Launchpad Lesson 25 - Data Import

In most cases, unless you're a brand-new company, you'll want to import your existing customer data rather than create each customer record in Salesforce one by one.

Some of you will already have most of your data stored in spreadsheets. Bingo! You're pretty much ready to go. For others, whose data primarily resides in other systems, you'll need to export that data into a spreadsheet.

In this lesson, we're going to show you how to import your existing contacts and accounts. You can also use the same solution to upload your leads.

I want to emphasize the importance of taking the time to clean your data before importing it into Salesforce. You're starting with a fresh, new org, and the last thing you want to do is add a bunch of junk to it right from the beginning.

By cleaning your data, we mean removing duplicates, deleting outdated contact information you no longer need, and correcting issues such as inconsistent capitalization or misspellings. It's definitely worth taking the time to review your data, both independently and with your team, before importing it.

You'll be using a tool native to Salesforce called the Import Wizard, which will take the data from your spreadsheet and upload it into Salesforce.

Let's start by looking at an example spreadsheet we've created with our contact data. We're using just five records here as an example. The Import Wizard can handle up to 50,000 records at a time, which should be more than enough to meet your needs.

Across the top row of our example spreadsheet, you'll see the Salesforce fields that we want to populate.

When we use the Salesforce Import Wizard shortly, you'll see that Salesforce will try to match these column headings with fields in Salesforce. However, you can always manually override those matches.

Most of the fields we have here are very common. We also have a custom field called Annual Rockets Launched, which we created for accounts in an earlier lesson. It's important to remember that before importing data into any custom fields, you must first create those fields in Salesforce.

You'll also see an Owner column. If we don't specify who should own the account or contact, Salesforce will automatically assign ownership to the user who imported the file.

It's also important that the spelling in the Owner field exactly matches the user's first and last names, and that the user has already been created in Salesforce. Otherwise, Salesforce won't be able to find that user.

Once the spreadsheet has been properly cleaned up, we'll save it as a CSV file. A CSV file looks much like an Excel file to the viewer, but it's formatted in a way that Salesforce can read.

Now, let's go into Salesforce and upload the data.

We'll click into Setup, type Import Wizard into the Quick Find box, and click on Data Import Wizard.

Toward the bottom of the screen, you'll see a button that says Launch Wizard. Click that.

For this import, we're importing accounts and contacts, so we'll select that option.

Now we have three options in Step 2.

If we click Add New Records, Salesforce will create new records for each row in our spreadsheet.

If we click Update Existing Records, Salesforce will attempt to find any information in our spreadsheet that's different from the information on the existing Salesforce record. It will then update those fields in Salesforce, but it won't create any new records.

The third option is what we refer to as an upsert. This means Salesforce will update any records it finds that are already in the system and insert any new records from our spreadsheet that aren't already there.

This is generally the best option because it greatly reduces the chance of creating duplicate records. So, let's select it.

Now, some additional settings appear.

For Match Contacts By, we'll choose Email.

For Match Accounts By, Name and Site is already selected, so we'll leave it as is.

The checkbox below allows us to choose whether we want to update existing account information. For example, we have the account type in our spreadsheet. We need to check this box in case the account already exists in Salesforce with a different type.

The bottom two checkboxes refer to functions we won't cover in this course, so you can leave them unchecked.

Now let's move to the third step and click CSV so we can upload our file.

Leave the two picklists below as they are, and then click Next in the bottom-right corner.

In this step, we need to ensure that the columns in our spreadsheet are mapped to the correct field labels in Salesforce.

Salesforce will attempt to do this for us whenever our column headers match existing fields. For example, you can see that it correctly mapped all but three of our fields.

Now let's look at the unmapped fields.

The first one is Company. We know from previous lessons that the account name represents the company, so we need to map Company to Account Name.

You could have avoided this by naming the column Account Name instead of Company. However, this serves as an example of how Salesforce does its best to ensure that fields and columns align when you haven't caught everything beforehand.

Let's click Map.

You can search for the field you're looking for by typing into the search box. However, Account Name is our first option, so we'll select it and click Map.

The next unmapped field is Annual Rockets Launched. That's because the field label in Salesforce is slightly different. It's called Rockets Launched Annually.

Notice how Salesforce doesn't make any assumptions about this. It's up to you to map the field correctly.

The final unmapped field is Owner.

We're going to click Map, and we'll map this field to two Salesforce fields: the account record owner and the contact record owner.

If we type Owner into the search box, the appropriate options will appear. We'll select Account Record Owner first. Then we'll type Owner again and select Contact Record Owner.

Then we'll click Map.

You can ignore the warning sign. It's simply telling you that the column header in the spreadsheet is being imported into multiple Salesforce fields, which we're already aware of.

Now that all our fields are mapped, we can click Next in the bottom-right corner.

The final step is simply a review. Once we're satisfied, we can click Start Import.

Now, back in our Sales app, let's search for one of the accounts and contacts we just created to verify that they were imported correctly.

In the search box, we'll type Johnny Rockets and select the account.

You can see that the account was created. Even its logo was added automatically, and the account type is listed as Customer.

Just as it appeared in the spreadsheet, we can also see that our contact, Leonard Nemoy, the Director of Logistics, was created and is related to this account.

That makes sense.

And there you go. The Import Wizard is a fantastic tool to use so that when you and your team begin using Salesforce, all of your existing accounts and contacts will already be in the system.

Now, if you can believe it, we're actually done. This was the final lesson in this series.

The next segment isn't really a lesson. It's more of a final commentary from me about what you should think about next and how to ensure that your teams get full value out of Salesforce moving forward.

We'll see you then.