How to Mass Transfer Records in Salesforce

As a Salesforce system admin, I handle data management in our Salesforce org. In data transfers, we often have to transfer records from one user to another. In this, the ownership of records had to be reassigned, such as when a sales representative left the company or when leads needed to be assigned to a new team member.

A single user in the Salesforce org can have multiple or a large number of records assigned to them. Here, transferring the record by changing ownership from the record page won’t be ideal for bulk records.

As a solution, I came to know that we can transfer bulk records in Salesforce using the built-in Mass Transfer Records feature, as well as tools like Data Loader and Workbench.

In this Salesforce tutorial, I will explain how to mass transfer records in Salesforce using the Mass Transfer records, Data Loader, and Salesforce Workbench.

Mass Transfer Records in Salesforce

In Salesforce, Mass transfer records are defined as a process of transferring the ownership of multiple records, or we can say that one or more records at a single time, with the help of a data operation.

This mass-transferring feature is primarily used when we need to change the ownership of records simultaneously.

In Salesforce, there are various methods for mass transferring records or transferring record ownership.

• Mass transfer records using the mass transfer feature
• Mass transfer records using Salesforce data loader
• Mass transfer records using Salesforce Workbench

Mass Transfer Records Using Mass Transfer Feature

In Salesforce, the built-in Mass Transfer Tool has a limit of 250 records per transfer operation. It means we can transfer the ownership of 250 records in a single data operation for the available objects.

Now, follow the steps below to mass transfer records using the Mass Transfer Records feature.

1. On the setup page, navigate to Quick Find -> Mass Transfer Records.

2. In mass transfer records, select the transfer type from the list of options. In this example, we will transfer lead ownership; therefore, I will choose the Transfer Leads option.

3. Select the current user (Transfer from) owning the records and the new user to whom the records will be assigned. Next, set the filter criteria and click the Find button.

4. Now, we will get the records according to the filter criteria. Select the records from the checkboxes and click the ‘Transfer‘ button.

5. As we click the Transfer button, the records will be assigned to the user we selected from the ‘Transfer to‘ lookup.

This way, we can transfer bulk records in Salesforce using the Mass Transfer Records.

Mass Transfer Records Using Salesforce Data Loader

In Salesforce, for bulk data operations to import, export, delete, or update the records, we can use the Salesforce Data Loader tool.

Salesforce Data Loader is ideal for handling the mass transfer of records to update the record ownership. Using the data loader, we can update up to 150 million records per data operation.

In this example, we will transfer the account records from one user to another using the data loader.

Prepare CSV to Update the Ownership of Records

Before you start using Data Loader, export a CSV file with Account Owner, Account ID, and Account Name. Optionally, add additional fields that may help you identify the Accounts to be transferred.

Now, follow the steps below to mass update account ownership with Data Loader in Salesforce.

1. First, we will create a CSV file with a header column Account Owner, Account ID, and Account Name, and copy-paste the Account ID and Account Name from the exported CSV file.

2. To get the ID of the new user that we will replace with the existing owner, navigate to the Setup page of Salesforce and search for Users in the users’ setup. Open the user profile to which you have to assign the account’s ownership.

3. In the setup of the user profile, copy the 15-digit number from the URL that starts with zero. Make sure the user has permission to have ownership of the account.

4. Enter the copied ID in the OWNERID header column, and keep it the same if you want to assign ownership of the selected accounts to the same user.

After this, save this CSV file to the location from where the Salesforce data loader can access it.

Update Record Ownership Using Data Loader to Transfer Records

Now, we will perform the data update operation in the data loader to update the record ownership. With this, we will transfer the records from one user to another.

1. In the Data Loader, log in with your credentials. Then, click on the Update button.

2. In this step, select the ‘Account‘ data object from the list of objects, then browse the CSV file that we created with the updated owner ID in the previous steps.

After this, click on the Next button.

3. As we click on the Next button, the uploaded CSV file will be initialized, and it will display the number of rows in the field and the batch size. Here, click on the OK button to proceed.

4. To map object fields with CSV column headers, click Create or Edit a Map -> Auto-Match Fields to Columns. If fields aren’t matched automatically, drag them manually to ensure a match. Once done, click OK, then Next to proceed.

5. In this window, select the location to save the Successes and Errors file from where it can be accessed later. After this, click on the Finish button.

6.  As we click on the Finish button, a warning message will appear regarding the update operation. Here, click on the Yes button to proceed.

7. After the update operation, we can view the completion message, which includes the Successes and Errors that occurred during the update operation. To view the updated records, click the “View Successes” button.

Now, in the CSV viewer of the Data Loader, we can see that the status of the selected records is ‘Item updated‘, which means that the ownership of the accounts has been updated.

In this way, we can mass update account ownership with Data Loader in Salesforce by following the above steps.

Mass Transfer Records Using Salesforce Workbench

For Salesforce, we have another data operation tool, Salesforce Workbench, to perform bulk DML operations.

Using Salesforce Workbench, we can also mass transfer records from one user to another in Salesforce.

Follow the steps below to mass transfer records in Salesforce using Salesforce Workbench.

To open Workbench, open the link below and log in with your Salesforce credentials.

https://workbench.developerforce.com/login.php

Export the Records Information With OwnerId

In this example, we will mass transfer account records from one user to another. For this, we will first export the data of records with the current owner ID.

1. In Salesforce Workbench, there is no option for a data export operation. For this, we will use SOQL queries for the Account object to extract data.

In the field ‘Jump to‘, select the SOQL query and select the Object as Account.

2. In this window, select ‘View as‘ Bulk CSV to get the queried records in a CSV file. From the Fields, select the object fields including ID and OwnerID.

After this, apply the filter conditions and click on the Query button.

3. Now, we will get the queried results that we can download. Click on the envelope icon to download and open the queried results.

Now, replace the OwnerId with the new user to whom you want to transfer the records. You can get the UserID from the URL of the user detail page.

After updating the Owner ID, save the changes in the CSV file.

Mass Transfer Records Using Update Operation

Now, to transfer the records from one user to another using the Salesforce workbench.

1. For data update, click on the Data tab and select the Insert operation. After this, select the CSV file and click the Next button.

2. As we click next, the fields will be mapped with the CSV header columns. In this window, scroll down and click the Map Fields button.

3. Confirm the mapping of the fields, and then click the Confirm Update button.

4. After the data update, we will see the results of successful updates. In this, we got 15 successes and 0 errors, which means we have successfully updated the records’ owner.

With this, the selected records are transferred to another user. This way, we can mass transfer records in Salesforce using the Workbench.

Conclusion

In this Salesforce tutorial, we have learned various methods for mass transferring records in Salesforce. We explored the built-in Mass Transfer Records feature for quickly reassigning records. Then we used Salesforce Data Loader for bulk ownership updates and transferred records to other users.

After this, we used the Salesforce workbench to mass transfer the records. First, we exported the records using the SOQL queries, and then, using the update operation, we updated the record owner to transfer the records.

You may like the following Salesforce tutorials:

• Mass Delete Records in Salesforce
• Create Record Using Global Action in Salesforce

Bijay Kumar

I am Bijay Kumar, the founder of SalesforceFAQs.com. Having over 10 years of experience working in salesforce technologies for clients across the world (Canada, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, etc.). I am a certified salesforce administrator and expert with experience in developing salesforce applications and projects. My goal is to make it easy for people to learn and use salesforce technologies by providing simple and easy-to-understand solutions. Check out the complete profile on About us.