💃 Data Migration, And It's Complicated Relationship With Salesforce Professionals 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! DATA MIGRATION. Do we have your attention? If not, then you need to read on for the insights. If we do have your attention, then you know.....

The mere mention of Data Migration will bring out the feels for those who have done it. You will see the blank stare, then the eyes darting back and forth, and then either a rapid-fire speech of risks and considerations, or a very specific question like "are they migrating Opportunity tasks and events, too?"

At least half of our memes are Data Migration related. It is an activity that has a well-deserved stigma attached to it.

Today, we dip our toes into what makes Data Migration an activity that MUST be respected.

Agenda for today includes

• Data Migration, And It's Complicated Relationship With Salesforce Professionals

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

Data Migration, And It's Complicated Relationship With Salesforce Professionals

Data Migration is a necessary activity for net-new application implementation, rip & replace implementation, and major refactors, among other business scenarios.

It is also important to note that Data Conversion and Data Migration are sometimes used interchangeably, are not the same thing, and are not different enough to impact the theme of this newsletter, which is - Data Migration demands respect 🫡 .

Let's get into 3 of the major reasons we have a complicated relationship with Data Migration. There are many, many more than 3, but quality > quantity 🙂.

1) The Journey To Understanding, for Everyone

How many business stakeholders have seen their CRM's data in raw, bulk form? How many of them understand how multi-select picklist values impact data models? How many understand the relationship between Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities? Then throw Activities into the mix? 😵‍💫😵‍💫

See where we're going with this?

During the Data Migration, the business owners will need to make big, impactful decisions. They may set the stage for long-term viability (like, removing the Secondary Lead Source field) or for a kick-the-can scenario where the big decision is deferred to a later date (like, bringing over all 12yrs of Lead records with the intent of circling back to a clean up session, eventually....).

Preceding this is the Salesforce professional's responsibility for setting the business up for success. An in-house resource may have an existing understanding. A consultant will need to get up to speed. Either way, the responsibility to understand, then teach, is on the shoulders of the Salesforce professional 🦸‍♀️ .

2) The Great Equalizer. There Are No Shortcuts

No shortcuts. No Easy button.

Experience helps, but it doesn't speed things up. Rather, experience will prevent inefficiencies.

But the understanding of the data model, and teaching it to the business stakeholders, and the scrubbing of data, and the loading of data, and the managing of dataload errors, and the re-scrubbing, etc etc. That will always exist, no matter how much experience you have, no matter how skilled of a Salesforce professional you are.

Ugh. 😅 🙁 😂

3) More Discovery....

The fun is just beginning! You will inevitably find more fun things 🎡 as you iterate through data analysis, case building for the stakeholders, and decision-making sessions with the stakeholders.

You may also find fun things 🎢 in the org, like automations, integrations, or "well-disguised" data relationships, that will require further consideration and stakeholder decision making.

Again, experience can help here. Frameworks, too. But prepare for an intense ride, experienced or not.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes