Salesforce: Single Org or Multi Org?

Anyone who wants to organize their company with Salesforce will at some point be faced with the choice of doing the whole thing via "Single Org" or "Multi Org". This choice is important because it determines the further course of planning and organizing to use Salesforce in one's own business. Org stands for Organization; the above mentioned approaches are called Organization Strategy. But what do these strategies involve and how do you find out which one is best for your company?

What determines the org?

The choice of Single Org or Multi Org determines the further planning of the company's own organization with Salesforce. Both Single Org and Multi Org come with their own architecture, capabilities and planning workflows. Salesforce's Robert Desisto calls it a "logical Force.com instance, an instance of data and metadata for a number of users." So both instances come with their own advantages and disadvantages that need to be factored into the decision and weighed.

When is Single Org useful?

As can be somewhat seen from the name, Single Org Infrastructure is best when it comes to clear standardization of business processes. One gets a much better visibility of the processes in the management, with various reports and the overview of the activities that are included in a business process. Depending on this data, one can easily see where there are problems and all processes are clearly visible at a glance.

Furthermore, one can easily streamline all related processes and share the resulting data. This also includes the fact that there is only one central login for all these overviews, which can then be used to access the overview of all processes. In short, you always have everything at a glance.

The Single Org instance is ideal especially for smaller companies or companies where the company processes are also very similar or uniform in the different areas or where the shared information does not differ much. This allows for easy aggregation of the different data and provides a quick overview. More than one instance, as would be the case with Multi Org, is therefore not necessary here; everything is simplified.

But what happens if the individual divisions of a company act very independently of each other and differ greatly from each other?

When is Multi Org useful?

A Multi Org is especially useful when the different reports of the business units differ too much and mapping them in a Single Org would not work. In this case, the Multi Org provides the plan that is needed. In other words, the Multi Org consists of several Single Orgs, all of which use separate reporting and in which one can view the different information of the individual business units separately. It is even possible to create a central reporting unit that combines the different data of the Multi Org - but this is often very complicated, because in these cases the individual business units are very different from each other. If centralized reporting is really necessary, it is better to use the Single Org in case of doubt.

More differences between Single Org and Multi Org

The matter of administration is another point that enters into the decision. Here, too, one should be aware: with a Single Org instance, administration is undertaken by a central team. This reduces the effort of coordination enormously and ensures clear and secure communication. With a Multi Org instance, on the other hand, each individual instance is guarded and managed by its own admin team. Extensions or changes also tend to benefit more from a Single Org instance, because here you can decide centrally what should be deployed where. A Multi Org instance, however, has the advantage here again that you can test the function first in a compartmentalized instance before deploying it elsewhere.

In general, administration as well as setting up various functions is a key aspect of the decision. The Multi Org system allows the company to change different areas individually. This is also very useful in the aspect of security, for example, as some areas of the company need to be secured more than others or have their own needs that need to be addressed separately.

The same applies to installing extensions or changing individual settings. With a Single Org instance, everything always happens centrally; since all company areas are combined, related changes also apply globally. This is often not a big deal, as people often choose Single Org because of the simplicity of the central administration and therefore changes are often made globally, but in some cases this may not be desirable; in this case you would have to switch to Multi Org. Last but not least, data processing also plays a role; it is therefore clearer to display every data record, every report and every associated important overview in a Multi Org system and to make decisions based on this; especially in larger companies, this is often much easier, as there is simply a better overview this way.

Single Org or Multi Org?

In the end, this decision depends entirely on your own company. In short, you can remember this guideline: if your own company is a fairly standardized company, in which many processes are repeated or the same and everything is also regulated internally rather centrally, the Single Organization would be a better choice. You can see all company processes and reports at a glance, have everything under control centrally and can make global changes at any time, which then apply to the entire company. This is especially advantageous for smaller companies with only a few departments and makes work much easier.

For larger companies, in which there are not only many different departments and divisions, but which may also operate globally in different countries, a multi-org strategy is often much better. With Salesforce, you can make different subdivisions, take care of each department, each branch and each company process separately, and thus respond to different demands that are specific to the departments. Single Org would be too confusing in this case, as too much information would be collected and classified in too small a space. So in the end, it depends on one's own needs and the structuring of the company which type one chooses!