Salesforce Archiving Strategy: Considerations, Benefits, and Implementation Best Practices

Archiving is an important process for many different environments. It differs significantly from the backup process by transferring information from the primary storage location to the secondary long-term storage for retention or compliance purposes. This becomes particularly important in Salesforce, where data growth is rapid and compliance needs are stringent. In this article, we are going to see certain peculiarities of data archiving in Salesforce, comparing it with the traditional approach.

Introduction

Businesses are creating more data now than ever before, with the amount of data we need to store doubling roughly every two years. This rapid growth makes it harder to manage and store data effectively without solid archiving strategies in place.

Data archiving is about moving less critical information out of active storage and into a long-term storage system. The main aim here is to keep the data for the long haul, and what’s key is that this data is moved from primary storage to a secondary one, not just copied. This is what sets archiving apart from backups.

In Salesforce, data archiving is a natural part of any business’s growth. All businesses collect data as they operate, and often, this information is more valuable than money or other resources. But keeping all that data in Salesforce can get expensive, so businesses generally face two options: deletion or archiving. Deleting data usually isn’t an option since it’s either crucial for the business or must be kept to meet compliance and regulatory requirements.

That leaves archiving as the best option. The costs of archiving can vary based on the storage type. For instance, archiving data in storage that’s easy to access anytime will cost more than using storage that’s harder to access quickly.

Data Archiving and Data Lifecycle

Data backup and data archiving tend to overlap a lot in the minds of regular users. However, there is also one more term that is very similar in its nature – the data lifecycle.

Data lifecycle management is a process of monitoring and improving the so-called “data flow” throughout its entire lifecycle, from initial data creation to its fall into obscurity and subsequent deletion. The average data lifecycle includes multiple separate phases, each with its own unique characteristics.

Data archiving is one of these stages. It covers a very specific moment that indicates specific information not being relevant or necessary enough to warrant it being kept in the primary storage. Thus, the process of transferring that information to a dedicated long-term storage is initiated. 

That is precisely what data archiving is – information transfer to improve performance and convenience without losing access to the information in question. It is a much more specific term than data lifecycle, and the overall scope is the most significant difference between the two.

Data Archiving Key Benefits in Salesforce

Data archiving in Salesforce is primarily used as an alternative to irreversible data deletion, which offers a number of substantial advantages:

• Archived data protection

Data archival can also play a part in a company’s disaster recovery strategy since many archival storage units are often placed separately from the primary storage location, both physically and logically. Reducing the total volume of information in production leads to lower overall damage to the organization from a data breach event, which puts even more emphasis on preparing correct data archival strategies.

• Storage cost reduction

Being able to archive information that is not immediately necessary for the day-to-day operations of a business reduces the strain on the primary storage hardware while also drastically reducing the data storage fees from Salesforce (which tend to get quite high as time goes on, with each subsequent storage expansion growing in price at a startling pace).

• Overall performance boost

Not working at a limit of the storage capacity also tends to improve the performance of practically any system, including Salesforce. Additionally, the non-linear approach to the same performance concern is to recognize how it is a lot easier to locate necessary information in the company’s filesystem when there is less non-essential information being stored alongside sensitive files.

• Regulatory compliance

Industry regulations and compliance frameworks have become much more common in recent years. It is hard to find a company that is not aware of GDPR, PCI DSS, or any of several dozen frameworks being applied to specific industries or geographic locations. 

It is important to understand that breaching compliance requirements is often not just a reputational issue. It is also both a massive legal risk and a high potential for a tremendous monetary fine. As such, being able to archive information in accordance with all of the necessary regulations can drastically remove the risk of any of these events happening.

When is it necessary to start creating the data archiving routine in Salesforce?

