If you are a Salesforce architect or admin, it is important for you to have a powerful Salesforce data lifecycle management strategy. A CRM is only as good as the data it uses, and it should be given the fullest power to leverage the business data for better performance. Salesforce admins should devise and implement a strong data management strategy as the data is playing a massive role in the Cloud 3.0 era from the basic to the most critical and complex CRM applications.
Even the most delicately designed analytical processes may render wrong if the quality of data is compromised. The CRM admins need to evaluate the data regularly and make sure your enterprise follows the best practices defined by data management experts. A well-defined data strategy for your customized Salesforce CRM needs can dramatically improve the quality of your data as well as the analytical output from it.
For the ease of users and their best benefit, we will discuss some common mistakes to avoid to ensure the best data management practices.
Not having a data goal
It is noted that many organizations which use enormous amounts of data for their daily operations still do not have any time-bounded data goals. On the other hand, many successful enterprises which run on Salesforce CRM have established a very clear and successful data roadmap for five years or three years to come.
An ideal data roadmap may include the most critical aspects of data management and how they want to use their data to achieve their long-term business goals. If you do not have a powerful and future-ready data strategy, there are all chances that you may not enjoy any benefits from your business data collected over time.
Reviewing your business data goals may also require some analytical initiatives. Using the right analytical tools can surely transform your data usage and decision-making based on data-driven insights.
Failing to have a proper data strategy
We used the terms data strategy already several times above, which signifies its importance in enterprise data planning. The major benefits of having a solid Salesforce data strategy are to ensure compliance and proper governance.
Having such a strategy will let you avoid any hassles. With a strategy in place, you know which data to retain, which has to be archived, which data demands optimum security, when you can get rid of your old data stores, etc.
Don’t miss out on ensuring data integrity
Another important aspect that decides the long-term usability of your data is data integrity. When there is a need for Salesforce data backup recovery, data integrity plays a crucial role. You need to ensure the quality of the data on the Salesforce system. In order to derive accurate outputs from data, the information you store on the system should be properly named with the specific data naming conventions.
Having the data cleansed will make sure that the users understand the underlying information, and the records can be easily differentiated from one another.
Sometimes, data duplication can bring in a lot of trouble by generating inappropriate database size and views. This will also put the marketing and sales teams in trouble with lead duplication and multiple product generations on the same order etc.
Data duplication may lead to revenue miscalculation or wrong sales projections in more serious events, which may put the entire business stability at stake. So, it is essential to get rid of duplicate records from time to time. This can be ideally achieved by using the Data Import Wizard offered by Salesforce and choosing the matching fields to spot the duplicates and remove the same.
Avoiding data validation
This is another major mistake Salesforce admins used to make by avoiding the need for data validation. Sometimes, it may be due to ignorance, and other times, admins don’t think it is necessary. However, data validation rules can be the most effective practices in overall Salesforce data management. Every expert Salesforce data architect will surely include this while creating a winning Salesforce algorithm.
At the individual user level, data validation will help to manage all the system data effectively. Using the primary validation rules, users can avoid creating or editing records other than that meeting the preset criteria. It will also become handy while locating some of the specific records within a larger pool of info.
Similarly, at the organizational level, those who regularly ship the products or deliver marketing materials to their customer may implement third-party validation methods for addressed and contact information. Even though this is a simple add-on to implement, it can bring greater results in time-saving and cost-effective administration.
Backup and restoration
For every Salesforce CRM system, it is recommended to have a foolproof data backup and recovery strategy. There should also be a proper mechanism for data archiving matching to the business needs. As data is constantly flowing in through various channels to the modern CRM system, it is also highly vulnerable to damage and corruption at any point. Keeping this challenge in mind, it is essential to have a proper backup strategy.
Salesforce offers a native feature of weekly data backups but setting the backup frequency should be based on your business needs and how much data you can afford to lose in case of a data loss. There are various options available for data backup as native Salesforce’s Data Export, Report Export, Data Loader, etc. There are also many third-party applications and tools available for backup and restoration.
A proper archiving strategy is also needed to ensure data security and optimize system performance. While archiving Salesforce data, you may prioritize less used data to move to external storage where it can be stored for long and used when needed. Properly maintained data archives will help the enterprise users to archive the data within Salesforce and make it future proof for the data storage.
If you are following any of these bad practices in terms of Salesforce data management strategy, it is high time that you do an audit and adopts the right strategies for optimum data security and quality.
