Today’s guest blogger is Mike Welburn, a Senior Developer at Sonoma Partners.
When manipulating or loading large sets of data, there comes a point where manual updates are no longer the best option. Salesforce.com provides a couple of different ways to load data automatically based on CSV files, but the most flexible (official) tool they have is Data Loader.
Data Loader allows administrators to insert, update, delete, and export records into/from their organization. If similar data loads are done on a recurring basis, administrators have the ability to save the data mappings so they don't need to be manually remapped each time. It also has the added ability to run as a scheduled job in Windows via the command line.
For the most part, Data Loader can handle what users need. However, there are some limitations:
- Officially supported on Windows only
- Can't set columns dynamically, e.g. a date value to the current date
- Only works with salesforce.com editions that are API-enabled (EE, UE, PE if requested)
- Can only load one set of data at a time
- Doesn't interact with ODBC and JDBC data sources
While implementing salesforce.com for different clients (on different computers), I've ended up using quite a few different tools. Below is a quick overview of the other options.
Lexi Loader
Lexi Loader is the unofficial Mac version of Data Loader. The UI and functionality are the same, so anyone familiar with Data Loader can seamlessly use this tool when switching from a Windows machine to a Mac.
Force.com Excel Connector
As you might imagine, the Force.com Excel Connector is a plugin for Microsoft Excel. Normally to use an external data loading tool, it requires the API be turned on in an org, which is not enabled in Professional Edition unless requested. The biggest benefit of the Excel Connector is leveraging it in Professional Edition environments even when API is not enabled, though for any other editions I tend to use the other (more robust) tools. As a caveat, we have more success installing to Excel 2003 than any new versions of Excel.
Dataloader.io
Dataloader.io is my favorite Data Loading tool right now for smaller batches of records. It is browser based, so it works on all operating systems, and has a very easy to use interface. It isn't quite as quick to use as Data Loader if you are running the same migrations frequently as there doesn't seem to be a way to save your mappings, and there is no option to set up scheduled batch loads like Data Loader. However, it allows you to run multiple data loads simultaneously, and it does keep track of your data loading history in the cloud so you don't have to worry about keeping track of success/error files across multiple computers.
Jitterbit Data Loader
Jitterbit Data Loader is another cloud based offering that I haven't gotten a chance to use on a project yet, but it's feature set exceeds the other options. It is the only tool that allows complex functions to transform data outside of manually doing it prior to loading the CSV into a tool, such as setting a date field to today's date. Additionally, they support Group Edition and above, and interact with both databases and flat files. They also have a substantial amount of positive reviews on the AppExchange and are gaining adoption pretty rapidly from power admins.