Assemble Your Data Cloud Team
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- List key data management roles and responsibilities for a Data Cloud team.
- Explain the importance of cross-functional collaboration.
Consider Implementation Roles
Successful data management requires close collaboration between business and technology roles within an organization. Implementing Data Cloud is a cross-functional effort that requires traditionally siloed teams to come together for a common platform objective: bringing together all your data across departments.
It’s helpful to identify all project stakeholders early and determine who has access to the data you need. You can also decide whether to use an implementation partner.
Here are some typical roles found in an implementation team.
Role | Description |
|---|---|
Executive sponsor | Maintains awareness of the project, ensures goals are defined and aligned, brings together senior leadership for key reviews, and serves as the signing authority for approvals. In some companies, this can be the chief data officer (CDO). CDOs oversee an organization’s overall data management strategy, providing requirements and direction for data governance and quality management. |
Project manager | Manages internal resource availability, coordinates meetings, and disseminates information to all stakeholders. |
Business analyst | Ensures that Data Cloud solutions and use cases align with the business needs. They advise on how to activate Data Cloud insights and outputs within existing workflows. |
Enterprise or data architect | Provides awareness and alignment of how Data Cloud integrates within a company’s existing technology landscape. Advises on the overall data strategy and the roadmap for Data Cloud usage. Provides essential data subject matter expertise and knowledge of internal systems and data sources and performs data quality assessments. |
Solution or technical architect | Leads the identification and refinement of use cases, ensuring that the architectural design meets both business and IT requirements. They perform hands-on Data Cloud configuration and development, and ensure appropriate setup and connectivity of the Data Cloud platform to source systems. Post-implementation, they identify additional use cases, design and oversee technical implementation, and maintain Data Cloud connectivity. |
Business owners or end users | Clarify business requirements and collaborate on desired functionality and designs. They participate in reviews, provide feedback during the prototype phase, and support testing efforts. Post-implementation, they engage with data daily to perform tasks and make informed decisions, providing critical feedback on data usability and relevance. They also provide input on future enhancements. |
Quality assurance (QA) | Leads UAT and unit testing activities for go-live, and ensures the production strategy is aligned with the implementation roadmap. |
Developers and data engineers | Develop custom applications, integrations, and automation that interact with data, implementing and managing data pipelines for efficient data collection and processing. |
Application administrators | Manage platform configurations, including data models, access permissions, user interface layouts, and data management controls to ensure data can be accurately captured, accessed, and maintained. |
IT and security teams | Protect data from unauthorized access, breaches, and other security threats. Implement access controls, encryption, and other measures to secure data. They should be involved, and at least informed, throughout implementation. |
Assemble Your Data Cloud Team
You also need to consider who’ll be working with Data Cloud post-implementation. It’s helpful to identify the skills needed during this phase.
- Familiarity with Salesforce ecosystem and customer data management
- Knowledge of CRM and data management principles
- Expertise in data integration processes
- Understanding of the Customer 360 Data Model
- Comfort with AI and Machine Learning
- Ability to analyze and interpret customer data to identify trends and insights
Next, review the Data Cloud Standard Permission Sets and decide who will need access.
Work Across Your Business
Data Cloud is designed to unify data across disparate systems, departments, and touchpoints. Because of this, cross-functional teamwork is important. If teams don’t work together, implementation progress can slow to a halt. To avoid these problems, stakeholders need to agree on the use case, what data is needed, and your business goals. A clear data strategy helps ensure you have access to the data you need, and you can track how Data Cloud benefits the business across all departments.
In this module, you learned about data preparation and implementation roles. Next, learn about integration options in Data Cloud Connectors and Integrations.