Salesforce Data Modelling

In the realm of CRM systems, Salesforce stands out as a robust platform that enables businesses to streamline their operations, enhance customer relationships, and drive sales growth. At the heart of Salesforce’s effectiveness is its powerful data modeling capabilities, which allow for the customization and organization of data in ways that align with business processes. 

This blog dives into the fundamentals of Salesforce data modeling, offering insights and strategies to leverage Salesforce’s architecture for optimal data management.

By reading this blog, you will gain:

• A clear understanding of what Salesforce objects are and how they function as the backbone of Salesforce data modeling.
• Knowledge of key sales objects in Salesforce and how they interconnect to support sales processes.
• Strategies for using external and big objects to manage large data sets without compromising system performance.
• Practical use case, illustrating how to apply Salesforce data modeling techniques to solve common business challenges.

Let’s get started!

Object

An Object within Salesforce is a database table, very similar to an excel spreadsheet in its simplest form. Columns in the spreadsheet are like Fields within Salesforce, and rows are like Records.

Spreadsheet

• Spreadsheets can be used to create and manage data.
• In the below example, we are using a spreadsheet to manage customer contacts.
• Columns are being used to store Name, Email and Phone.

Object

• In Salesforce, the table is considered an Object.
• In the below example, we use the Salesforce contact object to manage contact.
• Columns are being used as fields to store Name, Email and Phone.

Standard Object

Standard objects are included as Out of box objects with Salesforce org. Standard objects are already created for the users. Standard Salesforce objects with minimal configuration can support many business process requirements. Users can log in to org and start using standard Salesforce objects. Lead, Account, Contact, Opportunity, and Case are a few of many standard objects already available in Salesforce org.

Example:

Let’s take an example of a library. The admin can create the following custom objects to manage book subscriptions in a library:

• Books to create records of all the books (identified with a unique book code) in the library catalogue with custom fields like book category, subscription status, subscription start date, subscription end date.
• Students to create records of all the student’s details who will subscribe.
• A student can subscribe to multiple books at a time.

External Object and Big Object are additional object types in Salesforce that can be used without overwhelming the primary CRM with enormous data.

Sales Object Model

Key Sales Objects

• Leads: Leads are people who are interested in your products and services.
• Campaigns: Campaigns are used to measure the company’s marketing efforts and are helpful for tracking return on investment.
• Campaign Members: The people you add to a campaign must first have a contact, lead or account record. When you connect a lead, contact or account to a campaign, Salesforce creates a campaign member record, which allows you to track responses.
• Accounts: Customers, vendors, partners or individuals you do business with. Business accounts store information about companies, and Person accounts store information about individuals.
• Contacts: Use contacts to store information about the people you do business with. Contacts are usually associated with an account but can also be associated with other records such as opportunities via Contact Roles.
• Opportunities: Track and manage your potential deals with Salesforce opportunities. Opportunities are deals in progress.
• Products: Products in Salesforce are referred to an item or a service the company sells to the customers.
• Price Books: A price book is a list of products and their prices. The price book includes a list of the products and their prices.
• Orders: An order is an agreement between a company and a customer to provision services or deliver products with a known quantity, price, and date.
• Contracts: A contract is a written agreement between parties. Many companies use contracts to define the terms for doing business with other companies.

Use Case

Cosmo Property wants to migrate its existing property listings into Salesforce. They also need to be able to track sales deals that are going to be managed by its sales team. What type of objects should be used by the App Builder to store this information?

Solution: 

• Property Custom Object to track property listings
• Opportunity Standard Object to track deals

Reason: The information about the property listings can be stored by creating a custom object which can be named as Property. Sales deals can be stored by using the standard opportunity object.

Summing Up

In wrapping up, mastering Salesforce data modeling is a game-changer for any professional looking to harness the full potential of CRM to drive business success. Whether you’re new to Salesforce or looking to deepen your expertise, understanding how to effectively model data is key to unlocking more efficient, tailored solutions that meet your business needs.

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