Data Loader Synch Date

Question

I am running Data Loader via command line every night to upsert records from a third party generated CSV (using a Windows Scheduled Task), and am trying to figure out the best way to keep track (in Salesforce) of the last time a record was synched via the Data Loader process. The overall goal is to set up a time trigger to flag records that haven't been updated via Data Loader in 2 days (which means they have been deleted from the third party system), so I can set some fields on the record.

Originally I was thinking about using the LastModifiedDate, but the potential for a user to edit the record would mess that up. From looking at the documentation, I don't see a good way to automatically set a custom field to the current timestamp via Data Loader, but I'm hoping someone else has run into a similar use case.

Answer 1

Create a custom datetime field Last Sync Date that will be hidden from your users (or at least readonly if they need to see it in reports etc) + a workflow rule.

Workflow field update value to populate : NOW()

Condition: experiment a bit, something like

$Profile.Name = 'System Administrator' &&
CONTAINS($User.Username,'[email protected]') &&
(ISNEW() || ISCHANGED(FieldThatSurelyChanges__c))

should be a good start. Drop the last line if it's an overkill, CONTAINS is there to make sure it will work in sandboxes. If you don't really want to base it on username/role/profile - add a checkbox to User object or something.