6 Salesforce File Management Best Practices To Implement in 2023
We are gearing up to bid adieu to 2022, and setting up our 2023 goals. Maximizing the Salesforce platform’s capabilities & minimizing operational costs are two of the most desired pursuits for every Salesforce customer. Efficiently managing files within Salesforce can double up the joy & make 2023 the best year for your business. Managing a large number of files or huge-sized files in Salesforce CRM often brings challenges & an #awesomeadmin must have the right file management strategy to be a superhero for his/her organization. Below are some of the uber-popular methods that are being adopted by some of the smartest Salesforce customers. You are minutes away from getting to be one such file management champion. Know your Salesforce file system One of the most important things for any Salesforce admin is to have a detailed knowledge of their Salesforce file system. This includes understanding what type & size of files are getting uploaded, what are the major sources of file generation, who are the users that generate more files, what is the file storage usage, who has access to files, and how files are getting shared. A smart Salesforce admin always keeps an eye on these factors in order to maintain a smooth file management process and predict upcoming challenges. Have a long-term Salesforce file storage management strategy If you are a Salesforce user, you must be aware of the fact that all Salesforce editions come with a limited file storage space. If file consumption is more in your business, you must run out of your storage faster. Having a long-term file storage management strategy for Salesforce is one of the most critical things to consider in order to avoid last-minute hassles. This might include regular storage upgrades (Please note this is highly expensive), periodically deleting obsolete files, adding extended storage systems, etc. Leverage external platforms for enhanced file collaboration Leveraging external platforms such as SharePoint, Amazon S3, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc. not only helps you address challenges occurring due to Salesforce file storage limits but also extends file collaboration capabilities. With unlimited Salesforce file storage powered by external systems, your team can seamlessly collaborate on different files & accelerate business growth. Build a centralized content management system In today’s digital world, businesses use multiple systems to run business. If you are also using different applications to power your business, integrating all of them will do wonders. When you’re integrating all your processes & applications to have a single business view, building a centralized content management system is just what you need. For Salesforce users, if you are using different Salesforce apps, AppExchange solutions, and custom-build applications; bringing files from all of them together to one centralized storage repository is highly recommended. The centralized storage can be SharePoint, S3, OneDrive, Google Drive, or an On-premise file system as well. Take care of file security & accessibility factors Securing files in the best possible way & keeping seamless access to all authorized users are two of the most important factors in driving file management efficiency. Best security practices must be adopted including access control, visibility settings, encryption, and sharing options to run a highly secure Salesforce system. With evolving technologies, security often comes under the scanner & you need to get it checked in 2023. Access to files must be always hassle-free as this directly impacts productivity. Some of the best recommendations are syncing files across systems, a proper naming structure, a tagging feature, and a folder structure for files. Backup your files regularly Still not backing up your files? If not, get this done in 2023. Having a backup of all your files will help you run a business with confidence without any fear of file loss. Get a file backup strategy in place with the best available Salesforce backup application. Get XfilesPro for Advanced Salesforce File Management Still thinking about how to implement all the above best file management practices for your Salesforce app? Don’t look beyond XfilesPro. Our one application can help you achieve all the above goals & make your business run on Salesforce to the best of its potential. XfilesPro, which is primarily an external file storage integrator for Salesforce, offers support to multiple storage systems including SharePoint, Amazon S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, and On-prem. Along with this, our future-ready application can easily take care of folder structures, file syncing, community portal file management, large-volume file offloading, and much more. Explore all XfilesPro features & capabilities to transform your file management experience in Salesforce. With 500+ global customers & 550K+ licensed users, XfilesPro can be a game-changer for your business in 2023. To learn more about the application, please get in touch with us now. AMARLAL
Salesforce File Management Challenges And Their Solutions
