Skip to main content

How to Guide - Salesforce Data Import: Step 1- Merge & Clean Up

Cleaning Up - Organizing

 Importing Data to Salesforce using a Spreadsheet or .CSV Files

Trailhead Baby is asked a question about data import almost every week.  Many Superbadges require some sort of data import with varying levels of object connectivity.  The most difficult require 10+ steps with data loader in order to patch all of the Salesforce record ID's.  Simple uploads may be performed solely with the data import wizard.  Let's take a look at the steps that should be completed for every manual import to Salesforce as illustrated by one of my favorite toys.  Note- There are many excellent tools available to assist with this process, but we are only going to discuss the ones native to Salesforce: the data import wizard and data loader.

The scenario:
We need to upload legacy data to a Salesforce instance.  The records are located in several spreadsheets with 8 standard objects.  Simple?  Let's make it a bit more challenging.  We are migrating data to Salesforce from not one, but two systems.  The second group of spreadsheets contains 4 objects.                                                                                                                     




Group 2



Pre-Work:
If you have not completed the Trailhead Module: Data Management- Import Data, stop!  Earn your Data Management badge before moving forward.


Data Import Steps:
1) Merge & Clean up the Data

   -  Merge the duplicate objects into one spreadsheet and remove any                 duplicate records.  Superbadge challenges contain a limited number of
       records, so copy / paste and sort by name to locate duplicates. 
   -   Match the column headers in the spreadsheet with field names in
       Salesforce.

Matching the column headers with the field names in Salesforce will minimize the possibility of an incorrect import.  For example: Importing a full name into a "first name" field.




Help! I'm stuck! How do I clean up my data?

 Watch
Thank you to Salesforce for this fantastic video!  It is a longer than the video in the Trailhead: Import Data module but provides multiple Excel tips to help clean up import files.

 

Read
Prepare Your Data for Import from help.Salesforce.com.


Once the data import files are clean, it's time to think about the order in which data must be imported.  The order is important, as we do not want to create orphaned records.  For example- contacts or opportunities that are not associated with accounts!

2) Determine the Insert Order
Continue to the next post....




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Process Automation Specialist Superbadge - 5

A project with Daddy: My favorite daily process! Making dinner for Mom! Tonight's challenge involves the creation of two processes.   Processes.  Have you guessed the theme of the photos that go along with the Trailhead - Process Automation Specialist Superbadge series?They are a few of my favorite day to day processes!  You, my amazing reader, get more than tips for a Salesforce Superbadge.  You also get personal insight into the life of a Trailhead Baby!  I hope that you feel inspired. Process Builder sketch Last night, I drew a rough sketch of my process: Was it pretty?  No. Did it help?  Yes! The sketch allowed me to organize all of the instructions into a reasonable order before I started clicking.  It also removed the approval steps from Process Builder and highlighted (with *'s) the prerequisite items to building my process. * Email Alerts I needed the Email Alerts set up before I could create either the process or ...
334 comments
Read more

Service Cloud Specialist Superbadge - 1,2,3

A confession - I know next to nothing about service cloud.  While I was excited that a new superbadge was available, it made me a little nervous that I had to do all of the prerequisites and tackle new things like macros.  New things - new year - let's get started! (Right after I finish guitar practice) If you are also a service cloud novice, the Omni-Channel Basics is a crucial prerequisite even though it is not officially required. Challenge 1 App Appearance  This, like all superbadges, requires a careful read through the instructions prior to any clicking.  I found it helpful to take a separate notebook and write down the steps that I would need for each challenge step - for example -  My rough notes for challenge 1: Create 2 profiles  Tweak service Console 3 new items on utility bar Allow access for new profiles Create User  Beware - After editing the service console, you might have to edit the new profiles.  I found i...
169 comments
Read more

Lightning Experience Specialist Superbadge - 8

The best present? Santa says that I am getting a little brother in April! Let's import some data!  It's simple to mass delete the records if there are inserted incorrectly - and you have me to help!  The goal with this post is to move beyond the "how" of data import and explain the "why."  The challenge makes more sense when you think about the relationships between the objects.  I'll explain more below. First: A confession I, the Trailhead Baby, am not a perfect Salesforce admin.  Even though I completed this entire Superbadge in 2017, I still messed up the data import badly enough that I had to mass delete all of my records and start over.   Quick tip: It may help to delete the existing data before you start the import.  This way, when you extract recordID's, you only extract the ID's of the records that you have already imported vs. the records that were already in the Trailhead Playground by default. You can use many da...
112 comments
Read more