerators include the Customer Master Data Harmonization Accelerator, the Data.com Data Quality Assessment Accelerator, and the Prevent Duplicate Records Accelerator.
- Salesforce Data Loader — Several built-in tools like the Salesforce Data Loader, which is designed to facilitate bulk import or export of data into and out of the Salesforce CRM platform, are also available. This application allows users to insert, update, export, or delete up to 5 million Salesforce records according to their specific needs and requirements.
- AppExchange Solutions — In recent times, more and more third-party do-it-yourself data management applications are also cropping up that can also be explored through the AppExchange marketplace.
As is said, the real reason for establishing strong data management standards isn’t solving problems- it’s preventing them. This holds true for Salesforce admins in all organizations of any scale and across all industries. For the enterprise admin, with hundreds of thousands of records, good data management ensures that their information is reliable and no dangerous errors go unnoticed. It is also helpful in letting them stay on top as well as train others in their organization not to create problems on accident.
Archiving data is an essential aspect of efficient data management but it comes with its own set of questions regarding storage, data integrity, data analytics, security, accessibility and much more. To make life easier for a Salesforce admin, DataArchiva is a must-have application. This native level Salesforce data archiving tool lets you archive all your legacy data automatically to Salesforce’s own big data-based storage systems called Big Objects ensuring top-notch security, seamless accessibility, 85%+ storage cost reduction, and better performance along with data governance. If you want to know more in detail, set up a demo here.
