Data governance controls for access, compliance and consistent definitions
Key Takeaway
On Salesforce, the customer owns the data governance controls. Field-level security controls who sees a field's values separately from who can reach the record. Field Audit Trail, which requires Salesforce Shield, can keep the change history of selected fields indefinitely.
Data governance is the set of policies, processes, and roles that keep data secure, accurate, usable, and compliant, including rules for who can access what. Data governance is not the same as data management, which handles the technical storage and processing of data. On Salesforce, the platform secures its own infrastructure, and the customer owns the governance controls, such as access settings, data classification, and retention.
What data governance is
Data governance sets the rules and responsibilities, which are the why and the how. Data management handles storing, securing, and moving data, which are the where and the what.
Governance supports data management in three ways:
- Clear ownership of data.
- Access rules for who can use which datasets and under what conditions.
- Standard processes for storing, updating, and archiving data.
Governance rests on three pillars: data stewardship, data quality, and data management. Data quality shows whether the rules are working. High-quality data is accurate, consistent, complete, and timely.
Governance must change as data volume grows and regulations shift, so it is not set up once and forgotten. Schedule regular governance audits of data accuracy and security controls.