|
 Sales
force has automation software - two built-in facilities - to import customer
lists, lead lists etc. from other programs: the import wizard and the data
loader. Using sales force automation software, data can be imported from ACT,
Outlook, Goldmine, QuickBooks and any other program that can save the data as an
Excel spreadsheet or Comma Separated Value (CSV) file. The Sales force
automation software allows individual users can import up to 500 records at a
time and the sales force administrator can import up to 50,000 records at a time
using this automation facility. The primary benefit of the wizard is it easily
allows you to map the fields from the file to be imported (name, address, email,
etc.) to the appropriate fields in sales force. It is important to plan in
advance to make sure you have all the fields in sales force that you need to
accommodate the fields you are bringing over with the sales force automation
software. Sales force has many of the fields anyone would want “out of the box”
but if you are tracking something special we may need to add fields to the
proper screen in SFDC to track it there. It is also useful to delete unused
fields for ease of use.
If you have large numbers
of records to import, such as a lead list you purchased, we would use the data
loader portion of the automation software to import those into sales force. This
is a more complicated process and we recommend that only a qualified sales force
administrator attempt this. In either case, it is important to clean the
data prior to loading it into SFDC. Excel has some nice facilities for cleaning
data and making sure that all fields are populated for each record and it is
easier to do it in a batch than to clean each record up individually once it is
in sales force. The import facilities also can prevent the creation of
duplicates.
If you want to simply
access your contacts from Outlook we recommend using Sales force for Outlook or
Connect for Outlook. Your Tidewater consultant can explain the pros and cons of
all these facilities to you. Once again, many people have very large Outlook
contact databases and it is wise to clean these up so you are not bringing
unnecessary contacts into the new system. Sales force for Outlook also syncs up
calendars and we highly recommend that you use Outlook as your mail client. If
you are using another mail client (such as on a Mac) there are products in the
AppExchange that provide similar functionality.
A special note about using
the sales force automation software tool to import data from other contact
managers like ACT! : Although it is easy to bring over all the contact
information from these programs, bringing over the contact history information
is much more difficult because of the proprietary file layout of these programs.
It can be done but may be more trouble that it is worth. In many cases it is
easier to run the old system in parallel with sales force for a month or so
until you are completely up to date with each important contact. The history is
always available in the old system if you need to access it. If you would like
more information about sales force automation software please give us a call for
a free consultation.
Home | Services | Business
Analysis
| Data Migration | Implementation |
Integration |
Administrator
Quick Start |
Login |
Software Apps |
Team |
Links |
FAQs |
News |
SiteMap | Mobile
© 2013-18 by Tidewater Salesforce LLC. Salesforce, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud,
Marketing Cloud, and Chatter are trademarks of Salesforce.com, Inc. We are
a Salesforce consulting firm providing salesforce training throughout the USA,
but focus on cities & states in the Northeast like Hartford Connecticut / CT,
Augusta & Portland Maine / ME, Boston Massachusetts / MA (MASS), Portsmouth New Hampshire / NH, Burlington Vermont / VT, Providence Rhode Island / RI,
and Austin Texas / TX. |
|
