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Julie 27Julie 27 

Transfer accounts including activity histories from one salesforce account to another

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can tell me how to use Excel Connector to transfer accounts & contacts (including activity histories for each contact) from one salesforce account to another salesforce account. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Julie
JakesterJakester
To transfer a contact from one account to another, just change the AccountID value for the contact. It will automatically bring over the history. Is that what you were asking?
Julie 27Julie 27
Not exactly. We have two different Salesforce databases and I want to transfer a group of accounts/contacts & their activity histories from one database to the other. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Julie
JakesterJakester
Ah-
 
Well, that's going to be much, much more complicated. The good news is that you can test it all day long by creating a sandbox and trying to import the records into your sandbox. You'll want to use the Apex Data Loader. I think I'd recommend an approach something like this:
 
  1. In the target SF database, create new custom fields on the Activity (Task), Contact, and the Account objects that are External IDs and call them something like "old_sf_id"
  2. You'll need to work from the top down, so first import your Accounts in. If you have to worry about duplicates, that's another can of worms I won't go into here. Make sure when you import that the original Account ID gets copied into the old_sf_id field.
  3. Now, when you go to import Contacts repeat the process for importing the Contact's ID into the old_sf_id field on the account record, use the Upsert command, and link the Contact's Account ID field to the new Account's old_sf_id
  4. Repeat this process for Activities, only now you'll need to link to both the Account and Contacts old_sf_id fields
rpr2rpr2

Something to add to what Jakester already suggested...

While you asked about transferring only account, contacts, and activities -- if any of the activites were associated to other objects (e.g. opportunities) then you will either need to transfer those objects as well (using the same methodology that Jakester suggested), or delete the reference to any object other than accounts.  Accounts will begin with 001 in the ID field.



Message Edited by rpr2 on 01-01-2009 01:42 PM
kevinedelmannkevinedelmann
One other thing to keep in mind is that since you are transferring info from one instance of salesforce to another you will not be able to import Created Date / Last Modified Date for any record UNLESS you get Salesforce to grant you permission to do so.

Just log a case or talk with support.  Don't take no for an answer as otherwise you will have the information but won't have the history in the actual order in which they were created.