MassEffect can be used to delete existing records from any Salesforce object that supports deletion. Records can be soft deleted one table at a time using the standard Soap API or Bulk API.
Records can also be hard deleted when Use Bulk API is selected. Hard deleted records DO NOT GO TO THE RECYCLE BIN, and therefore cannot be undeleted. Users wishing to hard delete records also need the hard delete permission enabled on their Salesforce profile. The standard Salesforce Administrator profile DOES NOT have this permission enabled, so a custom profile will need to be created for administrators that need to hard delete records.
A Salesforce "cascading" delete is performed. If you delete a parent object, you delete its children automatically, as long as each child object can be deleted. Consult Salesforce's Help and Training link to determine which child objects are deleted when specific primary objects are deleted (e.g. "Deleting Accounts", "Deleting Contacts" etc.).
Soft deleted records (not using hard delete) are placed in the recycle bin. To "restore" deleted records they will need to be undeleted from the recycle bin.
Step 1. Select Incoming Data Source
Begin by selecting the input file that contains the Id's of the records to be deleted.
1. Select the file by clicking Select File
- Browse to find the file and click "Open"
2. If an .xls, .xlsx, .mdb or .accdb file has been chosen the user must select the worksheet/table name to process by clicking on it (will highlight in blue)
- Click Use on the right or double click to select (the fields from the spreadsheet/table will populate in the left column of the page)
- The number of records loaded will be displayed in red
- Read CSV as UTF8: Select this option to force files to open in UTF-8 encoding, even if they were saved in a different format
- Ensures that special characters are imported correctly
Step 2. Select the Delete Records Operation
- Deletes records for one object per pass
- Salesforce cascading delete IS performed
- Check Use Bulk API if desired
- Hard Delete available ONLY when Bulk API is selected
Note: Hard deleted records DO NOT go the recycle bin therefore CANNOT be undeleted.
Step 3. Field Mappings
Map the Id field from the input file to the Id field in the desired Salesforce object.
- Mapping a field is accomplished by a left mouse click and dragging the field from the Datafile field section on the left to the field name in the object section OR by right clicking the Object header and selecting AutoMap
Step 4. Process the Delete
- To perform the chosen operation click
in the lower right
- By default ALL the input rows will be processed
- When using an xls, xlsx or csv file as the input source only specific rows can be selected for processing by changing the starting and ending rows using the Control option on the right
- To process the first row from a data source change the End number to 1
- Changing the Start/End values allows for testing a small portion of the input file before processing the entire file
A Status pop-up will be displayed when the operation is complete noting if there were any errors and listing any results files created (e.g. Logfile, Success/Error Files, IdSave files, Restore files). Links are provided to access the results file DIRECTLY from the status pop-up.
Results Files
Note: NO restore files are created when using MassEffect to delete records. Additionally records deleted from selected tables ARE NOT sent to the recycle bin (e.g. AccountTeamMembers). Records that are still in the recycle bin can be recovered using the "Undelete" operation in MassEffect. More information on undelete can be found HERE .
