Be able to select the right API and tool for a given volume and complexity, size batches to stay within governor limits, and pre-transform source data into Salesforce formats. The single most important thing is planning the load order and external ID strategy before writing any data.
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Domain overview
Data Migration for SF-Data-Arch covers moving large volumes into Salesforce while respecting governor limits and data model constraints. Questions present realistic scenarios—millions of records, mismatched formats, or tool selection—and ask you to choose the strategy, API, or tool that best preserves performance, data integrity, and scalability.
Exam objectives
Choosing Bulk API 2.0 versus SOAP API based on volume, concurrency, and record-locking behavior
Using Data Loader, ETL tools, and Bulk API for insert, upsert, and external ID matching
Applying governor limits, batch sizing, and parallel processing to avoid failures during initial loads
Transforming source date, picklist, and relationship values into Salesforce-compatible formats before load
Assuming Data Loader is always sufficient for enterprise-scale migrations; it lacks the scheduling, transformation, and error-handling depth of dedicated ETL tools.
Ignoring governor limits and batch size when loading millions of records, causing timeouts or partial loads that require complex reconciliation.
Loading without external IDs or a rollback plan, making it impossible to safely upsert, deduplicate, or reverse a failed migration.
Click any question to see the full explanation and answer options, or start a focused practice session above.
During a large data migration, a developer notices that existing Apex triggers are causing severe performance degradation. What is the most effective way to prevent trigger execution without deleting the code?
2Which of the following is the most important factor when choosing between the Bulk API 2.0 and the SOAP API for a large data migration?
3Which TWO steps are critical when preparing to migrate sensitive PII (Personally Identifiable Information) into Salesforce?
4Refer to the exhibit. Why might 'Parallel' concurrency mode cause errors during a large migration?
5Which THREE factors are essential to consider when performing a multi-org data migration consolidation?
6Which object must be loaded first in a standard Salesforce migration involving Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities?
7A company needs to migrate data into a custom object while maintaining the original CreatedDate from a legacy system. Which of the following is required?
8What is the primary benefit of using a staging database for data migration?
9What is the main advantage of using an ETL tool rather than the standard Salesforce Data Loader for a large-scale enterprise migration?
10During a migration, you discover that the source system has a different date format than the required ISO 8601 format for Salesforce. What is the most efficient way to handle this?
11When migrating data to Salesforce, which TWO strategies help ensure successful relationship mapping between parent and child objects?
12You are migrating records that contain multi-select picklist values. What is the key consideration for mapping this data from a legacy system?
13What is the primary benefit of performing a data cleansing exercise before initiating a migration to Salesforce?
14During a migration, you encounter an error stating that the record exceeds the maximum character limit for a field. What is the most robust way to handle this?
15A data architect is migrating 50 million records into a custom object. To ensure optimal performance and avoid hitting governor limits, which strategy should be implemented during the initial data load?
16A company is migrating legacy account data into Salesforce. They need to map legacy system primary keys to a new custom field to support future integrations. What is the recommended approach to ensure this field supports efficient data retrieval?
17Refer to the exhibit. During a high-volume migration, the team encounters the provided error frequently. What is the most likely cause?
18When planning a large data migration, which TWO tasks are essential to perform before the data load? (Choose two)
19A healthcare provider is migrating 8 million legacy Patient_Visit__c records into Salesforce. Each visit references a legacy numeric provider code, and the legacy system does not expose a stable unique identifier for each provider. The Salesforce Provider__c object already has a custom external ID field named Legacy_Provider_Code__c that is populated. The architect wants to load visits without first exporting provider Salesforce IDs. Which approach should be used?
20A data architect is migrating 4 million legacy Customer__c records into Salesforce using the Bulk API. The source system exports a CSV with a column 'Legacy_Id__c' that must remain unique and searchable for downstream integrations. After the initial load, the architect notices duplicate Customer__c records were created because the External ID field was not marked as unique. Which Salesforce field configuration should have been applied to Legacy_Id__c to prevent duplicates during upsert?
21A data architect is migrating 8 million Contact records from a legacy CRM into Salesforce Sales Cloud. The legacy system stores phone numbers as free-text strings in multiple formats (e.g., '(415) 555-1212', '415.555.1212', '4155551212'). After migration, users must be able to search for Contacts by phone number and have the numbers display consistently. Which approach should the architect use to ensure phone numbers are searchable and standardized?
22A data architect is migrating 12 million Opportunity records into a new Salesforce org. The legacy system uses a custom 'Opportunity_Key__c' that must be populated for integration purposes. During a test load using the Bulk API in parallel mode, the team observes that some records fail with 'UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW' errors. What is the most likely cause of these errors?
23A Salesforce architect is migrating 2 million legacy Contact records into a new Salesforce org. The legacy system does not have email addresses for 40% of the contacts, but Salesforce's standard Email field is not required. During a test load of 10,000 records using the Bulk API in serial mode, the load succeeds but the architect notices that duplicate contacts are being created because the legacy system reused a 'legacy_id__c' external ID field for different contacts across regions. What should the architect do to prevent duplicate creation during the full migration?
24A healthcare company is migrating 4 million Patient__c records from a legacy system into Salesforce. The legacy extract includes a field named 'last_modified' that is populated for 99.8% of records, but the remaining 0.2% have a null value. The target external ID field requires a unique, non-null value. What should the data architect do to ensure a successful migration?
