Salesforce Data Cloud: 10 Things You Should Know from SFBen
Lucy Mazalon from the dedicated team at the SFBen Team put together a little list for the Data Cloud enthusiasts called 'Salesforce Data Cloud: 10 Things You Should Know Before You Enable It' and its good stuff so please read.
If there is one thing that we can agree on its that Data Cloud is daunting so I look for any and all information that can assist clients in their pursuit because dauting as it may be - its worth it.
Here are a few mentions from the article (it comes with visuals so please read the article directly or use this as a cheat sheet as my order may be off).
1. Data Cloud (Starter) vs. Data Cloud for Everyone
At Dreamforce ‘23, Salesforce announced that customers can use Data Cloud, for free (for up to 10,000 unified profiles)
2. Regional Prerequisites
At the time of writing, Data Cloud is reportedly only available for orgs that are located in North America and EMEA. The advice is to “reach out to your account team to discuss what options are available …
3. Not Available for Sandboxes
You must activate Data Cloud in your production org – in other words, it’s not available in sandboxes.
4. What is a Unified Profile?
(*just a note, I have written an extensive article on Unified Profiles for Assets here:
A unified profile is the result of identity resolution, combining a range of data points, from various data sources. This data can be both demographic and behavioral – for example, mobile app engagement, eCommerce purchases, customer support cases. This is the ‘golden record’ that people have been striving for ever since the conception of CRM. These are not static, but will adapt as the streaming source data changes.
Data Cloud is a usage-based product, meaning that you pay for what you use. There’s a difference between the credits you’re awarded, and how that translates into ‘unified profiles’. When you pay for credits, you’re paying for the processing power to unify data from various sources. Hence why the number of unified profiles is ‘approx’, as some organizations will be more demanding than others in terms of their data unification.
5. Data Cloud Doesn’t Merge Records
A unified profile combines a range of data points from various data sources, which can be both demographic and behavioral. (this is more of a rule to apply to your work)
6. Understand Basic Data Modelling Concepts
(*note here - if your weak on data modeling concepts, pick up the SF Architects Handbook by Dipanker Jyoti & James Hutcherson which goes over very basic concepts for architecture which includes modeling, sharing, licensing etc).
Before you begin working with your organization’s cocktail of data sources, you need to understand basic data modeling concepts. This will enable you to effectively stitch together unrelated data being pumped into Data Cloud (that’s not necessarily structured the same), leading to better identity resolution.
Primary key: The field that distinguishes rows of data in a data set from one another. For example, the Salesforce record ID.
Foreign key: Used to connect data between two unique tables or sources. For example, OrderID could be found on a customer record, and also in an order details dataset from your eCommerce site. The OrderID connects the two tables together.
If you have worked with Marketing Cloud data extensions, it is highly likely you are already familiar with these concepts.
7. There’s No Activation with Free Data Cloud
As mentioned in the beginning, there are some capabilities you can’t harness unless you purchase a paid edition of Data Cloud (i.e. Data Cloud Starter, or above).
Activation is a major one. Activation is the process of sending these ‘golden records’ to a destination where they can be used for highly personalized interactions. “You can create segments on any entities from your data model, and then publish them on a chosen schedule or as needed” (source).
8. Data Cloud is Not a Data Lake
Data Cloud is not designed to be the single place that all of your enterprise data is stored. Data Cloud is designed for data to enter from various data sources, into Data Cloud. This is why a data lake/data warehouse may be required, so that you’re only fetching the data you need in Data Cloud from the swarm of enterprise data that you have.
Snowflake is a popular option, loved by operations/data professionals alike. Snowflake was Salesforce’s data warehouse partner of choice.
Note: Data Cloud is a data lakehouse, which combines the benefits of a data lake and a data warehouse.
9. Activations vs. Data Actions
While working with Data Cloud’s numerous concepts and capabilities, activation is what you will have been leading up to. There would be no point in going through the ingesting, modeling, mapping, reconciliation, and transformation to only have the perfected segment sit in Data Cloud.
The two ways to activate your data are activations and data actions.
Activations activate Data Cloud segments. The types are file storage, external activation (e.g. advertising platforms), Marketing Cloud, and Data Cloud (to publish to other Salesforce apps, such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud).
Data actions activate streaming insights. The supported targets are Salesforce platform events, webhooks, and Marketing Cloud.
10. Have Your Use Cases Ready
(*Note: seriously, if you are a company reading this - create Use Cases BUT then pay for consulting workshops to create good User Stories with a consulting partner - just pay the money because it actually saves you money in the long run AND short run and saves us the headache of having to redue all your requirements).
So, you’ve enabled Data Cloud, now what? It’s a good question, as you’ve now got keys to the Ferrari and not sure how to drive it.
It’s important to nail down your use cases so you can see exactly how the product can bring you the most value. Here’s one use case example, with many more coming soon: