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Preparing and Inserting Event Data in Salesforce

Salesforce Event Data can be imported efficiently using Data Loader when your CSV is prepared correctly. This guide explains every required field and shows you how to avoid common import errors.

Migrating activity data is an important step in any Salesforce migration project. Events contain valuable customer interaction history, including meetings, appointments, and scheduled activities between users and customers.

When migrating Events into Salesforce, proper preparation is required to ensure that dates, relationships, attendees, and related records are correctly mapped.

This guide explains how to prepare Event data, insert Events using Salesforce Data Loader, and handle multiple contacts or related records using Event Relations.

Table of Contents

Understanding Salesforce Activities

In Salesforce, activities encompass all customer interactions like calls, meetings, and to-do items. Tasks are to-do items, while events are scheduled happenings.

Events can be related to leads/contacts (Who ID) and non-human records like accounts/opportunities (What ID).

With shared activities enabled, up to 50 contacts or one lead can be related to an event.

What Counts as an Activity

  • Activities = all customer interactions (calls, meetings, to-do items)
  • Tasks = to-do items
  • Events = scheduled happenings
    • Can relate to leads/contacts (Who ID) and accounts/opportunities (What ID)
    • With shared activities enabled: up to 50 contacts or 1 lead per event

Tasks vs. Events: Key Differences

Before migrating activity data, it is important to understand how Tasks and Events differ.

Prep Event Relations

Events

Require  Start Date/Time  and  End Date/Time
All-day events use  Activity Date  instead

Tasks

Require a  Status  value
Flagged overdue if past due date and still open

Event Field Requirements for Salesforce Data Inserts

For an Event record to insert successfully, one of these combinations must be provided:

Date/Time Requirements

Your event data must meet one of these combinations:

Your event data must meet one of these combinations:

  • Start Date/Time + End Date/Time — Salesforce calculates duration
  • Start Date/Time + Duration — Salesforce calculates the end date/time
  • Is All Day Event = True + Activity Date — used for all-day events
Salesforce Event Data import using Data Loader
Salesforce Event Data import using Data Loader

Option 1: Start Date/Time + End Date/Time

Salesforce calculates the event duration automatically.

Example:

Start Date/Time: 07/25/2026 10:00 AM
End Date/Time: 07/25/2026 11:00 AM

Option 2: Start Date/Time + Duration

Salesforce calculates the End Date/Time.

Example:

Start Date/Time: 07/25/2026 10:00 AM
Duration: 60 minutes

Option 3: All-Day Events

For all-day events::

Is All Day Event = True

Activity Date = 07/25/2026

Start Date/Time, End Date/Time, and Duration should remain blank.

Essential Salesforce Event Fields

Before loading Events through Data Loader, prepare the required fields.

Subject

The Subject field is the event title.

You can create this by:

  • Copying the event description
  • Limiting the value to 255 characters

Example:

Customer Discovery Call

Event Owner

The Event Owner determines who owns the calendar event.

This can be:

  • Salesforce User ID
  • Public Calendar ID

Important:

  • Events cannot be owned by queues.

Who ID and What ID

Who ID and What ID are polymorphic fields (they can reference multiple object types).

You have two common approaches:

Option 1: Use VLOOKUP in Excel

Use Excel formulas to match legacy IDs with Salesforce IDs.

Example:

Legacy Contact ID → Salesforce Contact ID

 

Option 2: Store Legacy IDs in Custom Fields

Instead of immediately converting IDs:

  1. Import legacy IDs into custom fields.
  2. Use them later for relationship mapping.

 

This approach is useful when performing complex migrations.

Understanding Event Relations

When Shared Activities are enabled, Salesforce allows multiple contacts to relate to one Event.

An Event can have:

  • Up to 50 contacts
  • One lead

To add additional related records after creating Events, use the: Event Relation object

Event Relations can represent:

Related Records vs. Invitees

Related Records

These interact with:

  • Is Who
  • Is What

Examples:

  • Contact attendee
  • Account relationship

Invitees

Invitees do not populate:

  • Is Who
  • Is What

They only represent meeting participants.

Adding Multiple Attendees Using Event Relations

When inserting Event Relations:

Add a column:

Is Parent

Set the value:

True

for all related records.

If the relationship is a “What” record:

Example:

Account

Add:

Is What = True

This populates the Event’s:

What ID
⚠ What ID Limitation

An event can only have one   What ID  .

If your file has multiple “what” relations for a single event, only the first will be set — the rest will fail.

What ID Limitation

Salesforce Events only support:

One What ID per Event

Example:

An event cannot simultaneously have:

  • Account A
  • Opportunity B
  • Case C

as multiple What relationships.

If multiple What records exist:

  • The first one may populate What ID.
  • Additional What relationships will fail.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

Common Insert Errors

Field Integrity Exception

Occurs when  What ID  is populated with a lead record in  Who ID.  Fix: blank out the  What ID 

Bad Value for a Restricted Picklist Field

Add the missing values from your file to the picklist field in Salesforce.

Activity Date / Start Date Mismatch

If you get an “activity date and start date/time must match” error and they appear to match in your file — this usually happens with all-day events.

✔ What To Do
  1. Filter for all-day events
  2. Blank out Start Date/Time, End Date/Time, and Duration
  3. Confirm Activity Date is populated

Walkthrough: How to Insert Event Data in Salesforce

Here’s the full walkthrough for how to insert event data in Salesforce using Data Loader, from Excel prep to verification.

Prep in Excel 

✔ What To Do
  1. Open your workbook → go to the “Sample Events Prep” tab
  2. Format Created Date, Start Date/Time, End Date/Time
  3. Verify Activity Date formatting
  4. Filter Is All Day Event = True → confirm Activity Date is populated and other date fields are blank
  5. Sort by Who ID → confirm What ID is blank where a lead ID is present

Create CSV & Load 

✔ What To Do
  1. Save your prepped data as a CSV
  2. Open Data Loader → Insert → select “Event” object
  3. Select your CSV file
  4. Check field mappings → run the load

Review Results

✔ What To Do
  1. Expect success (the only error should be the header row with original API field names)
  2. Copy the success file → new tab named “Event Successes”
  3. Grab an inserted event ID → check it in Salesforce: yourdomain.salesforce.com/event_id
  4. Verify Name, Related To, Start Date/Time, End Date/Time

Prep Event Relations

✔ What To Do
  1. Go to the “Event Relations” tab
  2. Use the Event IDs from your “Event Successes” tab
  3. Check the loaded event record in Salesforce for Name, Related To, and attendees

 Load Salesforce Event Relations CSV

✔ What To Do
  1. Data Loader → Insert → select “Event Relation” object
  2. Select your prepared CSV file
  3. Confirm mappings → choose output folder → run the load

Verify Results

Expected Outcome

Related To  is populated (e.g., with an Account); contact attendees are visible; the Meeting Digest shows the correct attendee count, including the organizer.

You’re now ready to insert event data in Salesforce confidently using Data Loader.

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