25A financial services company is migrating 5 million Account records from a legacy CRM to Salesforce. The legacy system has a field 'AnnualRevenue' stored as a string with currency symbols and commas (e.g., '$1,234,567.89'). The target Salesforce field is a Currency field with 2 decimal places. During a test load of 100,000 records using the Bulk API, the architect receives errors indicating 'Invalid currency format'. What is the most efficient way to resolve this before the full migration?
26A financial services firm is migrating 10 million transaction records into a custom object Transaction__c. The legacy system uses a composite key of AccountNumber and TransactionDate to uniquely identify transactions. The target Salesforce org has a unique external ID field Transaction_Key__c. The architect needs to ensure that re-running the migration does not create duplicate records and that updates to existing transactions are applied. Which approach should be used?
27A Salesforce architect is migrating 1 million Case records with related Case Comments from a legacy system. The legacy system stores comments in a separate table linked by a legacy Case ID. The architect plans to use the Bulk API to load Cases first, then load Case Comments in a second pass. During the test, the architect realizes that the legacy Case ID is not stored in Salesforce after the first load, making it impossible to link comments to the correct Cases. What should the architect have done to enable this relationship?
28A multinational corporation is migrating 2 million Account records and 5 million Contact records from a legacy CRM into Salesforce. The legacy system stores the Account's legacy ID on the Contact record as a foreign key. The target Salesforce org uses an external ID field on Account called Legacy_ID__c. What is the most efficient way to associate Contacts with their Accounts during the migration?
29A Salesforce data architect is migrating 100,000 Opportunity records from a legacy system. The legacy data includes a custom field 'Legacy_Region__c' that must be mapped to a new picklist field 'Region__c' in Salesforce. The picklist values in Salesforce are: 'North America', 'Europe', 'Asia', 'Latin America'. The legacy data uses values like 'NA', 'EU', 'APAC', 'LATAM'. What is the most efficient way to transform the data during migration?
30A Salesforce data architect is preparing to migrate 5 million Account records from a legacy CRM. The legacy system has a field 'Legacy_Owner__c' that contains the email address of the account owner. During migration, the architect must ensure that the ownership is assigned to the correct active Salesforce User. Which approach should be used to map the legacy owner email to the Salesforce User ID?
31A data architect needs to migrate 500,000 Account records from a legacy system into Salesforce. The legacy system uses a 15-digit alphanumeric string as the unique identifier. The architect must ensure that future updates can match existing Accounts without creating duplicates. Which field configuration should be used on the Account object to support this requirement?
32A data architect is migrating 10 million Case records and their related Case Comments from a legacy system to Salesforce Service Cloud. The legacy system stores Case Comments in a separate table with a foreign key to the Case. The architect plans to use Bulk API 2.0 for the migration. What is the most critical consideration for maintaining referential integrity between Cases and Case Comments during the load?
33A data architect is migrating 20 million Case records from a legacy system into Salesforce. The legacy system has a 'Case_Status__c' field that must map to the standard Case Status picklist. The legacy values include 'Open', 'Closed', 'Escalated', 'Pending', and 'Resolved'. The Salesforce Case Status picklist contains 'New', 'Working', 'Escalated', 'Closed', and 'Pending'. The architect needs to ensure that the migration does not fail due to picklist value mismatches. Which approach should be taken?
34A data architect is preparing to migrate 20 million Opportunity records from a legacy CRM into Salesforce. The source data includes Opportunities with related OpportunityLineItem records and historical StageName values. The architect must ensure that the migration preserves data integrity and avoids common Bulk API pitfalls. Which TWO actions should the architect take before initiating the load? (Choose two.)
35A Salesforce architect is planning a migration of 2 million custom object records from a legacy Oracle database. The legacy system has a field 'Status' with values like 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Pending', and 'Archived'. In Salesforce, the Status field is a picklist with values 'Active', 'Inactive', and 'Pending' only. The architect needs to migrate the data while preserving as much information as possible and ensuring data quality. Which two actions should the architect take? (Choose two.)
36A Salesforce data architect is migrating 500,000 Lead records from a legacy system. The legacy data contains a field 'Lead_Status' with values such as 'New', 'Working', 'Qualified', 'Unqualified'. Salesforce's Lead Status picklist has values: 'Open - Not Contacted', 'Working - Contacted', 'Closed - Converted', 'Closed - Not Converted'. The architect needs to map the legacy values to the Salesforce picklist values. Which approach should be used to ensure a successful migration?
37A data architect is migrating 500,000 records into a custom object that has a validation rule requiring the 'Status__c' field to be either 'Active' or 'Inactive'. The legacy data contains some records with a blank Status__c. The architect needs to ensure the migration succeeds without modifying the validation rule. What should be done?
38A data architect is migrating 30 million Opportunity records into Salesforce. The legacy system has a 'Close_Date__c' field that is a date, but some records have invalid dates such as '0000-00-00' or future dates beyond 2099. The Salesforce Opportunity Close Date field is a standard Date field. The architect must ensure the migration does not fail due to these invalid dates. Which approach should be used?
Be able to select the right API and tool for a given volume and complexity, size batches to stay within governor limits, and pre-transform source data into Salesforce formats. The single most important thing is planning the load order and external ID strategy before writing any data.
The Courseiva SF-Data-Arch question bank contains 38 questions in the Data Migration domain. Click any question to see the full explanation and answer breakdown.
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