Entering Old Data Into A Deployed Object

When we rolled out the employee awards program I mentioned in my previous post, we weren’t sure the business would want the old data (400 awards worth) captured in Salesforce.  After the app had been live for a few weeks, it became clear that back data would need to be in Salesforce for reporting purposes.  Great!

PROBLEM: How do I give access to the data entry folks without compromising the automation that’s happening in the background of the app?  For example, when you create a nomination there is logic in the background that determines the approver and starts the process along its merry way.  This is great in production because it keeps the user from having to determine who gets the approval next.  Trouble is, these paper awards have already been approved!

SOLUTION: Why not use a sandbox?  Once the data is all entered I’ll, run a report, export the report and, using the DataLoader, put that data in production. So, I created a sandbox, disabled all the logic and streamlined the page layout for easier data entry (including removing all related lists.)

The data is about 10% entered at this point, with completion slated for sometime next week.

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