Data Management Best Practices
Phone calls, emails and messages - every minute, information arrives at your desk. And every bit of it is essential information that you use to manage your business and schedule your day. While this data is key to your business operations, in weeks or months, it can become less relevant, replaced by new information.
In database terms, this is called data aging. Over time, your data ages, and is no longer current. Eventually, your database becomes cluttered with old, irrelevant information. When this happens, system performance can suffer.
If a search takes longer today than it did six months ago, it may be that the system has hundreds of thousands more records to look through. If this is happening to you, work with your System Administrator to identify data that is no longer needed and can be removed.
Two options are available to resolve this situation:
- Delete Old Data
- Purchase additional storage space
- Learn more: Modify your Service Plan
Delete Old Data
Use the Mass Operations feature to identify outdated information and Mass Delete Data. Optionally, reassign the records to a new owner Mass Ownership Change, or update the records in one big batch Mass Update Data.
Follow these guidelines to cleanse the database and optimize performance in order to keep your system operating at peak efficiency.
Delete Old Activity Associated with Accounts and Contacts
Good examples of data you can safely remove:
- “left a voice mail message” activities
- “call again” note
- “mailed an information kit” completed task
- “faxed proposal version 2a” activity
Delete Leads/Prospects
After a period of time (six months, 18 Months, three years) with no activity, you may want to delete Leads/Prospects from your database.
Remove Associated Documents or Marketing Campaigns
When a team member leaves your group, it is a good opportunity to review the documents or campaign information associated with that staff member. This will allow you, as the manager, to identify information that should be made available to other team members (reassigned), and to delete materials that are outdated or no longer relevant.
It is good practice to check Storage Usage periodically, to verify that your account is not approaching the limits of Document Storage per Account. Use the features in the Attachments Folder to edit or delete large/unused attachments.
Remove Unused Fields
If you customized your application with additional fields and tabs, you might want to review your system every six months or so and consider what is no longer used. Follow these steps as a guide:
- Build a View to find fields you no longer use
- Confirm that no activity has been applied to those records
- Delete the fields or tabs
A good practice is to schedule these types of operations after business hours to maintain optimal performance.
Automatically Mark Records for Deletion
Add a Data Policy: Just as you can flag a message in your email system, you can flag a record when it meets your criteria for “old” information. A data policy can help automate this process.
- Add a new field, called "To Be Deleted" (choose field type = checkbox)
- Create a data policy that marks records that were created over 365 days ago, but have not had activity in the last three months (or whatever is meaningful in your organization)
- Create a view to display the records that are marked "To Be Deleted"
- At a future date, use the Mass Delete Data to remove these records