Bulk updates in Service cloud using Journey builder activity in SFMC

Question

We have our salesforce org and Markting cloud integrated using Marketing Cloud Connect. An automation runs in SFMC to load records into a data extension (nearly 1M to 1.5M contact records flagged for updates) that need to be updated in Service cloud contact object.

Can I use journey builder (invoked when automation is complete) for this purpose by providing the DE as an entry source for the journey and subsequently use Salesforce (contact) object activity to update the records in service cloud on a nightly basis?

I did a POC and it worked but my only concern is about the volume of data we are going to update, which is in the range of 1M-2M. Let me know if this is a viable option?

Answer 1

Journey builder salesforce contact activity has the ability to do 1M - 2M records. But this will take much longer time to process and even longer if you have trigger on contact after update and it will slow down other journeys as well.

Reference - Optimize Journey builder performance

If at all the connection breaks, you never know what happens when it went wrong.

So, it is better consider an option using ETL tool like Dataloader.io , JitterBit. You can use SQL query , Data extract activity and file transfer activity to put the file into marketing cloud SFTP and then you can use these ETL tools to update in salesforce. Here you have an option to check the records how many of them processed.

Let me know if this helps.