Overview

Watch a series of videos on helping you to prepare, import, and manage your data. Chapter one (the first video) will take you through key considerations you’ll need to know to import and manage data. You’ll also get best practices on preparing your source file and Salesforce for the data import process. We’ll also talk about the data import tools, including the Data Import Wizard and Data Loader. The video will also provide suggestions for helpful resources, such as the Data Import Series and articles on helping you prepare your data.

Chapter two (the second video) will take you through best practices on good data management. Once data is imported, you need a strong data management strategy to make sure data stays clean and up to date. The strategy begins with training users to input quality data. Then, you’ll want to standardize your data by using naming and address conventions. Finally, ensure a process for users to search on records before creating new ones - this prevents duplicate records.

Another aspect of data management is enforcing the right behavior through configuration in Salesforce. There are a number of good customization options to help enforce the right behavior.

Once you’ve laid the foundation for success with proper training and configuration, you need to monitor progress. We recommend using the free Data Quality dashboards that you can download from AppExchange. You can customize these dashboards to monitor the data that’s important to your organization.

We’ll also share two additional best practices on archiving your data and backing up your data, as well as helpful resources to accompany our suggestions during this video.

Finally, our demo video will walk you through exporting data using Gmail as a source, and then importing it with the Data Import Wizard. We’ll also demo how to create simple customizations in Salesforce to enforce data quality.