How to achieve and maintain top data quality

Once users enter data—and when data is captured automatically from Web submissions or imported from other systems—duplications and other data problems are unavoidable. This article tells you what you can do to minimize such issues and how to make your data more valuable.

You’ll find out why an ongoing data management process is critical. How to control data input from users. And how to continually monitor and clean your data. We’ll also discuss how you can enhance your data to give your users even more reasons to turn to Salesforce CRM.

Create a data management process

A basic data control challenge is making sure users have access to the data they need, while protecting data they shouldn’t see. Setting up the data access model is one of the tasks in setting up your system. However,
be sure to review and update the following items periodically to keep up with organizational changes and
evolving needs:

• Review user profiles, data access rules, and your role hierarchy
• Review the Create, Read, Update, and Delete rights for each profile

Plus, it’s vital that users understand that data quality isn’t just the responsibility of the system administrator, but that they play an important part as well. When you train users, show them how data quality directly affects their work. Use dashboards or reports to keep this issue at the top of everyone’s mind. It’s also a good idea to assign ultimate responsibility for each region’s data to a specific owner.

For more information, check out the Best Practice document 6 steps toward top data quality in this newsletter.

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Analyze and clean data periodically

No matter how vigilant you are, data errors will creep in. For that reason, it’s important to keep close track of data quality and periodically clean your data.

• Use dashboards to monitor data quality – Get the Data Quality Analysis dashboard from the AppExchange and consider making this dashboard available to everyone—it’s a good way of communicating that data quality is everyone’s responsibility.
• Prioritize any data cleanup efforts to first fix data that is frequently used, such as addresses and emails. Then focus on business-specific information, such as the opportunity fields. Finally, remove any duplicate fields in related objects.
• You can clean data manually—for example, with inline editing—or use automated routines and tools to clean your data. Check out these AppExchange apps for managing your data.

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Control user entries

It’s inevitable: People make mistakes when they enter data. You can limit this source of errors by training reps to use the built-in duplication check. You can also build automatic checks into the application to prevent users from making errors in the first place.

Train users to check for duplicates – Train users to press Find Duplicates before submitting a new record. The application will display any similar records and users can decide how to merge those records.

Protect against errors – You can also build protection against user errors right into the application. For example:

• Create required fields to make sure users don’t skip vital information. Be aware that too many required fields tend to lower adoption and user satisfaction.
• Create picklists instead of free-form fields to protect against typos.
• Create validation rules to alert users when records are incomplete or incorrect. For example, a rule can check that a billing zip code is in the billing state, that time cards total 40 hours, or that the date entered is a weekday. For more examples of validation rules, see Useful Validation Rules: Helpful Samples to Get You Started.
• Use exception reports and data-quality dashboards to remind users of data problems.

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Enhance your data

A common data quality issue is disparate, siloed data stored in different systems. Such data is hard to keep in synch—plus users get no insight into the overall business. One way to solve that problem and enhance your data is by integrating with other systems. Another is by augmenting your data with internal or external data. Both approaches will make the data more valuable to your users and increase adoption.

• Integrate with other systems – Most companies have data in several systems, which means it’s easy for that data to get out of synch—and out of mind. When you integrate your data, your users get a single source of truth and a more inclusive view of your customers.

The easiest way to integrate is with the pre-integrated apps from the AppExchange. But there are also solutions for integrations with back-end systems such as Oracle and SAP—and the Web services API can be used for any integration scenario. For more information, see the white paper Salesforce connect: Five Paths to Integration Success.

• Augment your data – You can use mashups, data from third-party organizations such as Hoovers, or internal data to add information that’s valuable to your users.

Use mashups to show related data from different data sources, without actually moving data between applications. The most well-known mashup example is Google Maps, which makes a wide range of applications more useful by showing directions whenever needed.

Use external services such as Hoovers to add information to your records, to build targeted lists, and to help reps prepare for calls. Check the AppExchange for such applications.

Use internal data, such as customer behavior and buying patterns you collect from Salesforce CRM or from your Web site.

Before you decide what additional data to provide, survey your sales and marketing users to find out what they want. Then decide how to augment with internal information and check out the apps on the AppExchange.

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Summary

Problems with data quality often result in frustrated customers, low user adoption, and inadequate decision support for management. With adequate training, good processes, and a little help from technology, you can make sure your organization achieves and maintains high data quality.