In a perfect scenario, the data archiving strategy should already be in place for any organization that has been using Salesforce for a substantial period of time. Interestingly enough, the aforementioned advantages of data archiving can also serve as the primary reasons for when it is time to start archiving information:

• Setting up a disaster recovery framework in the context of Salesforce must include data archival in some way, shape, or form. It is a vital part of a company’s data protection system, which is now at its most important, with the number of data breaches growing all over the world at a fast pace.
• Dealing with a hefty price tag for data storage in Salesforce is another dead giveaway for the data archiving strategy to be implemented. The storage fees of Salesforce might not seem all that high at first, but the total cost tends to get extremely high as time goes on and a business grows in size.
• Low performance and problematic data locations are both viable signs that data archiving should be used since both of these reasons are often connected with the abundance of data stored in a single environment (not all of the data stored in the primary storage is required daily, in most cases).
• Regulatory and legal concerns when it comes to data retention should also be a relatively clear sign of a company being required to implement all of the necessary information storage requirements, which often includes data archiving in long-term storage for a specific time period.

Backup vs Archiving in Salesforce

Backup process is another notable term that is often confused with archival, both inside and outside of the Salesforce environment. The most important distinction between them is their purpose, and it is not particularly difficult to understand:

• Backup processes create a copy of the information to be stored in another location without affecting the original.
• Archival processes move the information to be stored in a separate location, meaning that the information is no longer stored in its original environment.

Both processes are important for any environment that works with data regularly. There are at least three other points of distinction that we would like to go through here: 

• Storage. Backups are kept in storage environments that are optimized to be retrieved as quickly as possible at a moment’s notice. Archiving, on the other hand, often uses cost-effective storage for long-term preservation, which does not offer the most compelling performance in many cases.
• Frequency. Backups are performed relatively frequently, with daily backups being commonplace to ensure that the information stored in backed-up environments is as up-to-date as possible (unlike most solutions, GRAX offers Continuous backups). Archiving, on the other hand, differs significantly depending on retention requirements and data lifecycle policies, although they are often much less frequent than backups.
• Access. Backups are kept in easily accessible formats with the purpose of being restored as quickly as possible when necessary. Archived data does not have to be addressed that frequently, and thus, it is often stored in an encrypted or even compressed format that does not allow for quick access at any point in time.

Best Practices for Data Archiving in Salesforce

The list below includes some of the most common pieces of advice that could be given to most data archiving environments. It should be noted that this list is far from conclusive, and there are many other best practices that would only be suitable and relevant to a very specific user group.

Process automation 

Data archiving does not have to be a completely manual process. It is possible for a custom data retention policy to define specific data categories and groups that could be transferred to the archival storage when necessary. The trigger event for the archival event could also differ significantly, from the total percentage of the Salesforce storage capacity being reached to something as basic as regular time intervals, such as a day, a week, a month, etc. Automation also tends to reduce the cost of archiving while also freeing up labor for other, more important tasks.

Data utility

Data archiving processes, when set up correctly, can be a significant advantage to a company’s data utility efforts. Setting up a data archiving system that can transfer less mission-critical information to a different storage environment offers plenty of advantages, from lower costs to higher efficiency and even better decision-making due to the removal of outdated insights and the ability to keep only the most relevant data in the rotation.

Data security

The very existence of a properly configured data archival policy in Salesforce is a substantial advantage to the company’s information security situation. However, the information in the archives should also be protected to a certain degree – with basic access controls and data encryption being some of the most rudimentary requirements that should be implemented in any such system. 

The fact that the archived information in a client’s system is not considered essential for a company’s functioning does not mean that it does not hold value to malicious agents such as hackers. This is also combined with the fact that a lot of the archival data is often subject to one or several regulatory frameworks, leading to plenty of issues we have mentioned before – reputational damages, fines, and legal actions.

Objective clarity

Defining your goals for data archival is a rather important part of the entire process. Any of the previously mentioned objectives could be used for this reasoning, be it regulatory compliance, high storage costs, low system performance, and so on. 

These objectives can help with establishing what specifically needs to be archived and when – including factors such as usage frequency, data age, relevance for business processes, and more. Also, make sure that all of the stakeholders have a clear understanding of both the benefits and the objectives of this archival strategy since support and understanding are crucial for the archiving strategy to be implemented properly.

