Chapter 22. Migrating and Maintaining Your Data

In This Chapter

  • Understanding your migration options

  • Executing your migration plan

  • Organizing your data

  • Getting help

If you're a system administrator, often your greatest headache isn't configuring or customizing the system, but getting your data in and maintaining it so that it's useful. Nothing hurts a rollout more than complaints from users that their customer data isn't in Salesforce, that information is duplicated in several records, or that the information is wrong. And your end user adoption suffers if you don't maintain your records after the rollout. If you're not diligent, you can find yourself in the same mess that drove you to Salesforce in the first place.

If data maintenance is giving you nightmares, use the data management tools in Salesforce to easily import leads, accounts, and contacts. If you have in-house expertise or engage Salesforce's professional services, you can migrate other critical data (such as opportunities, cases, and activities) by using proven third-party tools. And when your data is stored in Salesforce, you can rely on a variety of tools to help you manage and maintain your database.

In this chapter, we first discuss your options for data import. Then we show you how to use Salesforce tools to manage your data (including mass-transferring, deleting, and reassigning data). Finally, we touch on some advanced concepts. Complex data migration and updates of data between your data sources and Salesforce is beyond ...

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