Managing and retaining files is crucial to any business, big or small. Most of these organizations rely on Salesforce to handle and distribute data, and problems, such as visibility, version tracking, and collaboration are common. When small businesses experience growth, they also encounter Salesforce file management challenges that large companies are facing. Presently, there is no dynamic solution within Salesforce to resolve these issues. Hence, with the limited Salesforce storage concern, file management has become quite a task for several customers. Before making any decisions regarding your file management query, go through these challenges and their resolutions that we are sure you will face while managing your files on Salesforce. Read More: Why is XfilesPro the Most Comprehensive File Management Solution for Salesforce? Most Salesforce customers, using multi-cloud deployments, often find themselves struggling with proper management of files, especially when there’s a large volume of files in the Org. While it might not sound like a big issue in small-scale deployments (where fewer cloud solutions are involved), enterprises may have to look for robust collaboration solutions that offer visibility & control over their Salesforce files in big-scale deployments. Inadequate File Visibility & Accessibility One inherent challenge faced by Salesforce users having a large volume of files & documents in the primary file storage is the lack of complete control over those files. This becomes an even greater issue if they are using a multi-cloud strategy because then synchronization between storage systems in different cloud platforms becomes difficult. In large-scale environments, multi-cloud setups can lead to scattered file storage and data silos. Without a unified system, users have trouble finding, accessing, and sharing files in Salesforce. This lack of centralized control diminishes file visibility and forces organizations to invest extra resources in maintaining synchronization. Problems with File Collaboration For most enterprises using the Salesforce cloud platform to run their business, the primary goal is to utilize its collaboration feature to enable their users (both internal & community users) to share, edit, & view files & documents in real-time. Even though Salesforce was designed as a collaborative platform, the collaboration services it offers are limited. Version control can become a significant challenge when collaboration within teams is lacking. Without proper communication, people might end up working on different versions of the same file, leading to confusion and mistakes. Someone might miss important changes, or worse, two, people could unknowingly make edits to outdated versions. Reduced Document Processing Speed In this era of rapid digital transformation, enterprises deal with various documents on a daily basis, be it invoice quotes, contracts, healthcare records, purchase orders, legal documents, PDF files, invoices, & much more. Typically these documents go through the activity of document processing (scanning documents, extracting data, validating it, making corrections, & manually updating the relevant fields) before being loaded into Salesforce as attachments & being integrated into day-to-day business operations. But when the organization deals with a large volume of files & documents, the speed of document processing is reduced drastically as it requires a lot of human resources & is a time-consuming task. How XfilesPro can help XfilesPro has been a top choice for enterprises struggling with the seamless management of files & documents in their Salesforce system. This file management & external collaboration application is designed especially for Salesforce & aims to help users resolve any & all challenges they may have. Leveraging the app, users can easily migrate their important files from Salesforce to their preferred external cloud storage (SharePoint, AWS S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc). Even when the files no longer reside in the Salesforce file storage, file accessibility & visibility are not the least bit affected. Users can easily view, access, download, & edit the files anytime they require. The application supports seamless collaboration between the storage systems & performs well in a multi-cloud environment also as it brings together files stored in different platforms to store them in the chosen external storage. Check out the product datasheet for more details. XfilesPro’s latest update to DocuPrime is set to streamline the entire document lifecycle management process. From template creation and automated data filling to review & approval, and e-signatures, everything can now be handled within a single platform. With XfilesPro, you can effortlessly create, store, collaborate, and share documents on one platform. The app optimizes file storage, simplifies document generation, and increases ROI by 3X. Plus, our passionate tech team is always here for you, ready to turn your questions into solutions and ensure every interaction feels seamless and supportive. To understand how XfilesPro can help you overcome the challenges we explained above or any other particular challenge you may have, please get in touch with our experts. You can also schedule a quick demo with us to see the app in action. FAQs What is the alternative to Salesforce file storage? An alternative to Salesforce file storage is XfilesPro. It integrates seamlessly with external cloud storage solutions like SharePoint, Google Drive, or Amazon S3, allowing businesses to offload large files. You can reduce Salesforce storage costs, manage files efficiently, and enjoy better collaboration. What is the cost of Salesforce file storage? Salesforce file storage can be expensive, with additional storage costing approximately $5 per GB per month. Why are Salesforce file storage costs so high? Salesforce offers limited file storage with its plans, and purchasing extra storage space can become costly. This pricing model is designed for businesses with smaller storage needs, but it can pose challenges for growing organizations. AMARLAL
How Did XfilesPro Deliver a Superior Salesforce File Management Experience to a Popular Legal Enterprise
