Caution: Don't Delete Records without understanding the relationships between records

Salesforce is a relational database.  That means one record often has a relationship to another record.  For example, a connection record, which is the relationship between a contact and a volunteer opportunity and an occurrence, REQUIRES you to relate it to those other records:

If you delete a volunteer opportunity from the database - then any occurrence and connection that were related to it now become corrupted data - missing required fields. This will cause problems in your reports, and make break things on your public site.  It may prevent automated mass updates done in your system from working - because corrupted data (missing required fields) can cause automations to fail.

Generally speaking: Don't delete records!

Until you get comfortable and understand the relationships between objects in HandsOn Connect - we recommend avoiding deleting records alltogether.

Instead of deleting a record - you can change its status to inactive.  It remains in the database because it needs to if it has 'child' objects that depend on it.    

Even though you no longer work with an organization (for example) - you have worked with them in the past and if you delete the organization record, then any volunteer opportunity or relationship you've had with them in the past with be corrupted in your data.  You'll be missing critical information that affects your overall data integrity.

Is there a safe way to delete records? Can I ever delete records?

Yes.  But first you need to understand the dependencies the record has on other records.

We recommend that anyone considering deleting records in Salesforce first read the chapter on The Hazards of Deleting Data found in our Data Management manual .  It'll explain when NOT to delete data - and how to SAFELY delete data when you need to.  

Click here to read these four articles before deleting any data!

Deleting Records

"My Public Site No Longer Works, what can happen if you delete records........

If you MUST delete data -= it needs to be done with care.

How to Manage the Recycle Bin.

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