Data relationships

The very nature of data archiving implies that there still should be integrity between archived information and the data left in the primary storage. This is extremely important in environments such as Salesforce due to its common interactions between data and metadata. 

Making sure that data connections are safe is mandatory to maintain the context of existing data without breaking its integrity as a result of archiving. The same logic applies to the restoration processes, as well – make sure to define data restoration strategies that would be able to restore information without breaking the pre-existing connections between information in different storage mediums.

Frequent testing

Archiving processes are not one-and-done efforts; they are ongoing processes that need to be monitored and tested on a regular basis to ensure their proper functioning. Reviewing audit logs for data archiving on a regular basis drastically improves the chances of spotting and solving various issues or anomalies before they can produce any damage to the storage or infrastructure.

Keeping track of key performance metrics such as storage utilization and system response times is another good idea, allowing for a somewhat rudimentary efficiency assessment before adjusting existing archiving strategies when necessary.

Certified solutions

While Salesforce does offer a number of built-in solutions for data archiving, all of them have substantial disadvantages that make them difficult to use in a large-scale enterprise environment. As such, it is highly recommended to use third-party archiving solutions in order to receive seamless integration and incredible performance.

Salesforce AppExchange offers a number of data archiving tools to choose from, with each tool being vetted by Salesforce to ensure reliability and effectiveness in a unique Salesforce storage framework. Reliable vendor support is also an important factor to look for here since they are responsible for regular updates, customer support, and more.

Existing Archival Methods in Salesforce

Generally speaking, none of the built-in data storage methods in Salesforce can be considered archiving. The closest example is Salesforce Big Objects, and even that still has plenty of differences with how data archival should be performed. There are also some nuances to the platform as a whole that are worth explaining here, and we will also discuss the reasons why these built-in measures are not recommended for archiving in most cases.

First of all, there is a certain amount of data (and file) storage that Salesforce provides to its users for free. The exact volume depends on the total number of user licenses in one environment, as well as the “edition” of the software purchased. Salesforce separates its storage capacity into two large groups:

• File storage is used for documents, files, attachments, etc.
• Data storage is used for contacts, custom objects, accounts, etc.

It is technically viable for some companies to stay within the “free” limitations of Salesforce storage. However, it becomes harder and harder as time goes on, and the volume of data the business works in is also expanding. 

There is also a somewhat helpful feature called Field History Tracking, which works as the local versioning system, making it possible to track changes to both standard and custom object records. It can be enabled manually, but it can also consume a lot of storage capacity if not configured correctly.

Salesforce Big Objects

Salesforce Big Objects is a system that allows Salesforce users to store tremendously large data volumes within the platform through a process that closely resembles data archiving. The official goal of Big Objects is to be used for information that has to be retained for either regulatory compliance or historical reference.

The size of Big Objects means that querying them is only possible using Async SOQL, which also makes querying these objects possible in the background without sacrificing system performance. It is also much more difficult to retrieve this data compared to standard object retrieval due to the requirement of using asynchronous processing to do so.

Limitations of Built-In Archiving Capabilities of Salesforce

Unfortunately, the fact that Big Objects is provided directly by Salesforce does not mean that it is a perfect tool for archival purposes. On the contrary, there are plenty of disadvantages that users would encounter when trying to perform data archival tasks purely with the built-in methods, including:

• Complex setup processes
• Problematic ongoing management
• Limited feature set
• Difficult integration with external systems
• Challenging data access, and more.

The sheer number of limitations makes it easy to see why most Salesforce users prefer to work with third-party archiving tools instead of trying to operate Big Objects with increasingly complex queries and without most of the Quality-of-Life changes that third-party software has.

