Get to Know Data Cloud

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Navigate the Data Cloud interface.
• Describe user roles and permissions.

Welcome to Salesforce Data Cloud

Unlock customer data and actionable insights in near real time, at scale with Salesforce Data Cloud. In this module, we help you navigate Data Cloud, provision your account, and get you ready to support your company as an admin.

Before You Begin

We assume you are a system admin and have the proper access to provision Data Cloud. We also assume you are familiar with Salesforce Lightning and general admin responsibilities. If not, that’s OK. Consider reviewing the Lightning Experience for Salesforce Classic Users module and Admin Beginner trail.

Plan Your Implementation

Before you set up Data Cloud, you should discuss with stakeholders where you should provision Data Cloud. If you have multiple Salesforce Orgs, consider where to connect Data Cloud. Where to set up Data Cloud and how many instances of Data Cloud you should set up, depends on your data architecture and data residency requirements.

• Data Residency: To satisfy data residency requirements, consider creating one Data Cloud per region. Use the region’s Data Cloud to unify and enrich data from multiple orgs in that region without moving it outside of the region.
• Control vs. Centralization Needs: Assess whether all orgs require complete control over their data and Data Cloud configurations. If so, creating multiple Data Clouds is advisable; otherwise, connecting multiple orgs to a single Data Cloud allows you to centralize controls across those orgs.

Navigate Data Cloud

Now that you know where you are going to provision Data Cloud, grab your compass—it’s time to do some navigation. The first time you log in to a brand-new account, it can take a moment to get your bearings. Data Cloud should look familiar to Salesforce Lightning users, but it may look less familiar to Marketing Cloud Engagement users. So let’s take a look around together.

First, let's navigate to the Data Cloud app. Click the App Launcher icon in the navigation bar. Then either use the search box to find the Data Cloud app or scroll through the page to find the correct tile. 

After you click the Data Cloud app, you are taken to the Home page. 

The tabs Data Streams, Data Lake Objects, and Data Model (1) are focused on data. Data streams are the connected data sources added into your Data Cloud instance. Data Explorer and Profile Explorer (2) are data-viewing tools, allowing a view into ingested data and unified profiles. Identity Resolutions (3) is where your team creates match and reconciliation rules to unify individual records. Calculated Insights (4) are predefined and calculated metrics that can help marketers build segments. Finally, the Setup gear (5) is where you, the admin, do all the behind-the-scenes work.  

Setup Options

Since it’s an admin's most-used page, let’s go through the Setup options. You won’t see all of the options until you add your admin permission set to your user. Once that’s done, you have the following options under Setup.

• Setup. Configure, maintain, and customize your org from the Setup page.
• Data Cloud Setup. Opens the Data Cloud configuration page for admins.
• Your Account. Links to Checkout, where you can do a variety of billing-related activities associated with your account, including purchasing additional licenses and viewing quotes.
• Developer Console. Opens the Developer Console, which is a development environment with a collection of tools you can use to create, debug, and test applications in your Salesforce org.
• Edit Page. Opens the Lightning App Builder, where you can manage the app’s settings. Update app branding, navigation, and other options, and manage the Lightning pages assigned to that app all in one place.

User Management

Now that you have your bearings, let’s look at another key aspect of your role as admin: user management. User permissions—determined by permission sets—specify the tasks users can perform and the features they can access. After you create each user, you need to assign a permission set to the user. 

To manage and assign users in Setup and access Data Cloud Setup, you must be a Data Cloud Admin and have a Salesforce administrator profile or permission set that grants access to Salesforce Setup. If you have access to Salesforce Setup, you can set up the application, and access Salesforce Sales and Service clouds and other integrated Salesforce systems.

Here are the standard permission set options in Data Cloud.

Data Cloud

Data Cloud for Marketing

You should work closely with these individuals to make sure that your Data Platform account meets the needs of all your users.

If you have a small team, one person can fulfill multiple roles and be assigned multiple permission sets.

Now that you are familiar with the navigation and understand user permission sets, let’s move on to account setup.

Resources

• Trailhead: Data Cloud for Marketing Basics
• Trailhead: Lightning Experience for Salesforce Classic Users
• Salesforce Help: Data Cloud Permission Sets
• Salesforce Help: Developer Console
• Salesforce Help: Tips for New Users