Apex Data Loader : Strategy for migrating Child records

Question

A fresher question on Salesforce migration via Apex Data Loader :

Let us say I need to migrate a contact C whose Account is A.

Then in order to build the relationship between C & A I need to set c.AccountId = A.Id

For that, I need to mention the 15 or 18 digit Salesforce Id of A in every Contact record in the Contact load csv file.

I believe this is kinda difficult to get the Account Ids .

In my previous project (Siebel migration), I can identify an Account record using a combination of account's columns (like name etc).

So is there any way I can indicate the parent account record of contact in the csv file except providing the account's salesforce Id ?

Answer 1

If the account has another field that is a unique external ID, you can use that to identify the parent Account in the Contact load w/o needing the Account Id.

Your specific example is covered elsewhere in SFStackexchange here

Answer 2

You can have one field in Account Object as an external Id.

You can populate every existing account with this Id, Normally external Id are primary key in external database used to identify record from that database.

As you said, in your previous project, you could change field to uniquely identify record, you can use this new external Id field to identify account.

this video can be referred to see how we can relate two records using dataloader upsert operation.