Benefits of a Third-Party Salesforce Archiving Solution

As an example, GRAX can resolve all of the issues and shortcomings mentioned above, including:

• Setup process simplification with a user-friendly interface makes it a lot easier to configure archival software, especially with the help of intuitive workflows and guided configurations.
• Ongoing management improvements due to GRAX’s ability to automate plenty of menial and repetitive tasks. Some of the more common examples of features here are scheduled archiving, data retention policies, and ongoing monitoring for data archival processes.
• Rich feature set makes it possible for GRAX to provide custom retention policies, historical tracking, advanced search and retrieval, versioning, etc.
• Complete support for Big Objects data, making it possible to migrate all of the data from Big Objects without losing access to it.
• Simplified integration with various external systems and platforms greatly expands the possibilities for data archival while improving upon the overall data utility, since the integration can be done with warehouses, data lakes, and a number of other SaaS applications.
• Easy access to archived information is guaranteed in GRAX with intuitive data retrieval capabilities and advanced search capabilities, making it extremely easy to locate and restore necessary information without using complex queries like in Big Objects.

Other capabilities of third-party software like GRAX that may be useful in different archival situations are accessible monitoring and reporting, storage scalability, multiple information security measures, comprehensive audit trails, and many others.

Implementing Archival Strategy in Salesforce

Creating a viable archival strategy in a Salesforce environment can be rather challenging. Luckily, we can offer a relatively small implementation guide on this exact topic. There are going to be five major steps in total:

1. Data assessment

Before initiating the archival process, it is necessary to understand what data types and volumes can be archived without affecting regular operations. Business relevance and access frequency are usually the most common factors that determine what data can be archived and what has to remain in the primary storage. 

This is also where all of the internal retention policies and regulatory frameworks have to be reviewed to ensure that all of them are taken into account.

2. Picking the right tool

The usage of built-in tools and features such as Field History Tracking and Big Objects is only viable for businesses as short-term solutions for the reasons we have mentioned above. The long-term solution would have to be a third-party tool from the Salesforce AppExchange – that way, the archival solution would be guaranteed to be tested and compatible with the Salesforce environment from the beginning.

Two important factors are worth considering here: the scalability and the price of the solution. The former factor is important for companies expecting substantial growth in the near future, while the latter factor depends entirely on the size of the budget that was assigned to the data archival solution.

3. Archiving ruleset

It is necessary to make the archival rules as detailed and thorough as possible to make sure that there are no errors with the archival process. The most common recommendations are to use retention policies and job scheduling to simplify the entire process as soon as the basic requirements in terms of the data are set. 

There are three large groups of criteria that can be used to define what data has to be archived:

• Business-specific criteria, be it customer lifecycle stages, project completion, etc.
• Usage-based criteria to filter out information that has not been accessed for a specific time period.
• Age-based rule set covers all of the information that has been created a specific period of time ago (such as 1 year, 2 years, etc.).

Making sure that archiving rules preserve the relationships between active and archived information is also a good idea, especially when it comes to the data-metadata communication inside Salesforce.

4. Team training

Every single member of the team needs to be aware of how important data archiving is. When done right, all team members should be aware of how to apply the archiving rules when necessary. Creating comprehensive documentation and other resources on the subject is also a great idea in this context, as well as performing regular training sessions in order to solve any of the potential questions that might have arisen.

5. Ongoing optimization

Data archiving is not a one-and-done process. It needs to be audited and monitored regularly to ensure that all of the policies and rule sets are applied correctly. Monitoring system performance and archival process performance are both viable sources of information at this stage, offering plenty of information that may be required to optimize the process even further.

Global Computer Tech Company

This Global Computer Tech Company is a large business in the fields of Information Technology, Digital Transformation, and Security Transformation. It needed to manage and reuse a number of mission-critical datasets from instances such as Salesforce Service Cloud, Sales, and third-party data sources in their data lake. The company generates and updates over 18M contacts and 64M cases on a regular basis, with the total data volume in Salesforce of about 2TB. It caused plenty of slowdown issues and time-outs, making it more difficult to access and reuse information when necessary.

