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How to Address Salesforce Data Issues with DevSecOps Tools

Josh Rank
June 28, 2023

A failure to maintain quality pools of data in Salesforce can lead to a series of negative impacts. DevSecOps tools can be leveraged to prevent these defects.

Why It Matters: Poor quality data leads to difficulties making decisions and can even lead an organization to make the wrong decisions. This results in poor customer experience, inefficient processes, and error-ridden products.

88% of people stop using software after experiencing quality issues.
Faulty processes and buggy updates can lead to data security vulnerabilities.
Salesforce is likely an organization’s main container of data, increasing the difficulty of maintaining consistently high quality data.

Here are 10 ways to use a DevSecOps tool to address Salesforce data issues:

Scan Your Code
Automate Manual Processes
Verify Proper Profile Settings
Find Technical Debt
Set Automated Data Backups
Personalize Data Recovery Processes
Expedite Reliable Releases
Utilize Version Control
Produce Actionable Reports
Adhere to Data Security Regulations

1. Scan Your Code

The quality of your code is the most important factor that influences the stability, security, and functionality of your applications and updates. You can’t have a good project with bad code. This is why DevOps pipelines institute multiple rounds of testing to make sure everything works well together.

Automated scans of your code enable developers to produce reliably high quality code without the need for cumbersome edits and fixes later in the DevSecOps pipeline.

Static code analysis is a non-negotiable DevSecOps tool in today’s application development landscape. It makes for a better working experience for your developers, increases ROI, and prevents data issues.

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2. Automate Manual Processes

Simple errors can have large impacts. Missing a coding error, for example, can lead to bugs in live environments that lead to misfires or data security vulnerabilities. And when it comes to repetitive, manual tasks, the likelihood of an error becomes quite high.

Automating error-prone processes not only speeds these processes up, but it also makes them more reliable.

Automated DevSecOps tools aren’t going to get tired or bored. It will scan integrations and lines of code for errors with the same accuracy on the first test as it will the thousandth test—preventing errors that can negatively impact the stability of the eventual product.

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3. Verify Proper Profile Settings

Accidental deletions are a leading cause of data loss. And these types of issues can be extremely costly. And while we can’t completely eliminate human error with DevSecOps tools, we can reduce the potential for these errors to occur.

An automated policy scanner can be used to ensure profiles and permission sets are properly configured so the only team members that can access a piece of data are the ones that need it to perform their duties.

Every additional person that can access a piece of data increases the likelihood of a costly accident. Minimize this possibility with proper permission settings.

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4. Find Technical Debt

Existing data issues have the potential to create more data issues. A misconfigured application, for instance, can link improper fields and lead to missing data. These types of errors can be caused by a variety of causes, and many of them link back to technical debt.

Locating technical debt with DevSecOps tools enables team members to rectify legacy errors to prevent compromising existing—and future—data sets.

A DevSecOps team can leverage a static code analysis tool to flag technical debt existing within their Salesforce environment. Fixing these issues streamlines processes and prevents further data issues.

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5. Set Automated Data Backups

The unfortunate reality of data security is that even the strongest strategies can’t guarantee total protection against data loss. Accidents will happen. This is why an intentional data backup system needs to be in place to prepare for these unforeseen events.

Automated data backups ensure your system has the proper coverage to fulfill your business needs should something go wrong.

Repeated snapshots ensure you are never caught with an outdated backup. Recovering out-of-date information can lead to lost time as you work to correct any data issues, taking your team away from furthering current goals and costing you money.

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6. Personalize Data Recovery Processes

Automating the capture of current Salesforce data for backups is only the first half of properly addressing this consideration. You will also need to move this data from your backup repository into your live environment.

Configuring your backups with the proper settings will set up your recovery tool to provide the specific returns your need to get back to work.

DevSecOps tools enable you to set a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) to tailor your recovery strategy to your specific requirements. These types of considerations are streamlined when you don’t have to worry about baking them into manual processes.

