Data quality: validation, duplicates, enrichment and archiving
How field types, picklists and validation formulas (ISCHANGED, PRIORVALUE, ISNEW, ISPICKVAL) keep bad data out, how duplicate rules and duplicate jobs find duplicates and when they stay silent, and how enrichment apps and Salesforce Archive policies keep data current and lean.
Explain the tools and best practices for assessing, improving, and enriching data quality (data types, validation, managing duplicates, enriching, archiving).
~8 min read · 8 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Choose field types and state and country/territory picklists for consistent data, and recommend enrichment against a trusted source.
- Write validation formulas with ISCHANGED, PRIORVALUE, ISNEW and ISPICKVAL, and predict when a rule does not run.
- Diagnose why a duplicate rule stayed silent.
- Plan an org-wide clean-up with duplicate jobs and duplicate record sets.
- Pick Salesforce Archive archiving policies, retention periods or purge policies for a requirement.
Key terms: matching rule (defines how fields are compared to call two records duplicates); duplicate rule (decides what happens at save: allow with alert, block, report); duplicate record set (a group of matched records for review and merge); retention period (how long Archive keeps archived data before removing it); purge policy (criteria that remove archived data regardless of retention dates).
Key facts
- Detail
- TRUE = invalid, save stopped
- Detail
- Always FALSE
- Detail
- Returns the current value, not null
- Detail
- Only ISPICKVAL, CASE, TEXT;
=errors
- Detail
- Lead converts, but the task isn't created
- Detail
- Up to five per object; three matching rules each
- Detail
- Runs only if an edited field is in the matching rule
- Detail
- Performance and Unlimited; Customize Application and View All Data
- Detail
- 1,000,000 duplicates across completed jobs
- Detail
- Up to 99 years
- Detail
- Overrides retention dates; purged data is unrecoverable
Sources for this section (10)
- Validation Ruleshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- ISCHANGEDhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- PRIORVALUEhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Picklist formula tipshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Validation Rule Considerationshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Duplicate Ruleshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Duplicate Jobshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Duplicate Jobs considerationshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Get Started with Archivetrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Optimize Data with Archivetrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Why might a validation rule not catch bad owner values after a bulk reassignment?
- When do records saved together escape each other's duplicate alert?
- What two permissions does a user need to run a duplicate job?
- Why is a Date field better than a text field with help text for contract dates?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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