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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Your Salesforce Org

Lacey Jackson
April 11, 2019
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Min Read

Does your Salesforce org bring you joy?

Your Salesforce org is an important tool that keeps your organization running smoothly, so if your answer is no, it may be time to jump on the KonMari trend to start cleansing your data. And there’s no better time than spring to clean up your org and give your team a refresh!

Today, we’re going to show you how to use the rules of the new, trendy KonMari Method to get your Salesforce org under control this spring!

1. Start with a Positive Mindset

If you’ve ever watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, you know she always starts by thanking the space she is tidying. While you don’t need to get on your hands and knees in gratitude, it's important to start your Salesforce data cleansing process off on the right foot.

Gather your team for a meeting to share the clean-up plan. Make sure everyone is in the loop. This isn’t a task for just one person. Depending on the amount of data in your org, the tidying process will be a team effort. Use this meeting to set the tone for cleaning and to lay out expectations for your staff. If Salesforce is an important part of the work you’re doing every day, its critical that everyone understands the impact that clean, useful data has on your organization’s continued success.

2. Set a Plan

The next step in the KonMari Method is to choose the objects you want to start organizing. Marie Kondo suggests that you attack your tidying by category, starting with the easiest area—clothes—and ending with the most difficult area—sentimental items.

Every team is different, but you’ll want to identify categories for your tidying and put them in order of what you think will be the easiest to clear out to the most difficult. Your categories for tidying may include:

  1. Contacts
  2. Opportunities
  3. Leads
  4. Accounts

For most teams, contacts will be the easiest place to start. Find contacts with no email address or phone number, make an effort to find that information, and delete the contact if you can’t. Accounts may be more difficult to tidy because you’ll need to work as a team to make sure all your accounts are labeled properly and have all the necessary information. This will require you to be more prepared and do a little more research. Make sure to identify any accounts that are owned by inactive users and reassign them, if needed.

Read More: How to Email Prefilled Forms Using Data from Your Salesforce Org

3. Survey Your Inventory

If you’ve seen Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, you know that once they get started on a category, they have to take out all the items in that category and place them in the middle of the room. Now, we can’t dump out all our contacts, leads, and accounts, but we can take a survey of what we have. You need to know what works and what doesn’t, so create a map of all your systems so you know how your leads are added, contacts are updated, etc.

Using the Salesforce Optimizer, you can gather metrics across many areas, such as storage, fields, custom layouts for objects, reports, and dashboards. Salesforce Optimizer focuses on improving your org using UI enhancements and feature updates. You can also use the Health Check to “identify and fix potential vulnerabilities in your security settings.”

Tools like the Salesforce Optimizer and Health Check help you better identify problems and fully understand how your Salesforce org works. Once you’ve gathered this data, you can start taking action. Make sure to evaluate whether you need reports that haven’t been run in months or old, unused email templates. Take this time to review your AppExchange packages and update validation rules, processes, or workflows.

4. Stay on Track

Marie Kondo says that once you’ve done the KonMari Method once, you’ll never have to do it again. But once you’ve taken the time to do some data cleansing, you’ll want to make sure your org stays neat and tidy. Put some processes in place to make it easy for your staff to effectively manage their responsibilities in Salesforce. Use Pardot User Groups to easily create round-robin assignments for your sales reps and assign product owners to ensure responsibility moving forward.

Now you can celebrate your new clean Salesforce environment (and your plan to keep it that way).

 

For more in-depth tips and easy strategies for data cleansing Salesforce, watch our webinar Spring Cleaning Your Salesforce Org

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Lacey Jackson
Lacey is a Product Marketing Manager at Formstack who is dedicated to creating content that showcases the power of the Formstack Platform. When she’s not creating Formstack Builders tutorials, she can be found reading, playing board games, or strolling with her dog. Lacey is a graduate of Franklin College.
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