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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....




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