Photo: National Cancer Institute / Unsplash
A health check tells you what is working in your Salesforce org, what is at risk and what to fix first. It is the right starting point before an optimization project, a new cloud, an AI initiative or a change of partner.
A Salesforce health check is a structured review of an org covering security and access, data quality, automation, customization and technical debt, integrations, reporting and user adoption. The output is a prioritized list of risks and fixes, so you know what to address first and what can wait.
Profiles, permission sets, sharing and admin access reviewed against least-privilege.
Duplicates, incomplete records and stale data measured on your key objects.
Workflow rules, Process Builder, Flows and triggers inventoried for overlap and failure risk.
Unused fields, objects, code and packages that add cost without value.
Usage patterns and whether dashboards reflect reliable data.
A ranked fix list with effort estimates, not just a list of problems.
What happens in each phase, what you get at the end of it, and what we need from your team.
We ask for a read-only login with permission to view Setup, plus a rough list of who uses Salesforce and for what. The kickoff covers why the review is happening now, whether that is a renewal, a new cloud, a departing admin or an AI project, because that context decides where we dig deepest. We also gather anything already written down: old design documents, the installed package list and known complaints, so interviews do not start from zero.
Part of the review is tool-assisted: Salesforce Optimizer and Security Health Check output, field usage scans, login history and automation inventories. The larger part is judgment. We trace how a lead becomes revenue, open the Flows that fire on core objects, read Apex for hardcoded IDs and thin test coverage, and compare what users describe in interviews with what the data shows. Gaps between those two stories are often the most useful findings.
Findings are written for two audiences. Executives get a concise summary: the risks that matter, what each could mean in exposure or lost productivity, and what we would tackle first. Admins and developers get the detail, with every finding tied to the specific field, Flow, profile or Apex class involved and a note on how to resolve it. Each item carries a risk and effort rating, so the list can be sorted instead of debated.
The findings become a sequenced roadmap. Security gaps and anything that risks losing data go to the top. Quick wins that rebuild user trust come next, followed by larger efforts such as consolidating overlapping automation or retiring abandoned packages. We group items into phases sized to your team's real capacity and mark which ones an in-house admin can handle and which call for specialist skills such as Apex refactoring.
The same work can be a small project or a large one. These are the factors that decide which.
| Factor | Keeps effort down | Raises effort |
|---|---|---|
| Number of clouds in use | A single Sales Cloud org used by one department, mostly on standard objects. | Sales, Service, Marketing and Experience Cloud together, each with its own configuration to examine. |
| Volume of custom code | Point-and-click setup, a handful of Flows, and almost nothing written in Apex. | Large Apex codebases, triggers on core objects and custom Lightning components needing line-level review. |
| Org age and history | A recent implementation by one partner with consistent design decisions throughout. | Years of changes by several admins and partners, with little documentation left behind. |
| Packages and connected systems | A handful of well-known managed packages and one or two external connections. | Dozens of packages, some abandoned, plus integrations nobody currently on staff fully understands. |
| Stakeholder groups | One team with a single sponsor who can speak for how the system is used. | Several business units or regions using the org differently, each needing separate interviews. |
| Regulatory obligations | No industry rules beyond ordinary data privacy expectations for customer records. | Health or financial records that demand field-level access review and audit trail checks. |
We price from a written scope after discovery, so these factors are what we ask about first.
Salesforce's built-in scanners are a sensible starting point, but they flag symptoms rather than causes and cannot judge whether a design fits your business. A report listing hundreds of unused fields says nothing about which process is actually broken. A proper review pairs automated scans with interviews and a human read of the automation and code.
An org can look tidy in Setup while reps keep their real pipeline in spreadsheets. Skipping interviews means missing the workarounds, shadow tools and quiet distrust that explain weak adoption. Watching a few people move through a normal day often reveals more than any metadata scan, and it grounds every recommendation in how the business really runs.
A health check loses its value when the findings sit untouched in a shared drive. Risks stay open and the same problems resurface at the next renewal conversation. Assign an owner to each high-priority item, load the roadmap into your admin's backlog, and book a follow-up review so progress is measured rather than assumed.
It is tempting to begin with visible clutter like page layouts and stale reports, because those changes feel productive and users notice them. Meanwhile, too many users with Modify All Data or an over-permissioned guest profile remain a real exposure. Close access and data-loss issues first, even when cosmetic cleanup is what people asked for.
A health check is only as good as the reviewer's willingness to tell you uncomfortable things, including about work their own firm might sell next. Ask how the partner keeps the assessment apart from the sales pitch, and what you will hold at the end. Answers show whether you are buying an audit or a scan with a cover page.
Written by the consultants delivering the work.
How to move a Salesforce org from profile-based access to permission sets and groups: where Salesforce stands, minimum-access profiles, persona design, muting, user access policies, tools and safe rollout.
Read the full post →You can start with our free Salesforce Health Check Workbook. It covers the same areas we review. A consultant-led check adds the org analysis, interviews and prioritized plan.
Scores depend on the tool used, but the aim is few high-risk findings in security and data. One technology-services firm we worked with reached a 98% health-check score after a Sales Cloud Jumpstart.
We recommend it. AI agents act on your records and permissions, so duplicate data, loose access and conflicting automation become bigger problems once an agent is involved.
You get a prioritized plan. Some clients fix items in-house, some run an optimization project with us, and some move to managed services.
Most reviews finish within a few weeks of receiving access. A single-cloud org with modest customization sits at the shorter end, while several clouds, large codebases and many stakeholder groups extend it. Interview scheduling is often the real constraint, so lining up participants before kickoff keeps things moving. We confirm the timeline in writing once we have looked inside the org.
No. We work through a read-only user and make no configuration changes during the review. Users are asked for brief interviews or screen-share sessions scheduled around their workload. If we spot something urgent along the way, such as an exposed guest user or an active admin account belonging to a former employee, we tell you right away instead of waiting for the report.
At minimum, before any major change: a new cloud, an AI project, a merger, or a switch of admin or partner. A periodic review also pays off even when nothing big is planned, because Salesforce ships several releases a year and orgs drift as teams add fields and automation. For managed-services clients, this kind of review is built into the ongoing engagement.
We do not recommend a rebuild lightly. Most orgs can be fixed in place by consolidating automation, retiring unused fields and tightening access. Starting over makes sense only when the data model fundamentally does not fit the business or technical debt makes every change risky. Several admins had layered complexity onto a manufacturer's org until reps stopped using it. Streamlining what was there, plus an ERP integration, took it from zero usage to all 99 reps.
It can, and we often recommend it. Scope is agreed at kickoff and can include Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Experience Cloud sites and the integrations feeding Salesforce, since problems frequently start there. A medical-device company we worked with had a marketing instance over its prospect limit because of duplicate-creating misconfiguration; cleanup removed 970+ invalid prospects. Reviewing connected tools gives a complete picture of the data reaching your CRM.
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