Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance WHITE PAPER

Transcription

1 Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance WHITE PAPER

2 This document contains Confidential, Proprietary and Trade Secret Information ( Confidential Information ) of Informatica Corporation and may not be copied, distributed, duplicated, or otherwise reproduced in any manner without the prior written consent of Informatica. While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. Informatica does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of information contained in this document. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. The incorporation of the product attributes discussed in these materials into any release or upgrade of any Informatica software product as well as the timing of any such release or upgrade is at the sole discretion of Informatica. Protected by one or more of the following U.S. Patents: 6,032,158; 5,794,246; 6,014,670; 6,339,775; 6,044,374; 6,208,990; 6,208,990; 6,850,947; 6,895,471; or by the following pending U.S. Patents: 09/644,280; 10/966,046; 10/727,700. This edition published July 2013

3 Table of Contents Executive Summary Compliance-Driven Reporting Complex Operational Reporting Replicating Salesforce CRM and Force.com Data... 6 Enabling Technology Concepts Leveraging the Informatica Cloud for On-Demand Data Replication Case Study: Telegraph Media Group About Informatica Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 3

4 Executive Summary Those who run public companies already understand that compliance and operational reporting is a laborious activity. An added complication is that the information required for compliance and operational reporting is not centrally located. The differences in semantics and relationships between data are a challenge as well. Some companies hesitate to make a large-scale shift to software as a service (SaaS) applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM), because they are concerned about storing important corporate data outside of corporate firewalls in the servers of the application-hosting company, such as Salesforce.com. However, the use of SaaS to drive core business processes is typically much more cost effective within large and small businesses, and there is really no trade-off when considering data security and compliance reporting. Compliance and operational reporting issues persist because some of the core operational data no longer exists on-premise, but instead resides in SaaS systems such as Salesforce.com. Thus, the challenge is to reclaim that data for use in operational and compliance reporting, including replicating the information for the sources and manipulating the data so it s in the right order and format for the core reporting processes. Automating this process and making it bulletproof are key factors for success. So, how do you approach data replication from Salesforce.com for operational and compliance reporting? It s really a matter of creating an approach and then leveraging the right enabling technology. In this white paper, we ll look at the core concepts around data replication for Salesforce.com data, how to approach these issues systemically, and how to select the right approach and enabling technology. Compliance-Driven Reporting There are many core business reasons for creating reports from on-premise or SaaSdelivered systems, but perhaps the best defined and most widely accepted is the ability to do compliance reporting on that data. Compliance reporting is required to satisfy rules and regulations put in place by the U.S. government, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of Sarbanes-Oxley (aka Sarbox or SOX), is a federal law enacted as a reaction to corporate and accounting scandals. SOX places compliance reporting requirements on publically traded U.S. companies, meaning they must maintain the correct and proper data required for reporting for a specific period of time and provide views of this data in support of audits by the government or private auditing firms. For businesses that are not subject to U.S. laws, there are other regulations that require compliance reporting, including: Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 4

5 Bill 198 Ontario, Canada, equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley Act J-SOX Japanese equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley Act German corporate governance code CLERP9 Australian corporate reporting and disclosure law Financial Security Law of France ( Loi sur la Sécurité Financière ) L262/2005 Italian version of Sarbanes-Oxley Act ( Disposizioni per la tutela del risparmio e la disciplina dei mercati finanziari ) King Report South African corporate governance code 1 Common patterns as described by SOX, or other regulations, are that corporate data should be maintained to determine the true state of the business to those who own shares, as well as determine any violations such as illegal trading or conflicts of interest. Many of the violations of the regulations stem from a lack of reporting or lack of correct information to report on. Thus, it is important to provide proper compliance reporting, no matter where your business processes and data reside on premise or with an SaaS provider such as Salesforce.com, which you don t own or control. Complex Operational Reporting In addition to reporting for compliance purposes, companies need to provide basic reporting in support of business operations by using data in Salesforce. These reports can vary in scope and purpose, depending on the business, but most organizations need to understand: Effectiveness of sales, based on the number of leads that move to close, including moving patterns over time Customer demographics, perhaps mashing up customer location with census data Sales projects for specific products based on past performance and future economic indicators Effectiveness of specific sales resources Outcomes of marketing and sales campaigns Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform deliver great production reporting and dashboards, but many organizations also need to combine and synchronize this cloud-based data with an on-premise database or data warehouse for multisource, historical data analysis. Thus, businesses must replicate the data locally, aggregate it as required, and perhaps compare it with third-party data sets. Data replication and aggregation furnish businesses with complete control over their own data assets, supporting any business operational reporting necessary, complex as well as simple. 1 Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 5

