A strong Salesforce disaster recovery strategy is a critical aspect of a complete approach to data security. Failing to instill recovery capabilities creates massive security gaps that threaten regulatory compliance.
Why It Matters: Salesforce is likely your largest container of data. And if a mistake degrades, exposes, or outright deletes important data sets, you could be subject to fines, penalties, and massive delays as you work to regain what was lost.
- More than two-thirds or 68% of data breaches are the result of non-malicious human error.
- Cybersecurity threats will continue to grow more sophisticated and dangerous throughout 2025.
Here are six steps for building a reliable Salesforce disaster recovery strategy:
1. Identify and Categorize Sensitive Data
Your Salesforce environment contains a variety of types of data, such as customer data, transaction records, and configuration settings. The level of sensitivity and usefulness of this data needs to be determined to ensure you are providing the proper levels of protection to the data that necessitates it.
Identify and categorize the types of data in your Salesforce environment and then prioritize it based on its sensitivity and criticality to business operations.
This will help you plan your Salesforce data recovery strategy properly.
2. Define Recovery Objectives
Business needs vary between organizations. Some will prioritize the need to fully recover their Salesforce data, while others will prioritize what they need to return to operations. These are what’s known as Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
Establish RPO and RTO requirements for each data category.
RTO defines how quickly you need to restore data, and RPO specifies how much data loss is acceptable.
3. Ensure Your Recovery Tool Has the Functionality You Need
There are a lot of options out there for Salesforce data backups. When it comes to sourcing your backup and recovery tool, be sure it has everything you need to achieve your Salesforce data recovery goals.
Incremental and full backups, data archiving, granular data recovery, and coverage of both system data and metadata all need to be included in the tool you use to achieve these critical processes.
Full functionality ensures your data will be there when you need it most.
4. Create a Detailed Salesforce Disaster Recovery Plan
Now that you have an in-depth analysis of your data and the tool that covers all your required functionality, it’s time to put together an actionable plan for when data loss occurs.
Create a step-by-step document that outlines the procedures your team will follow after a data loss event.
This should cover who is responsible for recovery, tools to be used, and timelines. Include instructions for both data and metadata restoration.
5. Test Your Recovery Strategy Regularly
As with all of your data security measures, you need to ensure your recovery strategy remains optimized and functional over time. Regularly test your data recovery plan through mock recovery scenarios.
Simulate different types of data loss, such as accidental deletion and data corruption, to ensure your team can smoothly execute the plan within the defined RTO and RPO.
These tests highlight any clunky or unhelpful parts of your strategy, so you can be ready when disaster strikes.
6. Maintain Security and Compliance Standards
If your Salesforce environment contains sensitive data such as personal identifiable information (PII), financial data, or medical information, you are likely under the scope of data security regulations.
Ensure your data recovery strategy complies with relevant regulations and standards by protecting backup data with encryption, both in transit and at rest, and maintaining access controls to safeguard sensitive information.
Regulations like the GDPR and HIPAA dictate how sensitive information needs to be handled and stored. Research the exact regulations that apply to your organization and account for them in your Salesforce data recovery strategy.
Next Step…
Locking down your Salesforce disaster recovery strategy gives your team the room to focus on innovation and progress. And the best way to do that is with intentional tooling and processes.
Check out our blog, Boost Productivity in 2025 With These Release Automation Tools, to learn how to get the most from your Salesforce DevOps efforts.