In due course of time, XfilesPro has carved out a solid niche for itself in the Salesforce ecosystem & emerged as the #1 application for file management. This is largely because the default file storage is limited & additional storage space is costly so most enterprises look for solutions that can help them manage their Salesforce files efficiently. In this article, we’re going to discuss a similar use case of a Salesforce-using legal firm that also leveraged XfilesPro in its system to collaborate with AWS S3. A brief introduction to the enterprise Our client, one of the USA’s leading law firms, is a specialist in handling mass tort litigation cases and has helped thousands of injured & mistreated people get the maximum possible compensation. They also have been crucial in representing leading personal injury & mass tort firms in a variety of litigation cases. Started with the mission to provide the best possible legal representation to everyone, our client puts its’ customers first & offers them faster service. To effectively achieve business success, they were trusting the world’s #1 cloud platform, Salesforce, to handle their business operations. This meant a lot of files & attachments were being generated in their system as they strived to manage their existing as well as past legal cases. Also, in order to manage the sheer volume of legal cases, the Salesforce firm was making extensive use of a third-party legal case management AppExchange application, Litify. Though the app helped them manage & optimize their processes and workflows, it also contributed to increasing the volume of files. Also read: How XfilesPro helped an Australian non-profit organization manage 6K+ files and efficiently store them in Amazon S3 Elaborating upon their file management challenges Being a popular player in the legal sector, our client’s customer base was growing exponentially each day. This meant that a multitude of customer-related Salesforce files & attachments were being generated on a daily basis in their Org. To add fuel to the fire, the third-party AppExchange solution, Litify, that they were using to simplify their legal case management, was also generating a horde of files & attachments of its own. Since all the files were directly stored in the primary file storage of their Salesforce Org, it began filling up sooner than they had anticipated. This became such a big problem for them that they resorted to purchasing additional file storage space from Salesforce in a bid to have more storage space for the newly-generated files. But this led to an even graver situation as this put an extra burden on their storage budget since the additional storage was slightly costly; not to forget that it’s a recurring cost. Not only the storage costs but even file accessibility & visibility were a big challenge for them because of the dearth of a proper folder structure in their primary storage. This also made searching for particular files a very tedious task. But above all, the thing that bothered them the most was the compulsion to retain all case & customer-related files for a minimum of 7 years, courtesy of the different retention & compliance guidelines (both internal & industry-directed) that governed them. Also read: How XfilesPro helped a leading US Insurance service provider reduce significant Salesforce file storage costs How did XfilesPro come into the picture? To realize their dream of efficient & hassle-free file management in Salesforce, our client was on the lookout for a robust application that was capable of managing their files and attachments with the highest level of efficiency. This is how they landed upon XfilesPro’s AppExchange page & got in touch with the support team, following which they were highly impressed with the app’s advanced capabilities. Widely rated as the most trusted & preferred Salesforce file management solution in the market, XfilesPro quickly understood the client’s storage limitations & management complexities. After thoroughly analyzing their Salesforce Org & all the possible use cases as well as after discussing with multiple stakeholders, our Salesforce file management experts created a personalized integration roadmap for them to manage the primary Salesforce file storage through seamless integration and collaboration. Leveraging AWS S3 to simplify file management Considering the nature of their business, complexities, retention needs, & compliance demands, they felt it best to leverage their existing AWS S3 external storage to manage the Salesforce files. Using XfilesPro, they seamlessly integrated their Salesforce Org with AWS S3 storage in very simple steps & migrated all their important Salesforce files & attachments from the primary storage to the S3 external storage. As a considerable chunk of files was moved out, it instantly freed up & optimized the file storage space. XfilesPro also allowed them to create an intelligent folder structure in the S3 storage where all the files & attachments, from both the Salesforce Org & the third-party application, could be properly organized, based on pre-defined criteria. Through this functionality of the robust file management platform, the client was also able to resolve their file accessibility & visibility issues as all files were extremely easy to access, view, edit, share, download, or even delete (right from within Salesforce) because of being organized into different folders. And not to forget that since the Salesforce files & attachments no longer needed to be kept in the primary file storage, they could be retained for as long as required according to the retention & compliance guidelines. This allowed them to easily comply with all the stringent compliance directives that were governing their enterprise. After leveraging XfilesPro in their Org, the legal firm also stopped purchasing additional storage space & consequently reduced their file storage costs by 80%, without any effect on their ongoing business operations or the user experience. What’s more, is that after using XfilesPro to integrate the Salesforce & AWS S3 systems the legal enterprise also noticed a significant increase in their overall return on investment (ROI) because of the 80% reduction in storage costs & 5 times improvement in terms of performance. Thereby,
