Salesforce Data 360: The Intelligent Data Foundation for Agentforce 360
Why it matters
In today’s enterprise landscape, data isn’t just a by-product of operations-it’s the foundation of competitive advantage. With siloed systems, fragmented customer profiles, and disconnected insights, organisations struggle to deliver seamless, personalised customer experiences.
Enter Salesforce Data 360-Salesforce’s purpose-built solution to unify, activate, and govern your enterprise data on the same platform as your CRM applications.
What is Data 360?
At a high level:
- Ingests virtually any data source (CRM apps, data lakes, warehouses, streaming data) and unifies them within a common model.
- Uses the Customer 360 Data Model to organise and relate entities like customers, engagements, and transactions.
- Enables low-code activation (Flows, Reports, AI) across Sales, Service, Marketing-far beyond just data storage.
Figure 1: Architecture of Data 360 powering Agentforce 360 and enabling unified customer intelligence.
Key Functions & Features
Unified Customer View
Consolidates web sessions, sales orders, service tickets, and commerce events into a single profile so teams aren’t working with fragmented data.
Zero-Copy Integrations
Connects directly to Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery without duplicating data, reducing latency while ensuring freshness.
Data Activation
Once unified, data becomes actionable. Trigger workflows, surface predictive insights, and personalise experiences across channels.
Intelligent Context
Provides agents and AI with rich context-documents, transcripts, behavioural data, engagement history-to enable faster decisions.
Harmonisation
Unifies structured tables, semi-structured logs, and unstructured text/images into a single model, complete with identity resolution.
Data Governance
Built-in guardrails-identity resolution, access controls, metadata and lineage-ensure accurate, trusted data across the enterprise.
What Changed with the Name?
- A shift from being just a data repository to an intelligent activation layer.
- Now positioned as the core data foundation powering Agentforce 360, enabling AI and workflow automation across the platform.
Why It Matters for Enterprises
Disconnected systems lead to:
- Slow decisions
- Inconsistent customer experiences
- Lost intelligence and reactivity
Data 360 helps you:
- Establish a single source of truth
- Activate real-time insights when they matter
- Empower business teams with low-code tools
- Ensure strong governance and compliance
Typical Business Use Cases
1. Real-Time Customer Segmentation & Personalisation
Segment customers by behaviour, transactions, and engagement signals to trigger timely actions.
Example: Retail brand identifies high-value browsers in the last 24h and sends a personalised mobile push with an offer.
2. Unified Profile for Agent-First Service
Service reps access a complete customer profile-commerce, service cases, usage, transcripts-for quicker resolution.
Example: Telecom agent views billing history, device usage, and recent chats to proactively offer an upgrade.
3. Sales-Driven Engagement Intelligence
Sales receives alerts when engagement drops or purchase intent rises, enabling proactive outreach.
Example: SaaS provider spots a decline in feature usage and initiates a renewal strategy call.
4. Cross-Channel Marketing Activation
Unified audiences activate across ad platforms, email, and SMS.
Example: Consumer brand syncs CRM purchases and web clickstream data to push lookalike audiences to Meta and Google.
5. Zero-Copy Data Access for External Systems
Use data directly from Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks without movement.
Example: Financial institution accesses live credit-score data for underwriting.
6. AI & Agentforce-Powered Prediction Systems
Unified data powers LLM agents, next-best actions, and AI automation.
Example: Insurance provider predicts renewal drop-off and triggers personalised recovery workflows.
Implementation Roadmap
| Phase | Focus | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Ingest CRM + one external source | Unified profile with identity resolution |
| Phase 2 | Data model + harmonisation | Standard entities, segmentation enabled |
| Phase 3 | Activation | Live segments, workflows, and AI signals |
| Phase 4 | Scale | Additional sources, AI models, governance maturity |
Challenges & Best Practices
- Data quality is foundational-start small and clean core fields.
- Change management matters-operators must trust the unified view.
- Avoid excessive customisation-use standard data models where possible.
- Governance is critical-especially when involving third-party or sensitive data sources.
Why Tirnav Solutions Recommends Data 360
With over 14 years of deep CRM delivery, we’ve seen how disconnected data slows teams and limits customer experience. Data 360 enables:
- Maximum value from existing Salesforce Clouds
- Fast unification without building a standalone data platform
- Business-driven activation via low-code tooling
- Rapid, measurable ROI through prioritised use-cases
If you manage multiple systems or high volumes of customer/transactional data-and need real-time intelligence-Data 360 is the right foundation.
Conclusion
In the era of AI and real-time expectations, connected and trusted data is your greatest strategic asset. Salesforce Data 360 delivers unified, actionable data that powers the entire enterprise. With the right roadmap, organisations can transform operations, personalise at scale, and build a truly agent-first enterprise.
Start your data-driven CRM journey today.
