The Best Practices to Follow for Salesforce Data Backup Recovery

Salesforce users need to ensure proper data backup and readiness for anytime recovery. This has to be made a part of your Salesforce management and data security best practices. It is also important to understand the differences between different types of data and other data backup models. When we refer to data, it is more about the business records, leads, opportunities, contacts, contracts, cases, tickets, etc. Salesforce data may also be in the form of documents, files, content, attachments, chatter, etc.

Along with data, it is also important to take care of metadata too, which refers to the data configuration settings as reports, custom fields, dashboards, page layouts, and Apex of Visualforce custom codes, etc. You must understand all these metadata types to plan and maintain a foolproof strategy for Salesforce data backup and recovery.

Any mistake made on the source file and any errors in field mapping will result in a disaster for Salesforce data management. Even with the best intentions, the users and admins may sometimes delete data accidentally or modify records in big volumes. For example, someone may accidentally delete or update bulk records using the Data Loader tool for bulk loading or updating data. It may only be realized later that such a mistake was made. Experts recommend keeping a solid data backup strategy for Salesforce data management. 

Chances of bulk data deletion

As discussed in the above paragraphs, some may accidentally or intentionally delete or update Salesforce records. It can be done by the users, admins, or developers. They may change the configuration settings, add some custom fields, delete the existing ones, modify the layouts and pages, etc. They may also change the reports and dashboards. Some may further end up modifying custom codes. Some of these changes may be reversible, but for the most part, the changes that have gone unnoticed for a while maybe irreversible later. So, it is highly advisable to keep a strong backup copy of Salesforce data and metadata to restore an adverse data event.

Data backup and recovery best practices

1 . Data backup 

It is important to restore data to preserve the relations and connections between different data records. There are many tools for Salesforce for data management like Data Loader, with which the customers can manually restore data. Customers may also engage with Salesforce Services or third parties for data backup and recovery. In any case, it is important to ensure that you have a backup copy of the data available to be restored at any time. Salesforce has many native options for routine data backup, and you can find many tools in the App Exchange. Salesforce native backup options come with no extra cost. Some of the most common options you can consider for Salesforce data backup recovery are:

– Data export can be used for manual exports or scheduled automatic data backup through the user-friendly UI.

– Data Loader: To be used for exporting data manually on-demand through APIs.

– Report Export: It is an on-demand data export service.

For metadata backup, you can consider the following options.

– Change Sets: You can easily copy the metadata from Salesforce production org to developer org or the sandbox.

– Sandbox Refresh: You have to refresh the sandbox to copy the configuration metadata automatically.

Along with these native options, there are also different third-party backup and restoration solutions from Salesforce partners. You may go to AppExchange to see the options out there. Many of these marketplace apps are very comprehensive and will let you automate the Salesforce data and metadata backups. These apps also offer advanced mechanisms for easy and quick data restoration in case of any data loss. While searching for third-party backup and restoration tools, you are advised to go through as many options as possible to compare their features, see the reviews, and evaluate the strengths of these apps against your requirement. Even though they promote such applications for data backup, Salesforce does not fully endorse any such third-party solutions.

2 . Data recovery 

Data deletion may happen due to many reasons. It can be manual errors by users or while using the bulk data uploading tools like Data Loader. In case of quick identification of minimal data loss, you may try to recover it from the recycle bin. However, there are many limitations too for this approach. Salesforce recycle bin may hold the data only up to 15 days, and it also has a higher limit on the number of records maintained.

Admins may also use field history tracking to recover the overwritten data. To do this, you have to enable field history. But this cannot keep all objects and has a limitation of twenty fields per object. In case of any data loss, Salesforce also advises taking assistance of third-party options along with their native backup for data recovery. There is a lot of manual intervention needed for native recovery. There is also a cost involved in the native recovery process of $10,000. Once you identify a data loss, the Salesforce native recovery process is below.

– Assess the extent of data loss and damage.

– Define the goals based on the breadth and depth of the recovery project.

– Determining the data and metadata be restored from backup files.

– Creation of Restore identified with missing records and the object in CSV format.

– Minimizing transformation during the restoration process.

– Exclude audit fields auto-updated by Salesforce.

– Deactivate the workflow and triggers.

– Restoring the data manually by first uploading the parent files and then upsetting the children. You may use an external ID to decide which insert/upsert tasks to be executed.

After recovery, you have to evaluate the data restoration and review the restored data’s integrity. You may also activate the validation rules and the workflow with Apex triggers and then switch to auto-numbering field types from the text. Once done, update the data fields manually, which were not existing or deleted through the backup process.

Read Also: How To Reset Iphone Without Passcode?