In Salesforce, bad data will creep up over time. As users manually enter data everyday, some of that data won’t be perfect.
It won’t matter whether you have good data governance in place or not. Users will inevitably type the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong places.
As a result, it makes sense to have a scheduled process to examine and update data. For example, once a month, a data consultant can perform a list of activities to review certain fields for incorrect/bad/inappropriate data.
To give you a head start, here is a list of sample things to check:
- Name fields: Uses title case capitalization.
- Address fields: Uses title case capitalization.
- Picklist fields: Determine what values are not being used and deactivate as needed.
- Picklist fields with “Other: Determine if an “Other” value is repeated often and consider adding it to the picklist.
- Phone numbers: Uses format “(xxx) yyy-zzzz”
- Websites: Is prefixed with “https://” or “http://”
- Text fields: Doesn’t contain any inappropriate words.
The takeaway
Periodically reviewing your data hygiene is an important consideration in any Salesforce instance. Maintaining a specific checklist of things to verify can help with this process.