Get Started with Data Detect
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the key value proposition and compliance benefits of using Data Detect.
- Describe the scope and scale of data scanning using the Data Detect tool.
- Identify key considerations for creating an efficient and targeted scanning policy.
Managing sensitive data is crucial for regulatory compliance (like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA) and proactive risk management. For many organizations, the massive amount of customer and operational data in Salesforce makes finding hidden sensitive information difficult. Salesforce Data Detect is designed to transform this challenge into an opportunity by giving you unique visibility into your sensitive data footprint.
Proactive Data Discovery Management
Think of Data Detect as your smart data security guard for Salesforce. Instead of constantly scrambling to fix leaks or cleaning up messes after something goes wrong, it helps you stay ahead of risks before they become problems. It offers a powerful, simple way to scan your entire system and find sensitive information automatically.
Data Detect answers critical questions about your data such as:
- Is Personally Identifiable Information (PII) inadvertently stored in fields like "Description" or "Notes"?
- Can you quickly demonstrate to an auditor where sensitive data lies in your org?
- Can you efficiently find credit card numbers or internal IDs hidden within customer comments?
Data Detect empowers you to proactively discover, classify, and manage sensitive data across your Salesforce org.
Data Detect significantly boosts security and compliance by providing:
- Unprecedented scale: Scans millions of records across hundreds of objects and thousands of fields.
- Precision: Accurately identifies sensitive data and custom patterns.
- Proactive compliance: Turns risks into clear, actionable insights to meet regulations.
- Operational efficiency: Saves time and reduces manual effort by automating discovery.
- Actionable intelligence: Inform smarter data governance and classification decisions.
You can use over 20 types of sensitive data categories out-of-the-box covering common needs like PII, PCI, and HIPAA. Or add your own custom patterns using regular expressions. As you create a policy for scanning data, there are important limitations and best practices to follow to verify your scan is successful, targeted, and efficient.
Know Your Scanning Limits
Data Detect only scans specific data that meets the following criteria:
- Field types: Data Detect only scans Text, Long Text, Long Text Area, and Rich Text fields (only the plain text content is scanned for Rich Text fields).
- Encrypted data: The scan does not support encrypted fields.
- Account objects: The scan does not support account objects within Person Account enabled organizations.
- Access: You can only view and scan objects and fields to which you have user access.
Data Detect Optimization Tips
- Targeted scope: Select only the necessary objects, fields, and sensitive data categories. Less data means faster scanning.
- Optimize custom patterns: Ensure your regular expression (regex) patterns are optimized. Poor patterns can slow down scans or cause failures. Remember, the maximum length for any custom pattern or keyword is 255 characters.
- Use exclusions: Exclude fields you already know contain sensitive business data to focus the scan on new or unknown risks. This speeds up the process.
- Use data samples: Select a random past duration to sample data. Use this small sample to quickly understand where sensitive data is before running a time-consuming full scan.
Zephyrus Relocation Services Case Study
Zephyrus Relocation Services is a premier international moving company. To ensure white-glove service, the company handles massive amounts of sensitive data, including family PII, global routing info, and customs documentation. As the company expands into markets with strict data sovereignty laws (like GDPR), Zephyrus CEO Carolyn Baumgartner wants to ensure that logistics coordinators are not typing customer passport numbers directly into Description or Internal Notes fields on Contract records to speed up border crossings. This would create a major compliance risk. She asks Calvin Green, the Zephyrus Salesforce admin, to use Data Detect to run targeted scans to identify if any PII is hidden
Wrap It Up
You learned how Salesforce Data Detect provides comprehensive discovery of your sensitive data footprint, helping you address compliance risks at scale. You also learned about its specific scanning limits and best practices for creating efficient, targeted policies. Now that you understand the what and why, in the next unit, follow along with Zephyrus Relocation Services to see how the company creates and runs its first data detection policy to find sensitive information.