6 Replicating Salesforce CRM and Force.com Data Replicating data from Salesforce.com means that as data is updated on the Salesforce.com platform, the data is replicated within an on-premise database or staging area during specific increments in time. For example, customer data is added, updated, or deleted in Salesforce CRM, and the changes are already replicated or synchronized with an on-premise database. This synchronization works much like calendar synchronization from your desktop PC to your smart phone. The differences between the two systems are handled by the synchronization software, which accounts for the different ways that names and addresses are stored on each system and deals with the differences by translating and transforming the data from the source system (e.g., your PC) to the data in the target system (e.g., your iphone). Synchronizing data from Salesforce.com to your on-premise system or database is functionally the same as our replication example of PC to smart phone. Replicating or synchronizing software, such as Informatica software, enables enterprises to access and maintain a local copy of core business data on premise or in a staging area (see Figure 1). Such access lets us report on the data as required by regulations, or as needed by the business in general, as well as maintain copies of the data for historical data maintenance requirements, considering regulations and good general disaster recovery operations. US Sales Data Customer Data Staging Area Salesforce Data Internet International Sales Data Reporting Figure 1: Replicating Salesforce.com data allows you to maintain a local copy on premise or in a staging area that provides compliance reporting capabilities. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 6

7 Enabling Technology Concepts Now that we understand the purpose of replication for compliance reporting, let s drill down further into the technology. There are a few technical mechanisms to consider here, including: Connectivity Semantic mediation Transformation Data quality Data latency Data governance Reporting and analytics Backup Let s examine each concept. Connectivity is the ability to link with a source or target system or database using APIs or other interfaces. In the case of Salesforce.com, replicating technologies expose access to their data and application behavior using sets of Web services that are, in essence, data services that produce and consume data. Considering that Salesforce.com is the source, the data replication solution needs to connect into any number of target systems that are typically an on-premise database such as Oracle, Sybase, or MySQL. Semantic mediation is the ability of the data replication solution to account for differences in metadata between the source and target systems. Taking the data structure leveraged by Salesforce.com and converting it into a data structure that is native to the customer data residing on the Oracle database on premise is an example of semantic mediation. Or if you re simply leveraging the native Salesforce.com schema, then no semantic mediation is required. The semantic mediation mechanisms will have to account for the differences between Cust_Number and Customer_ Record_Locator, understanding that although different labels are used, the data is basically the same(see Figure 2). Desc. Salesforce.com Shipped Item Cust_No Web Service Internet Semantic Mediation Staging Sales Cust_Number (Unicode String) Item_Number (Integer) Shipped_Date (Calendar) Description (Text) Figure 2: Semantic mediation deals with the different ways that Salesforce.com and your reporting database refer to specific data objects. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 7

8 Transformation involves reformatting and/or converting the data, in flight, so it appears native to the target system. Replicating data between two or more systems means you need to transform the data from one format to another, thus allowing the same data to exist in different places where the data may be kept in different formats. An example would be VA in the source system that exists as Virginia in the target, or 01/01/2003 in the source system and in the target. In this case, the replication engine is responsible for maintaining the same data in many formats, using a transformation subsystem to convert the date formats, on the fly, as the data is replicated from one system (such as Salesforce.com) to another system (such as your on-premise database or staging area) that you leverage for compliance reporting. Again, if you re leveraging the native Salesforce.com schema, then transformation is not necessary. Data quality is the ability to correct operational issues with the data, such as incomplete or erroneous information. The idea of leveraging data quality within the context of replication is to correct any issues with the data as it is being replicated from system to system, such as from Salesforce.com to an on-premise database. In compliance reporting, this ability is critical. The data needs to be of good quality to provide the correct results from the reporting system. Erroneous data could produce erroneous reports, which could create huge compliance problems and other legal issues. Data latency is the ability to move data as quickly as required by the business so that the data is meaningful to those who use it. In compliance reporting, this means that the data shows up in the reporting database in a timely manner, ensuring that the reports are up to date and correct concerning the state of the business. Data governance is the ability to control access to the data and the underlying structures, as well as how to manage changes to the data to ensure adherence to regulations, company policies, and technical requirements. When you consider compliance reporting, data governance is essential. Any changes made to the data, out of policy or out of compliance, will affect the compliance reports that are generated. Reporting and analytics is the process of providing an account of the data understanding it to determine the state of the business. Reporting and analytics involves morphing the data into a state that is suitable for business intelligence applications and viewing view the data in different ways to highlight business details, emerging issues, and opportunities. Supporting compliance activities is a critical function of reporting and analytics. Backup, in support of compliance, refers to legislation affecting data storage and security in recent years, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and SOX as described earlier. To comply with these regulations, companies need to keep data stored for a specific period of time, typically seven years, and be able to produce this data to regulators when it s requested. Thus, the data must be replicated from SaaS-delivered systems, such as Salesforce.com, and then be stored on-premise, and also be accessible for a specific time to maintain compliance. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 8

