Loading data into Salesforce

Imagine a client hands you a .csv file that needs to be loaded into Salesforce. So, what’s your process?

Here are the steps I usually follow:

1. Import the data into Google Sheets. Working in a collaborative spreadsheet is significantly easier than emailing files back and forth.
2. In a new sheet, transpose the column headers into column A.
3. Add columns to represent:
   1. Whether each field needs to be actually imported or not
   2. Which object and field to map to
   3. The transformation algorithm, if needed
4. Make a 1st attempt at mapping and the transformation
5. Confirm the mapping with the client and have them perform data cleansing
6. Export to .csv and use Salesforce Dataloader to import into Salesforce
7. Profit!

The takeaway
Having a consistent process to transform and clean data helps keep things in order.

I actually load data so often, I’ve developed a better tool for steps 5 and 6.