Identifying data to load

Your solution design determines the exact data you need to bring into Sales Cloud. However, all solutions typically include Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities. They also often include Products, Price Books, Opportunity Products, and Leads. Your business maturity will determine the volume of data available to load, and the type of business performed will determine how much historical data you need to have available.

The first and most important step is deciding what set of data to load. It is tempting and common practice to simply load all the data available without any critical analysis. During the later stages of implementation, there is usually a desire to get the system running as soon as possible, and loading all the data available may seem like the path of least resistance. However, this can turn out to be a mistake. There are consequences, including an ongoing maintenance cost, to holding data.

There are obvious costs, such as data storage, but...