9 Leveraging the Informatica Cloud for On-Demand Data Replication To support operational reporting of data existing in Salesforce.com, you need technology that can replicate the data and ensure the data quality is maintained, the data is in the right format, and the data is delivered in a timely manner. Informatica Cloud enables you to replicate your data that exists within Salesforce.com and thus provide you with an easy and cost-effective way to meet all reporting and data maintenance regulations related to compliance issues. As we discussed above, operational reporting is needed when using Salesforce.com. Although Salesforce.com is a strong CRM solution, it s not optimized for advanced operational reporting technology, such as Crystal Reports and Cognos. Most business customers who must perform advanced (and often ad hoc, historical) reporting need to integrate their Salesforce data with other internal and external sources to meet their operational or compliance reporting and analysis requirements. Informatica Cloud provides powerful data replication capabilities that can be run every few minutes, with a very easy way to set up and create a real-time copy of your data in a staging area, which your in-house business intelligence tools can access. Or data can be replicated to onpremise databases for reporting purposes (see Figure 3). Figure 3: Informatica Cloud allows you to replicate data from Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform to staging areas or on-premise systems for compliance reporting. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 9

10 In addition to the basic features described above, some of the key data replication capabilities of the Informatica Cloud include the ability to: Archive all Salesforce data, including any custom objects or fields, into your local database for reporting. This step allows you to create a target database that meets your specific reporting needs. Back up your own Salesforce data to comply with existing regulations and internal corporate governance policies. This feature gives you complete control, and safety, around the use of your data. You leverage the convenience of a SaaS provider, but still manage and protect the data within your own firewall. Automatically detect schema changes in Salesforce and reflect those changes in the target schema. Thus, there is no need to closely follow changes that are made to schemas within Salesforce; they are automatically managed for you. Provide full or changed data capture replication of Salesforce CRM data, thus ensuring that the data held on-premise for reporting and the Salesforce CRM data are in sync. To avoid sending huge volumes of data over the Internet, this technology only synchronizes changed data. Support a wide variety of databases, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, flat files, and most office automation systems. Handle a performance level that can keep up with the business. Most Salesforce CRM users will need to replicate millions of rows per day, so you ll need technology that s able to keep up with that pace of data movement and management. Case Study: Telegraph Media Group While the use of Salesforce CRM provides a core strategic advantage to Telegraph Media Group, publishers of leading quality U.K. newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph, the need to replicate that data from Salesforce CRM to its own internal database was a clear challenge. By leveraging the Informatica Cloud, Telegraph Media Group was able to replicate key data from Salesforce CRM to provide core complex operational reporting on data relating to newspaper subscriptions, which is vital to the success of its business. This solution was deployed in only two days, taking advantage of the on-demand nature of the Informatica solution. By using Informatica Cloud Services, Telegraph Media Group was able to create the integration from the source Salesforce CRM schema and data to the target local database and develop an automatic data replication system that can automatically adjust to changes in the target schema, synchronize only the data changed, and support high-speed/high-performance data replication. Without this Informatica technology, the use of Salesforce CRM would not provide the business value required by Telegraph Media Group. IInformatica Cloud also supplies key compliance backup features to meet data maintenance regulations. The law requires that many companies keep an on-premise copy of Salesforce.com data, and in many cases the requirement is for seven years of historical data. Whether it s a compliance issue or a disaster recovery requirement (backup/restore), Informatica Cloud Services can replicate your Salesforce.com data to an on-premise database as well as restore it back into Salesforce.com when required. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 10

11 ABOUT INFORMATICA Informatica Corporation (Nasdaq:INFA) is the world s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organizations around the world rely on Informatica to realize their information potential and drive top business imperatives. Informatica Vibe, the industry s first and only embeddable virtual data machine (VDM), powers the unique Map Once. Deploy Anywhere. capabilities of the Informatica Platform. Worldwide, over 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets from devices to mobile to social to big data residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call ( in the U.S.), or visit Connect with Informatica at facebook.com/informaticacorporation, informatica and InformaticaCorp. In addition to operational reporting and data governance, Informatica Cloud can provides companies with key data replication features, such as connectivity with Salesforce.com and any onpremise database and most enterprise applications, such as Oracle and SAP. Informatica Cloud also provides the ability to mediate application and database semantics, perform transformations, ensure a high degree of data quality, and deliver data in a timely and reliable manner. Moreover, the Informatica Cloud delivers a set of true SaaS applications itself, which can be much more cost effective than on-premise solutions, and it provides the SaaS user with a familiar model. Indeed, you can become an Informatica Cloud user in less than a day. The Informatica Cloud s as you need it capabilities ensure that all Salesforce.com users can quickly access critical compliance reporting features. Replicating Salesforce.com Data for Operational Reporting and Compliance 11

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