A better way for agencies to integrate their Salesforce data within their operations

Federal agencies invest billions of IT dollars annually to deliver services more effectively and securely. However, many face a common stumbling block: How to overcome obstacles that hinder integrating their data.

One of those stumbling blocks, according to a new report, is the growing volume of data maintained on agency-operated data management platforms built on Salesforce. The strengths inherent in Salesforce’s unique system for labeling and managing data can make integrating data into different systems exceedingly difficult and expensive, according to Drew Niermann, Go-to-Market Leader at CapStorm.

The report highlights the example of a large federal agency attempting to unify customer profile databases spread across nearly a dozen sub-agencies—all using Salesforce’s software-as-a-service platform. What seems initially straightforward turns out to be a complex project due to inconsistent data practices arising from agencies setting up independent Salesforce instances, each built using unique metadata, reporting tools, and user requirements.

The root of the challenge, says Niermann, lies in the nature of Salesforce’s architecture, which makes integrating data with data from other agency software systems costly and time-consuming. That can significantly hinder the ability of government call center employees, for instance, to pull together a citizen’s records.

The new report, “Surmounting the ‘Salesforce Silo’,” produced by Scoop News Group and sponsored by CapStorm, highlights how a solution developed by CapStorm expressly for Salesforce customers can empower agencies to escape the “Salesforce silo” — and take greater control of their data. Instead of forcing agencies to rely on Salesforce’s native tools or complex third-party integrations, the report suggests how CapStorm’s self-hosted solution runs within an agency’s secure infrastructure to support data backup and recovery, import and export, archiving and reporting, permission management and more.

Added value for government agencies:

The report underscores several key benefits of considering CapStorm’s solution:

• Enhanced security: By keeping data within their secure environment, agencies maintain complete control over who has access to the data and what gets done with it and ensure compliance with regulations like FISMA, HIPAA, FINRA, and GDPR.
• Improved data integrity: By accurately preserving and replicating Salesforce’s hierarchical data schemas, CapStorm ensures data integrity and usability, helping agencies avoid costly manual rework.
• Increased speed and efficiency: By staging data in-house rather than in a multitenant environment, agencies can replicate data in near real-time, enabling faster analysis, reporting, and decision-making.
• Data independence: By maintaining autonomous control over Salesforce data within their infrastructure, agencies gain greater flexibility and control over their data and the tools they prefer to use to meet their needs.
• Reduced Costs: By avoiding costly data storage overages within Salesforce and utilizing existing on-premises infrastructure, agencies can significantly reduce their overall data migration and management expenses.

“This opens up an entirely new world of possibilities for what [agencies] could do with [their] data and [their] Salesforce implementation,” Niermann concludes.

The special report, “Surmounting the ‘Salesforce Silo’ to integrate and control data at federal agencies,” is available here.

Read the full report and learn how CapStorm can help agencies surmount the ‘Salesforce silo.’

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and sponsored by CapStorm.