The introduction of GRAX made it possible to drastically improve Salesforce performance by automating data archival jobs, allowing the Sales and Support teams access to archived information and the ability to review and analyze the data in question for future sales or customer interactions. The optimized data storage also made it possible to analyze the information itself using AWS Quicksight, Redshift, and Glue in order to provide useful insights on how an Executive Team can improve the company’s results in the future.

EMEA Capital Exchange Company

This leading EMEA Capital Exchange Company has been operating as a global retail broker, offering plenty of financial services revolving around online trading tools for the foreign exchange market. It specializes in Currency Trading, Investing, Trader Exchange Accounts, Exchange Brokers, etc. The Salesforce performance of the company was significantly slowed down by over 35M emails and tasks in the system, negatively impacting both the application storage footprint and the overall performance. There was a need for a backup and archival solution with extensive FINRA and SEC support due to the necessity of working in the financial sector.

The implementation of GRAX made it possible to achieve true data ownership by implementing a number of features into the existing infrastructure. The SEC and FINRA compliance was successfully maintained by using dedicated data storage environments within wholly-owned AWS components such as S3 and EC2. That way, the Digital Chain of Custody for the historical data was not broken, which was an important factor for regulatory purposes. The automation of archival processes into the AWS S3 data storage made it possible to drastically improve the performance of a Salesforce environment since all of the historical information over a year old was automatically archived with no human interference – while still being available for potential data reuse situations in the future.

Leader in FinTech Payments

This company is a leader in financial services, mobile payments, and merchant service aggregation; it provides secure payment services and products for businesses and customers of all sizes, from SMBs to Enterprises. It specializes in Credit Card Payment Hardware, Software, Services, and Mobile Payment Applications. FINRA compliance was a significant concern for the company in terms of customer support interactions in Service Cloud – with the necessity to store all of this data in WORM-compliant storage, and the company’s existing storage solution was not up to the task.

The inclusion of GRAX into the infrastructure made it possible to store all of the necessary information in a FINRA/WORM-compliant data storage facility, including text messages, emails, and more. The Chain of Custody for this information, which was necessary for regulatory reasons, was not broken in the process, either.

Fast Casual International Food Chain

This popular global Fast Casual International Food Chain is known for using fresh ingredients sourced from sustainable origins to create salads, tacos, burrito bowls, burritos, and more. It is a company with a specialty in Fast Casual Dining that needed a scalable solution to manage their rapidly expanding dataset with all the regulatory and compliance reasons in mind. Their existing data set was taking up to 80% of the total Service Cloud storage due to a large number of document attachments, with the customer’s document repositories being fragmented across multiple environments as a result. The company had to spend large sums of money to purchase additional storage on a regular basis in order to maintain regulatory compliance, which was not a sustainable strategy in the long run.

The introduction of GRAX made it possible to remove the issue altogether by archiving historical information and creating an auto-archival rule for both Service Cloud and document attachments. The GRAX Time Machine made it possible to access the entire Azure data lake’s worth of Salesforce data, dramatically reducing the total storage costs for the application without losing data ownership or compliance status.

Conclusion

Data archiving is the process of moving less critical information to long-term storage, enabling freeing up space and improving system performance. While many people confuse this with backups, archiving has a different and important place in a business data management strategy.

Archiving is especially paramount in the Salesforce environment, the benefits of which apply to organizations of all sizes. If appropriately executed, it turns data archival into an important part of an organization’s infrastructure, combining exceptional performance without losing access to information that might not have many use cases in day-to-day operations. 

However, archiving is not a “set it and forget it” kind of activity. It requires regular monitoring and occasional review if it is going to remain effective. As a matter of fact, feedback is an important element in the process of making improvements, hence discovering what may need to be changed in order to keep it effective for future needs within the organization.

An early start for an archiving strategy can facilitate the growth of any Salesforce environment. Knowing when one should act and be prepared in dealing with data storage will save one from getting into a mad scramble to find a solution at that particular point of capacity or performance issues.