Data Migration Consideration

While doing the Data Migration activities, the below points must be taken care of for a smooth migration:

1. Decide the correct Mapping File: In order to start any new migration from the legacy system to New Salesforce System, we must decide the mapping file correctly. 70% works done if we can finalize the mapping file correctly.
2. Identify the ordering of insertion of objects: When inserting the records into the new system, it is extremely important to identify the ordering of insertion of objects into Salesforce. As a trivial example, you will need to insert all the accounts first, and then all the contacts so that relationships between contacts and accounts are set up properly.
3. Enable "Create Audit Fields: Typically CreatedBy, CreatedDate, LastModifiedByID,  LastModifiedDate are read-only fields. However, during data migrations, it is generally desirable to insert records with legacy dates and ids to match the source system. In order to do this, we must have “Set Audit Fields” permission along with Modify All permission. Setup -> Customize -> User Interface -> Enable "Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation" and "Update Records with Inactive Owners" User Permissions
4. Time Zone Setting: When inserting date fields, the Salesforce data loader uses the time zone of the user inserting records. The user id is used to insert records that should have “proper” time-zone settings.
5. Publish Cut-over plan of Data Migration: It is important to plan out the data migration. The users should be informed well in advance about the cut-off date, and possible issues that may happen. Also, it is always a good idea to have a few pilot users available to test over the weekend in which a major data migration is planned.
6. Sanity Check: It is also import to do sanity testing directly in Salesforce. Login as different types of users, and view a few records of different objects. Compare these same records manually with the original system. Although many tools are available, there is no replacement to manual verification when testing data migration.