Salesforce Implementation Checklist: What to Expect Week by Week

Most Salesforce implementation problems don’t happen at go-live — they happen in the weeks leading up to it, when no one was sure whose job it was to review the data migration, approve the automation design, or train the users. This checklist is what we use internally to keep our clients on track from kickoff to close.

Use it as a reference regardless of whether you’re working with Estarei or another partner. If your implementation partner can’t tell you what’s happening each week, that’s a signal.

Before Kickoff (Week 0)

Your responsibilities:

Identify your internal project owner — one person accountable for decisions and approvals
Confirm executive sponsor and their availability (you’ll need sign-off at key milestones)
Pull together your current data: export from existing CRM/spreadsheets into CSV files
List all systems Salesforce will need to connect to (ERP, marketing tools, billing, support)
Gather your org chart, sales process documentation, and any current reports you rely on
Document your top 5–10 business processes that Salesforce will support

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Signed SOW with clearly defined scope, deliverables, and exclusions
Project schedule with milestones and client review dates
Named project team (who is your project manager? your lead consultant?)
Access to their project management tool (JIRA, Asana, ClickUp, etc.)

Discovery Phase (Weeks 1–2)

What’s happening: Your partner is learning your business. This is the most important phase — decisions made here shape every configuration choice.

Your responsibilities:

Complete pre-discovery questionnaire (if provided)
Make key stakeholders available for discovery sessions (sales reps, sales managers, service team leads, marketing)
Review and validate process maps before moving to design — don’t approve what you don’t understand
Identify data owners for each system being migrated

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Discovery session notes and process documentation
Draft data model (object map and relationship diagram)
Integration architecture diagram
Clarification of any scope items that need decision

Watch for: If your partner skips discovery or rushes it, they are building what they think you need, not what you actually need.

Design & Configuration (Weeks 3–6)

What’s happening: The consultant is building in a sandbox. You should be reviewing in the sandbox regularly, not waiting for a big reveal at the end.

Your responsibilities:

Review sandbox builds at each weekly checkpoint — don’t defer reviews
Test your top 10 workflows in the sandbox with real scenarios (not just happy path)
Approve page layouts, record types, and field choices before development continues
Confirm that your process exceptions are handled (what happens when a deal is paused? when a case is reopened?)
Review automation logic before it’s wired to production data

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Working sandbox with configured objects, fields, layouts
Automation design documentation (which flows do what, and when)
Data migration plan: source mapping, transformation rules, validation approach
Integration specs (if applicable)

Weekly checklist:

Did you test new builds in sandbox this week?
Are there open questions or blockers your partner hasn’t addressed?
Is the project on schedule? If not, why?

Data Migration (Weeks 5–7, overlapping with configuration)

This is where most implementations go wrong. Treat data migration as a parallel workstream, not an afterthought.

Your responsibilities:

Deduplicate records in your source system before extraction — do not migrate duplicates
Review and approve the field mapping document (which source field maps to which Salesforce field)
Complete a data quality assessment: what percentage of records have complete, valid data?
Participate in data validation: after each test migration, you spot-check records
Identify any data that should NOT be migrated (archived records, test accounts, personal email addresses)

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Data mapping document for each object being migrated
Test migration results with validation report
Data exceptions log (records that couldn’t be migrated and why)

Red flags:

Partner hasn’t run a test migration two weeks before go-live
No client sign-off required on data validation
“We’ll clean it up after go-live” — data problems compound in production

User Acceptance Testing / UAT (Weeks 6–8)

What’s happening: Your users test the system with real business scenarios before go-live.

Your responsibilities:

Assign UAT participants from each user group (not just managers — front-line users find different issues)
Create UAT test scripts based on real work scenarios, not just feature demos
Log every issue found — no verbal feedback, everything in writing
Prioritize issues: P1 (blocks go-live), P2 (fix soon after), P3 (nice to have)
Get formal UAT sign-off from your executive sponsor before proceeding

What your implementation partner should deliver:

UAT environment with production-like data loaded
UAT test script template
Issue log with resolution tracking
Updated build incorporating P1 issues before go-live confirmation

Common UAT mistakes:

Running UAT with managers only (power users find different problems)
Treating UAT as optional (“we’ll fix it after launch”)
Approving go-live without P1 issues resolved

Training (Weeks 7–8)

Your responsibilities:

Require 100% training completion before go-live — no exceptions
Separate training by role (sales reps don’t need to know admin functions)
Assign Salesforce champions in each department to support peers after launch
Plan for new hire onboarding: who trains them and what materials do they use?

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Role-specific training sessions (not one-size-fits-all)
Training materials and recordings for future reference
Quick reference guides for each role

Go-Live (Week 8–10)

Your responsibilities:

Confirm go-live readiness with all department leads
Disable old systems on a clear date — parallel running creates confusion and non-adoption
Communicate the change to all users with a clear “here’s what’s different” message
Have your Salesforce champion visible and available on day one

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Production deployment checklist
Go-live day support coverage (someone available to triage issues in real time)
Post-migration data validation in production
Cutover runbook (step-by-step what happens on launch day)

Go-live day checklist:

All users can log in
Data migrated correctly (spot-check 20 records in each key object)
Automations are running (check a test record)
Integrations are live and passing data (verify in both systems)
Executive sponsor confirms go-live approved

Hypercare (Weeks 10–14)

What’s happening: Your partner provides intensive post-launch support while your team builds confidence.

Your responsibilities:

Establish a clear escalation path: who do users call when they have an issue?
Hold weekly hypercare review calls with your partner
Track all post-launch issues by priority
Schedule P2 items for fix in hypercare sprints

What your implementation partner should deliver:

Agreed hypercare SLA (response time for P1 issues)
Weekly hypercare report: open issues, resolved issues, pending items
Admin handover documentation (so your team can manage the org independently)
30-day and 60-day health checks

30 Days After Go-Live

Review adoption metrics: are users actually using the system? (Login frequency, record creation rates)
Survey users: what’s working, what’s frustrating?
Review your top 5 business processes: are they running as designed?
Schedule your first enhancement sprint with your partner or admin

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a Salesforce implementation take? Small business implementations (under 25 users, single cloud) typically take 4–8 weeks. Mid-market projects with multiple clouds and integrations run 10–20 weeks. Enterprise multi-cloud deployments can take 6–18 months.

What is the client’s role in a Salesforce implementation? More than most clients expect. You need to provide a dedicated project owner, make key stakeholders available for discovery and UAT, review and approve work at each stage, clean your data before migration, and ensure 100% training completion before go-live. The consultant configures Salesforce; you configure your business to use it.

What should I do if my Salesforce implementation is running late? First, identify whether the delay is on the client side (delayed approvals, incomplete data, unavailable stakeholders) or the partner side (missed deliverables, inadequate resources). Both happen. Most implementations that go over budget do so because of scope creep — new requirements added mid-project — not because the original scope was mis-estimated.

What’s the most common reason Salesforce implementations fail? Low user adoption. The technology works fine; the people don’t use it. This is almost always a change management failure — inadequate training, no executive mandate, no removal of the old system, no champions to support peers. Technical failures are rare. Adoption failures are common.

Do I need a Salesforce admin after go-live? Yes. Whether that’s an internal admin, a managed services partner, or a part-time contractor depends on your complexity. A straightforward Sales Cloud implementation with 20 users needs about 10 hours/week of admin time. A multi-cloud org with custom development needs a full-time admin or managed services.

Estarei builds and manages Salesforce implementations that stick. Learn about our Salesforce consulting approach or book a free consultation to get a realistic project plan for your specific situation.