Relevant business data is your “ace of spades”. To use it for achieving a competitive edge & business visibility, you need to first have it in your deck. Data is crucial for organizations to make business decisions based on facts and for more accurate targeting. One of the most significant ways of operating a business today is by managing the large data volume and identifying less used data that can be archived to a safe and secure storage location for future use.

If you are a Salesforce user, you have always the option to archive your data, which can be used in the future to meet compliance & audit demands, and run analytics. Data archival reduces storage costs and also enhances application performance. Many enterprises eventually run into data storage limitations within Salesforce, and purchasing additional Salesforce data storage space is not economical when you add the operational burden. An effective data archival strategy is an essential part of every progressive business and needs to be planned properly for the long-run.

Why do you need to Archive your Data?

• Growing data volume can result in poor application performance.
• Archiving allows your business to have more control over your data.
• Archiving manages risk & compliance.
• Archiving reduces storage costs.

Data Archival requires an efficient strategy and a clear roadmap. Below we have discussed a few best Salesforce Data Archive Practices.

A Long-term Archival Strategy

Before starting the data archival process, you must consider two things. 

1. a) A smart data archiving policy and, 
2. b) Inputs of all the relevant stakeholders in your company. 

Below are a few insights:

• Only archive when you have an excess of business data and you don’t want to lose them. You must communicate with all the departments of your organization in order to understand which data is important for whom.
• Make an order for archiving. There are several objects which can be archived as attachments, notes, tasks, chatter files, etc. You need to figure out the order suited for your business.
• While archiving any record, always archive it’s dependent records. It will help you to understand the relevance of the record in the future.
• You should archive older data first which is less-accessed.

ALSO READ: Top 4 Salesforce Data Management Best Practices: A Complete Guide for Salesforce Admins

Consider Storage Space & Limits

It is important to figure out how much storage your organization has and how much storage you are currently using. Though Salesforce offers storage space, it is limited by edition. You can even view your total storage in Salesforce divided by data and file storage.

Usage Trends

When it comes to archiving the data, understanding the data usage metrics is very imperative. You must have relevant tools to evaluate the data volume and track trends. You can create re-usable dashboards to determine which data to archive.

Legal Implications

It is always advisable to consult with your organization’s legal team before deleting any business data. There could be data integrity implications like Parent-Child relationships and Field Removal. Once you are done with your data archival framework, always monitor your data usage.

Tool Selection

Though Salesforce offers some data backup & archiving, it is not necessary that it will archive the data your organization needs. The type of data that is important might differ from business to business. It is important to find a tool which can successfully archive the data you want. The tool or application must be user-friendly, cost-effective, agile, and efficient. Your selected app must target the kind of data to be archived, the ability to retain data as long as you want, the ability to access the archived data without any hassle, an option to restore whenever required, and must offer you seamless user experience.

DataArchiva is a flawless, digital, and optimum application that will archive your unused data intelligently within the Salesforce platform at a native level. It saves more than 85% of your data storage costs as well as secures your data inside the Salesforce platform and allows the compliance team to search any data at any time. For more information, you can visit www.dataarchiva.com or can get the App Here.

If you are looking to archive your data outside of Salesforce, then DataConnectiva offers you an option to integrate any external database (Redshift, Postgres, Oracle, SQL server) with your Salesforce app for seamless archival. Check the app here.