Salesforce Administrator
Proper preparation is critical to a successful Salesforce org merge—and it often takes longer than the merge itself. Before you can plan your org consolidation, you need to know exactly what it involves, when you need one, and how it can benefit you.
In addition, you should have an overview of the most common challenges of org merges and know which strategy is appropriate for your situation. Last, but not least, you should set the stage for the merge itself.
With a Salesforce org merge, you take two or more independent orgs—usually production environments—and consolidate them into a single entity. Companies that use Salesforce merge orgs for one of the following reasons:
Merging Salesforce instances is a purposeful upgrade to your current operations. It offers the following benefits:
Salesforce org consolidation is a complex, challenging process that’s different for every situation. Generally speaking, you’ll probably run into these five roadblocks:
An org consolidation isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. Depending on the purpose of the merge and the specifics of the org, there are three different strategies you can use: the life-and-shift merge, the move-and-improve merge, and the third rail merge.
Definition: Just like its name suggests, in a lift-and-shift merge, you directly take everything from the source org and migrate it to the target org. This is the most straightforward approach.
Use case: This approach is ideal if both your orgs are relatively standard—without many customizations—and you’re looking for speed.
Definition: The move-and-improve merge lets you cherry pick which data and configurations to transfer to the target org.
Use cases: This is a practical choice when you want to retain certain unique customizations of the source org. It’s also the right strategy when you’re looking to improve and declutter as you merge. For example, if the source org has outdated datasets, you might want to leave them behind.
Definition: The third rail merge is highly complex and uses the Greenfield approach. You essentially rebuild the target org from the ground up with data and configurations from the source org.
Use case: The third rail model offers the flexibility and depth you need if your business is undergoing significant changes, like changing the business or data model of the surviving org.
Preparation is key to successfully merging orgs—in fact, preparation is the bulk of the work. Keep these eight steps in mind.
The first step when preparing the consolidation is to determine what to include in the merge and the permissions and roles you’ll need.
Start by cataloging the data and configurations that you want to keep. This may involve a detailed audit of your Salesforce instances. Create a comprehensive list, and prioritize based on importance and interdependencies.
Next, document the roles, profiles, and permission sets associated with every user in each org. Use the principle of least privilege to decide who will have what level of access in the merged environment.
Create a sandbox environment where you can simulate the consolidation before actually making any changes. This crucial step ensures you don’t break any functionality in the existing production environments, which could have real-world repercussions.
Create a comprehensive backup of all the orgs involved in the merge. If anything goes wrong, you can use it to restore your data.
Take the opportunity to clean your data and remove duplicates. This helps improve data quality.
If either org integrates with any apps or systems, research whether you’ll need to reconfigure the integrations. In some cases, it can be advisable to temporarily disable them during the merge process.
Keep your team in the loop about the progress of the org merge, and inform them about the changes that will come. When your team is well informed, they’ll be in a better position to make the transition and adapt.
Create a record of everything, whether it’s configurations, custom code, or data mapping. You’ll need this information during the merge—plus, you can refer to the documentation in the future if necessary.
It’s much faster and more cost-effective to consult with an expert before the merge than it is to try and fix a consolidation that’s gone wrong. Depending on your level of expertise, a Salesforce consultant can offer insights to make your org merge more efficient.
Preparing for your org merge is usually a drawn-out process—but the more prepared you are, the easier and faster it will be. To learn how to perform the org merge itself, check back tomorrow for our next blog!
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