Before getting started with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, it’s important to consider the organizational elements that could mean success (or disaster) for your company.
Once you’ve established that your company is ready from an organizational perspective, there are technical elements that must be taken into account.
Migrating to Financial Services Cloud poses challenges, such as changes in the data model, impacts to existing integrations, and user training and adoption. While migrating from a legacy system will always present some obstacles, migrating from Sales Cloud is more straightforward, but still comes with its own set of considerations. Here are a few of the key ones to consider.
Data Model Changes
If the Sales Cloud org did not previously use Salesforceâs Person Accounts, updating the Sales Cloud Account and Contact data model to align with Person Accounts will need to be addressed. Person Accounts also have an impact on data volume, as each record creates both an Account record and a Contact record.
Many objects in Financial Services Cloud will be new to the organization and in many cases the data for these objects may not yet exist. One of the key features of FSC is the relationship insights that are available. However, this feature is only as good as the data kept by an organization; if the data does not exist, this feature will initially have limited benefits, but the value will grow each month the solution is active.
As such, while planning a transition to Financial Services Cloud, organizations should begin âgetting your ducks in a rowâ early. Start gathering the data needed to benefit from the features of FSC as soon as possible in the process, so that when it is time to deploy, organizations can get an ROI much faster.
Integration Considerations
While there will be some aspects of existing integrations that could continue to be used (such as Connected Apps for remote call-ins, or Named Credentials for external callouts), changes to the data model will require an organization to evaluate all integrations used to ensure the right data will be referenced with the migration to FSC.
Automation and Reporting Impact
In relation to changes to the data model, existing automations and reporting will need to be re-evaluated for updates. In many cases existing reports and automation will need to be deprecated, otherwise an organization risks creating significant technical debt.
User Training and Adoption
One of the benefits of migrating from an existing Sales Cloud org is usersâ familiarity with the platform. While there will be training on specific FSC functionality, there is significant overlap with Sales Cloud functionality such as general UI navigation and understanding Salesforce objects like Leads, Contacts, and Accounts. However, due to changes in the data model (Financial Deals vs. Opportunities, Interaction Summaries vs. Tasks), users may initially face challenges trying to unlearn Sales Cloud processes.
Best Practices for Migration
As with any other digital transformation project, change management needs to be at the forefront of the plan. In particular, creating an inventory of changes between usersâ day-to-day interactions with Sales Cloud and Financial Services Cloud will pay dividends when it comes to training and adoption. Similarly, involving key stakeholders early in the process will be another contributor to success.
Salesforce offers an FSC Migration Transition Assistant that organizations can use to assess and plan their migrations. The report resulting from the migration provides details for key requirements for migrating to FSC, such as features to enable prior to installing the managed package. An example report can be found here.
Specific Challenges with Migrating from a Legacy System
While many of the above challenges on migrating from an existing Salesforce instance will be applicable to migrating from any legacy system, there are some specific challenges to keep in mind including data transformation, regulatory requirements, user adoption and legacy system limitations.
The adage for migration projects is âgarbage in, garbage out.â Legacy CRMs often have outdated, duplicate or incomplete data. Cleansing or transforming this data in preparation for a FSC migration will be the largest challenge, and while it is crucial, it will also be time-consuming. Leveraging data quality tools will significantly streamline this process and improve the success of an FSC migration project.
The migration of historical data from a legacy system needs to comply with financial regulations. Particularly, there may be audit trails in the legacy system that will be difficult to migrate to FSC, but may be needed for compliance purposes. Conducting a compliance audit on existing data before beginning the migration will assist in understanding which audit logs must be kept.
Legacy CRMs are often maintained by the provider or a third-party vendor who may offer limited support during the migration. This can complicate data extraction and migration efforts. Prior to beginning the migration project, it is imperative to ensure that extracting data in a meaningful manner from the legacy system is possible.
Want more? This blog is an excerpt from our resource âSalesforce Financial Services Cloud for Wealth Managersâ.
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