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Room to Grow: What to Expect When Migrating to Salesforce

By: Althea Arnold

Planting a garden from scratch can be a daunting and stress-inducing task. Migrating your database to Salesforce can feel similar, but it doesn’t have to. With the right partner, you won’t be alone in this process. Partnering with Idealist Consulting means we’ll help shoulder the load, prompt any necessary purging, and arrange all the logistics. Change can be hard, but it’s a necessary part of true transformation.

Don’t Dig Up the Garden


When you move to a new home, you would never dig up your entire garden and bring it to your new place. Your garden will be much happier if you take only a few select transplants, some favorite seeds, and leave the rocks and weeds where they are. The same goes for a Salesforce migration - your database will be more useful to you if you pick and choose only the healthiest datasets, user profiles, and scoring rules. It’s time to leave the old data and outdated reports behind and start fresh.

Focus on the Harvest


In the moments when your back is a bit sore and your hands are covered in dirt, it can be difficult to imagine the (literal) fruits of your labor. Moving large sets of data is no small feat, but many hands make light work. We’ll be there to remind you that there will be a functional, holistic, and accurate data management system at the finish line.

The (Butter)nuts and Bolts, Squashing the Uncertainty


Think of our consultants as professional landscapers who advise you on where to place certain plants based on their needs. During the project, our consultants assist with the strategic architecture of your Salesforce instance. Part of this process includes building a solid framework and executing the data migration so you’re left with a cohesive, complete database housed in one system.

Get to Know Your Soil


It’s important to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the new landscape before digging in with your shovel. The soil in this new location may be different, and there may be beneficial native plants already growing. After the dust has settled and you’re getting set up in your new system, take a moment to get to know the features available to you. We often see organizations implement custom code to mimic the features of their old system when migrating from NGOC to NPSP, for example. They may not realize that the new system has built-in functionality that seamlessly accomplishes the same goal. Not only would they miss out on powerful features native to NPSP, but they will also have to maintain that custom code by working with a developer. There are likely features within the new system that are unfamiliar to you and could be useful to your organization - so it’s important to take the time to poke around. For example, you’ll have access to far more apps with NPSP than you had with NGOC, without the need for customization. You’ll also gain access to features like rollup summary field customization and address management, all made to make your life easier. Check out this blog post to learn more about migrating from NGOC to NPSP.

Let the Light In


Approaching a Salesforce migration selectively and strategically is our specialty, and we’ll be your guides every step of the way. We recommend this method with your bright future in mind. Just as you want your plants to have plenty of room to grow and soak in the sunshine, it’s essential to position yourself in a CRM system that feels spacious and is designed to grow with you. Bringing only choice components of your old system will save you time, integrate with today’s technology, set your organization up for future growth, and ensure that your system is easy to maintain. 

Let’s Get to Work


A garden won’t grow overnight - it will require planting, tending, and fertile soil. If you’re ready for a powerful database management system that will scale with your organization, then our team is ready to get our hands dirty.

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