Salesforce data retention & masking in 5 steps

Overview

Reducing Salesforce data footprint directly reduces the cost and risks of potential data leaks and embarrassment, as well as benefits your organization.

Here are 5 easy steps to automate data retention & masking for your Salesforce Org.

"Organizations that fully realize the value of reducing
obsolete data, still struggle with how to do it."

In this article, we will discuss the 5 steps to reducing obsolete data.

Step 1 : Mask data in the sandbox

Protect your organization from exposing sensitive information in sandboxes to ensure security, compliance, and trust.

Sample Masking Policy:

Ensure that customer data is not accessible in the sandbox. Remove unnecessary business-sensitive data from sandboxes and delete/update any other data.

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Step 2: Build Consensus

Collaborate with internal stakeholders whose input produces a solid data reduction strategy

• Run Salesforce data coverage tools like Cloud Compliance’s Personal Data Discovery or FieldTrip to get a snapshot of the ‘state of data’ in your Salesforce Org.

• Share your findings and highlight the benefit of data reduction to your stakeholders

Step 3: Define Policy

Determine a retention policy based on a classification of your data

Step 4: Retain in production

Enforce and automate data retention policy to ensure security, compliance, and trust.

Typical Retention Policy

Identify leads with no movement for 9 months. Remove (mask) their personal data after a year and delete the masked leads after another 6 months.

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Step 5: Monitor and Minimize

Ensure coverage for changing data model and adopt a minimalistic data collection practice:

• Monitor policy enforcement and execution
• Ensure coverage for changing data model

#### Saurabh Gupta

Saurabh is an Enterprise Architect and seasoned entrepreneur spearheading a Salesforce security and AI startup with inventive contributions recognized by a patent.