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7. Expedite Reliable Releases

Flexibility in software development helps organizations quickly address any issues. Quick release cycles facilitate continuous updates to fix security issues or any problems in lie functionality—both of which have the potential to cause data issues if left unaddressed.

DevSecOps tools aim to streamline development processes to enable fast, reliable releases.

Automated testing, integration, and communication tools all serve this purpose. A higher release velocity means organizations can introduce more applications and updates every year, enabling them to respond to emerging issues and repair any problematic functionality.

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8. Utilize Version Control

Code overwrites are a major problem for multi-developer teams. It’s common practice to divide a DevSecOps project into multiple pieces so team members can work on it simultaneously. But when there isn’t a clear log of who touch which pieces of code and when, integration issues can lead to degraded processes within the application.

Version control is an essential aspect of a DevSecOps pipeline for enabling smooth collaboration without risking unseen errors.

DevSecOps tools work best when they work alongside each other. Combining a version control tool with a static code analysis tool and an automated integration tool provides reliable coverage for every update and application.

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9. Produce Actionable Reports

You can’t fix a problem with your data if you don’t know it exists. Many DevSecOps tools have the ability to produce dashboards and reports that point to issues such as improper system usage, generic profile settings, unauthorized exports, and statistics for technical debt.

Producing and analyzing the metrics gained from DevSecOps tools enables organizations to directly address existing issues and implement strategies to prevent them in the future.

In the world of Salesforce, information is gold. These types of insights direct the attention of users to optimize processes.

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10. Adhere to Data Security Regulations

One consideration that always needs to be brought up when discussing data issues is regulatory compliance. Organizations in regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and insurance need to be very careful about how they handle protected information. DevSecOps tools are a huge asset when consideration application lifecycle management.

Automated tools offer a series of benefits to regulated organizations by reducing errors when handling data and providing documentation that can be used in the event of an audit.

Protecting regulated data requires a comprehensive approach. The functionalities offered by DevSecOps tools magnify their advantages and enable companies to not only adhere to data security requirements, but to prove their adherence.

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Next Step…

Addressing issues with Salesforce data is a critical aspect of a successful data governance strategy, but it’s only half of the equation. Metadata exists behind every function in Salesforce and needs to protected just as vigorously as other types of data.

Read our blog “Addressing Metadata in Salesforce Security Posture Management” to learn more about protecting these critical sets of information.

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FAQs

What are the most frequent types of data issues in Salesforce?

The exact issues faced by an individual organization are going to be unique. However there are some larger buckets of data issues that organizations might see. These relate to both the way the data is stored, handled, and collected. Being aware of these issues is the first step to protecting your Salesforce environment against them.

Here are 7 common issues with Salesforce data:

Incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated data.
Improper integrations of data from different environments or systems.
Unprotected data can be corrupted, lost, or accessed by unauthorized entities.
Failing to properly manage data might lead to compliance, security, and organizational issues.
Complex data migrations can create the potential for data loss corruption.
Failing to archive unused but important data can overburden a Salesforce environment and data backups.
Unspecified ownership of particular data sets leads to confusion and wasted time.

Which DevSecOps tools should I use?

DevSecOps tools are aimed at optimizing development processes, supporting data security, and streamlining operational processes. The specific tools an organization needs to accomplish this will depend on the current state of their processes. However, it’s recommended to source DevSecOps tools that scale along with your organization so you aren’t left to research new tools as your needs change. A basic DevSecOps toolset will address some critical aspects of your development pipeline. This includes testing, integration, and deployment. CI/CD tools combine perfectly with static code analysis to streamline most of these processes. Utilizing a version control tool will enable safe experimentation and streamline the efforts of a multi-developer team.

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How to Address Salesforce Data Issues with DevSecOps Tools

1. Scan Your Code

2. Automate Manual Processes

3. Verify Proper Profile Settings

4. Find Technical Debt

5. Set Automated Data Backups

6. Personalize Data Recovery Processes

7. Expedite Reliable Releases

8. Utilize Version Control

9. Produce Actionable Reports

10. Adhere to Data Security Regulations

Next Step…

FAQs

Develop high quality, secure code!

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