What do data management and the Salesforce AppExchange have in common? The AppExchange is the leading enterprise cloud marketplace, with 100% of the Fortune 100 having installed at least one app. These businesses know that data management helps minimize potential errors by establishing processes and policies. As a result, businesses build organizational trust in the data being used to make decisions.
Many software vendors have created data management apps for the Salesforce AppExchange to help companies respond more efficiently to market changes and customer needs. I recently participated in a Demo Jam that was a great AppExchange community event. The objective was to present your App in less than 3 minutes. Phew! It was a little nerve-wracking but quite enjoyable. You can check out the DemoJam here. We met so many outstanding company reps that I would like to take this opportunity to talk more about them and a few other favorites that I have come across.
Salesforce has a rollup feature that calculates values from related records. How might this be useful? Well, let’s say you would like to view some campaign information on a particular account or the total price of all products related to an opportunity. Salesforce offers the functionality to collect this information, but you will need to write some code and queries or ask a Salesforce developer to do this. Needless to say, this is very time-consuming and just adds unnecessary work for your internal teams.
The great thing about Rollup Helper is that you can achieve the same functionality but without code. This is important because rollup summaries and data provide a lot of information for reporting, especially if we’re talking about large volumes of child records or records located in related lists. If done manually, the aggregation of data would be time consuming and error prone. Therefore, being able to overcome all of these challenges and collect the information you need for accurate reporting is very useful.
2. Codescan
Maintaining the security of user data is one of the most important aspects of data management, but it’s really hard to keep up with all of the possible security vulnerabilities that can exist in your product. In fact, Eric Pearson, who was presenting Codescan during the Demo Jam, cited a report from Verizon, that there are more than 3,950 different ways of breaching application security. With so many security threats to deal with, it’s great to have a tool that can help you avoid these vulnerabilities at the code level. Many companies wait until a security breach happens to address these issues, so a tool that allows Salesforce admins and developers to take a more proactive approach to security is a welcome proposition. Codescan allows developers to focus on coding while it identifies security concerns and areas of the code that could be improved.
3. DataGroomr
DataGroomr is the only data cleansing product on the AppExchange that leverages machine learning to dedupe your data. Every other product out there requires you to set up and maintain complex and static rules to catch duplicates. DataGroomr’s machine learning approach is a great example of a next gen tool that takes advantage of AI technology to do things better and faster.
In addition, we’ve worked really hard to make our User Interface easy and intuitive. According to our customers, we have achieved that. One of the first things users usually comment on is the ease of use. The application is designed with the purpose of making the monotonous task of data cleansing easier and faster and this is also carried over to user interaction. The interface is clean and highly intuitive. There is also abundant information available to guide new and seasoned users through any task. We take the onus of maintaining clean data off the user.
4. OwnBackup
Human error is something that organizations always try to minimize. To a certain extent, however, some degree of human error is unavoidable. When you’re working with Salesforce and you’re in the middle of a hectic day, it’s really easy to inadvertently click something and delete some important data. For example, you may be working with a parent record and you accidently delete it, which also deletes all of the child records. Fortunately, an app like OwnBackup empowers companies to recover from those types of scenarios. It can also help you identify what information has been deleted, who deleted it, and how to recover this data.
Considering all of the possible causes of data loss like code errors, migration errors, integration errors, and also malicious intent, OwnBackup is just a great tool to have to prevent data loss, master regulatory compliance, and reduce data risk and exposure.
5. Data Quality Analysis Dashboards
The Data Quality Analysis Dashboard is a great tool from Salesforce Labs that offers all kinds of metrics and insights into the quality of standard objects, including Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Activities, Cases, Contracts, and Campaigns. It can help you identify gaps in record data and spot trends in your data quality. You can also use this tool to track the login rates and activity of staff and the quality of the information they enter. While the insights may not be as deep as some of the other tools on the AppExchange, it’s absolutely free to use and, if your organization does not have a whole lot of records, this may be just the app you need to improve your data quality metrics.
Take a Comprehensive Approach to Data Quality
At the end of the Demo Jam, the audience votes live on their favorite presentation. We’d like to congratulate Jason Metzger of Flosum for coming in with the most votes at the DemoJam and for demonstrating another great Salesforce App – a fully native release management and version control system.
It’s important to remember that data quality has many dimensions to it. This includes things like accuracy, completeness, relevance, timeliness, consistency, and security. Even though there are a lot of tools on the AppExchange that can help you increase the health of your data, a common mistake is to believe that a specific tool will serve as a “silver bullet” to solving fundamentally flawed processes. Therefore, take a closer look at your data framework, which is how your company currently manages and stores its data, workflows, or processes. Try to find some ways to improve this framework and then look for tools that can help you in your long-term goals of maintaining high data quality.
DataGroomr is easy to check out with a free trial. Get started today and clean your database just like that!
