Blog
January 21, 2021
Considering moving to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud? The key to a successful project is successful data migration; and that starts with the health of your data. Addressing data quality, cleanliness, governance, and stewardship in advance builds trust and maximizes user adoption, efficiencies, and accurate reporting for your internal and external users and stakeholders.
Reliable and accessible data enables you to better and more rapidly achieve your goals so that you can spend more time on mission-critical work. It also allows you to leverage the latest predictive analytic techniques for constituent engagement and retention.
Where to Begin?
The idea of data migration can be daunting and complex. Careful planning, expectation setting, and execution is needed to accelerate onboarding and to avoid frustration and budget overrun later.
To successfully plan and strategically manage your data migration, adhere to the following key principles.
Identify Your Data Experts & Super Users
Identify and engage your existing data experts. These are individuals using the system daily and have a deep understanding of the ways in which data enter and leave the system. Make sure they understand the time commitment and level of involvement needed before the project begins.
Establish a Well-defined Process for Decision Making
Be ready to answer important questions such as: What data should be migrated? What should be archived? How do we translate the data? Which processes need to remain the same? Which can be made more efficient? Have you prioritized these items?
Communicate & Set Realistic Expectations
Ensure that your core and ancillary teams consist of users across departments and functional areas. Communicate early and often throughout the process through weekly office hours, internal newsletters, small demos, etc.
Establish a Practical Data Governance Plan
The plan should include data cleansing, data security, data entry, and stewardship rules and processes. Your data must continue to be visible and open to your users, otherwise user adoption may be threatened.
Identify Areas of Process Improvements
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to improve, and don’t get bogged down with a no-data-left-behind mentality. Focus on what you NEED moving forward, not how things have been done in the past. Identify critical reports for each functional area that teams will need in Salesforce on day one.
What’s Next?
Make sure you’re ready for the move by getting up to speed on all things Salesforce. Trailhead is a great way to gain a foundational understanding of the Salesforce platform and its capabilities. Check out the Focus on your Data module, which includes useful links on data quality, data archive, and duplicate handling, to help you better understand the nuances of the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
Want to Learn More?
Contact us with any questions, to get additional details, or to discover how we can support your Salesforce migration project. Attain Partners’ team of data migration experts can help you think through your data migration strategy, data governance plan, as well as execute a successful migration with great care.
About the Author
Deepa Bedi is a Principal at Attain Partners delivering Salesforce services and solutions to clients. She has led over 100 transformational cloud-based implementations and integration projects for our higher education, nonprofit, and healthcare clients to help them achieve business success. Deepa has been engaged in the Salesforce ecosystem for over 15 years and is passionate about enabling nonprofits and higher education institutions to achieve their missions through customer-centric technology solutions.
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