At Simplus, we believe that accelerating the time-to-value for our customers is paramount. To help us achieve this, we’ve developed our own templated approach to streamline the process of loading configuration data into the Salesforce CPQ system. Using the data loader, configuration workbooks, and our expertise from past experiences, we have developed best practices for simple data loading for our clients. Here’s a look at how it’s done:

Data loader

The Salesforce data loader is an easy-to-use graphical interface that helps clients stream data to and from the Salesforce database. The data from Salesforce can be converted into comma separated files, spreadsheets, or other relational databases. Apart from extracting data from Salesforce, one can also use the data loader to perform bulk data deletions in Salesforce. Using the Simplus-developed approach and configuration workbooks, we’re able to save tremendous amounts of time and energy over using the graphical user interface to load data and create rules in the systems.

Configuration workbook

The configuration workbook stores all of the data for every object we want to manipulate. We also store unique IDs for every record in each object. This unique ID—known as the external ID—helps to maintain the data integrity within separate Salesforce environments: production, test, and development. Once we establish the workbook as the source of truth for the configuration data and rules, we can seamlessly and easily migrate the configuration data and rules across environments. This makes deployments and UAT (User Acceptance Testing) updates easier and safer than ever!

Simplus strives to ensure that every Salesforce CPQ project implementation maintains an up-to-date configuration workbook. As we go through UAT and production deployment, we leverage the configuration workbooks for updating any changes on Salesforce, ranging from a simple quote term text to a complex price rule.

Expert experience

Our expertise benefits our clients by providing portability across Salesforce organizations and reducing technical overhead. As an example, one of our clients had implemented Salesforce CPQ without the use of external IDs, leading to data redundancy. With the help of our configuration workbooks and external IDs, we eliminated the data redundancy issue providing accurate data. The use of Salesforce’s data loader combined with the Simplus configuration workbook reduces the number of errors made during migrations and helps to standardize the way our clients think about and load data into their different environments. Simply put, this makes migration and maintenance of data easier and more user-friendly.

At Simplus, we have a drive to innovate and a strong desire to help our customers succeed in their CPQ journey. This motivates us to find new and innovative methods to ensure our customers’ success, and automated data loading is just one of those methods.

To find out more of what Simplus can do for you, contact us today.