Salesforce is the central nervous system for many organizations—housing customer records, compliance data, financial transactions, and business-critical workflows. Yet when it comes to disaster recovery, too many teams assume that because Salesforce is a cloud platform, their data is inherently safe.
It’s not.
This overconfidence creates serious exposure. The truth is: Salesforce operates on a shared responsibility model. Salesforce ensures platform availability, but protecting your data—from loss, corruption, or malicious attack—is your responsibility.
Here are the most common and dangerous oversights in Salesforce disaster recovery planning, why they matter, and how to correct course before an incident forces your hand.
1. Confusing High Availability with Data Recoverability
Salesforce’s infrastructure boasts impressive uptime. But high availability is not the same as recoverability.
When data is deleted—either maliciously or accidentally—Salesforce’s built-in capabilities (like the Recycle Bin or Data Recovery Service) offer limited, short-term relief. For example, the Recycle Bin only retains records for 15 days, and Salesforce’s paid Data Recovery Service (once retired, now reinstated) is expensive, slow, and not guaranteed to restore your data to a usable state.
Without a purpose-built backup and recovery solution, you’re betting your business continuity on incomplete tooling.
2. Underestimating the Risk of Human Error
An overwhelming 74% of data breaches involve human error or misconfiguration. Salesforce admins and developers are often operating in complex environments with sandboxes, integrations, and automated jobs—any of which can inadvertently delete or corrupt large swaths of data or metadata.
We’ve seen it happen: a misfired script or an over-permissioned integration user triggers a cascade of deletions. Without robust versioning, rollback, and audit capabilities, it’s nearly impossible to identify and reverse the damage.
Mistakes are inevitable. What matters is how recoverable and traceable your environment is when they occur.
3. Failing to Protect Metadata Alongside Data
Metadata defines the structure and function of your Salesforce org—objects, fields, validation rules, workflows, Apex classes. Losing metadata can be just as paralyzing as losing data.
Yet many organizations focus their protection efforts solely on records. They might back up Accounts and Contacts but neglect critical components like Flow configurations, Lightning pages, or custom code.
Even Salesforce’s native Backup and Restore (released in 2021) is focused almost exclusively on data—not metadata.
A complete disaster recovery plan must treat metadata as a first-class citizen.
4. Relying Solely on Manual Exports
It’s not uncommon for teams to rely on weekly data exports stored in local or cloud drives. This is better than nothing—but not by much.
Manual exports:
- Are often out of date when a crisis hits.
- Don’t capture metadata.
- Are prone to storage errors and access issues.
- Can’t guarantee integrity or easy restore paths.
They typically lack encryption, retention policies, and chain-of-custody validation—all crucial for meeting compliance requirements like GDPR, HIPAA, or SOX.
Manual processes don’t scale—and in a breach or outage, they won’t save you.
5. Lack of Testing and Recovery Drills
Disaster recovery that hasn’t been tested is disaster recovery in name only.
Too many organizations deploy backup solutions but never attempt a dry-run restore. They don’t know how long a recovery will take. They don’t know if restored records will preserve relationships. They don’t know what downstream systems may break.
A well-documented, rehearsed recovery plan can mean the difference between a minor blip and a full-scale outage.
Treat recovery like fire safety: Drills, documentation, and real-time accountability are essential.
6. Ignoring Insider Threats and Malicious Deletes
External breaches get headlines. Internal breaches quietly wreak havoc.
Disgruntled employees, over-permissioned contractors, or even well-meaning users with destructive access rights can all pose risks. And because Salesforce has powerful bulk APIs, even a single user can modify or delete thousands of records with one command.
Organizations often forget that Salesforce’s audit trail is limited (field history tracking is capped at 20 fields per object, for example), and not all deletions are logged in detail.
Least-privilege access, coupled with independent audit logs and anomaly detection, are critical controls.
7. Assuming Compliance = Resilience
Compliance frameworks like ISO 27001 or SOC 2 can guide best practices—but checking boxes doesn’t mean you’re ready to recover from a real-world incident.
Security audits often focus on policies and controls. Resilience demands deeper operational readiness: secure, tested backups, rapid restore capabilities, and real-time anomaly detection.
Don’t mistake certification for capability. Evaluate your resilience through scenario testing, not paperwork. A compliant organization can still go dark for days if it lacks true recovery muscle.
Resilience Requires Ownership
Salesforce gives you a powerful, flexible platform—but protecting what runs on it is your job. Disaster recovery isn’t just a technical safeguard; it’s a strategic imperative. This is especially true in environments where customer trust, regulatory exposure, and business continuity are on the line.
Start by asking the uncomfortable questions:
- What would happen if our Salesforce org went dark right now?
- How quickly could we restore critical records and relationships?
- Who’s accountable—not just for backing up data, but restoring it under pressure?
The companies that survive the worst-case scenarios are the ones that prepare for them. Not later. Now.