A Comprehensive Guide for Small and Medium Businesses on Data Migration to Salesforce

This article is tailored for businesses that embark on a journey toward digital transformation and navigate the complex path of migrating to the cloud, prompted by the constraints of legacy tech stacks and systems. As we delve into this migration's details, the reader can get a comprehensive roadmap for data migration. The article focuses on the tools designed to streamline the process, ensuring a seamless transition to cloud environments.

Understanding the Need for Migration

We study the intricacies of data migration through the lens of a dynamic recruitment agency, connecting promising candidates and prospective employers. Formerly relying on a legacy CRM system, the company faced significant challenges in efficiently managing the employer partner network as well as coping with its expansion.

Challenges with Legacy CRM System

The legacy system struggled to align with the influx of job offers and track open vacancies, leading to a lack of a unified view of customers across different touchpoints and departments. The existing workflows within the legacy system needed to have the essential transparency required for seamless navigation through the multifaceted stages of recruitment.

The Decision for Transformation

This inherent limitation resulted in missed opportunities as the partner network required additional care, good alignment with the candidates’ inflow, and attribution of the candidates to a particular partner company, and as a result, the HR representatives were handling data from diverse sources.

Furthermore, the company expressed a desire for near-real-time reports and dashboards to enhance its decision-making processes. Recognizing the critical need for transformation, the decision to transition from the legacy CRM to Salesforce CRM was strategically driven. This shift aimed to augment transparency, streamline workflows, and furnish the team with dynamic tools to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of recruitment, thereby fortifying the overall efficiency of their operations.

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Engaging a Migration Team

It should be stated beforehand that the recruitment company lacked the technical expertise in Salesforce and decided to use the services of a Migration Team, consisting of a Project Manager, Salesforce Administrator, Salesforce Developer, and QA.

The project's start focused on meticulous preparation, emphasizing the importance of a well-crafted plan to facilitate the smooth and accurate transfer of data. This preparatory stage laid the foundation, encompassing vital elements such as timelines, dependencies, and milestones.

As the team embarked on coding the migration for specific objects, a comprehensive approach unfolded, ensuring the completion of the Salesforce build, receipt of data from the legacy system, stakeholder approval of the data model, and the deployment of the target environment.

Attention to Detail

Before the actual data migration, meticulous attention was given to every detail – from preparing job execution dates to addressing critical planning questions related to data delivery timelines, formats, security concerns, data cleanup, and the completion of mapping documentation.

Strategic Shift in Data Model

The migration journey commenced with the meticulous task of identifying the data to be migrated and establishing its source of truth. The influence of existing Salesforce processes became apparent, leading to the need for additional object creation and process refinement. A strategic decision was notably made to enhance the sales process and broaden the partner network with employers seeking candidates.

This strategic shift was reflected in the updated data model, where the foundation consisted of Leads, representing companies in need of recruitment services, which could then be transformed into Opportunities and eventually converted into Accounts. Simultaneously, candidates for job positions were managed through a custom object named Candidates, which could be further converted into Contacts. These Contacts were then associated with the Accounts that hired them.

Supporting Seamless Operations

To support seamless operations, a series of custom objects were created, catering to various teams, including HR recruiters, Sales, Marketing, and Finance. This comprehensive data model ensured the effective facilitation of tasks across diverse teams within the organization.

This deliberate data model addressed crucial aspects such as contact and account management, sales and opportunity management, marketing automation, analytics, and reporting within the new Salesforce Sales CRM.

The focus of the data migration process was on preparing a robust database capable of storing and organizing customer information, streamlining sales processes, enabling targeted marketing campaigns, and providing advanced reporting and analytics features. The data analysis from the legacy system emphasized the necessity for unique identifiers and the identification of interrelated data categories like prospects and customers. Mapping tables, fields, and values from the legacy system to Salesforce objects ensured a seamless transition.

Particular attention was given to the Lead object, which housed data from various recruitment forms, with some leads evolving into opportunities as candidates progressed through the interview process. Concurrently, the migration team detected data discrepancies in the legacy system, including missing IDs, duplicates, and outdated information.
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Data Cleaning Efforts

The recruitment agency team actively engaged in data cleaning efforts, ensuring a refined and accurate dataset for the migration process. This meticulous approach underscores our commitment to a comprehensive and successful data migration experience.
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This article is prepared by certified Marketing Cloud Consultant Anna Metsik-Peshko.