Migrate from Cision to Salesforce Sales Cloud

Cision's journalist contact database maps to Salesforce Contact. Fields including beat assignment, outlet affiliation, title, email, phone, and social profiles migrate to Contact and custom Contact fields (beat__c, outlet_affiliation__c). The journalist's outlet assignment in Cision resolves to an AccountId lookup on Contact pointing to the mapped Media Outlet Account. Active media contacts with verified email addresses migrate as active Contacts; retired or unverified contacts are flagged for customer review before insert.

Cision's media outlet records map to Salesforce Account. Fields including outlet name, publication type (print/digital/broadcast), geography, website, and beat coverage migrate to Account Name, Industry (custom classification), BillingAddress, Website, and custom fields (beat_coverage__c, publication_type__c). The Account serves as the parent organization for journalist Contacts and is created before Contact import to satisfy the AccountId lookup requirement.

Press releases stored in Cision's PR Newswire subsystem map to Salesforce Campaign. Distribution tier (Basic/Standard/Advanced/Premium), recipient list size, open metrics, and click metrics migrate to Campaign fields (Type, BudgetCost, AmountAllOpportunities, and custom fields for distribution_tier__c and recipient_count__c). The wire distribution status and direct distribution URL do not have Salesforce equivalents and are documented as excluded fields.

Cision's curated media lists with contact membership and custom list metadata map to Salesforce Campaign Members. Each list membership row becomes a CampaignMember record with the ContactId resolved to the migrated Contact and the CampaignId resolved to the corresponding Campaign created from the PR release or campaign record. List-level attributes (list name, list type, subscription status) migrate to custom Campaign Member fields.

Monitored coverage records from CisionOne mention streams map to Salesforce Task. Article title, publication date, outlet name, tone/sentiment, reach estimate, and associated tags migrate to Task Subject, ActivityDate, custom fields (outlet_name__c, tone__c, reach_estimate__c, sentiment_score__c), and Description. Tag associations from Cision migrate as a comma-separated tag string in a custom Task field. Salesforce Task Description is limited to 32,768 characters; long article excerpts are truncated at this boundary and flagged in the reconciliation report.

Cision PR campaigns that group press releases, pitches, and coverage mentions into trackable units map to Salesforce Campaign. Campaign name, date range, status, and linked contact count migrate to Campaign Name, StartDate, EndDate, Status, and custom fields for campaign_type__c and linked_contact_count__c. Child press releases and coverage mentions link to this Campaign as related Campaign Members or Tasks.

Social monitoring data from Brandwatch integration (stored in a separate Cision subsystem) maps to Salesforce Task with a custom social_platform__c field indicating the source network (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram). Social post content, engagement metrics (shares, comments, likes), and trend chart references migrate to Task Description and custom numeric fields. Brandwatch-specific metadata that has no Salesforce equivalent is flagged in the mapping document.

Cision user accounts including name, email, role, and workspace assignments map to Salesforce User records. We resolve users by email match against the Salesforce destination org's User table. Cision workspace-based access controls map to Salesforce Permission Sets or Profiles depending on the granularity required. Any Cision user without a matching Salesforce User goes to a reconciliation queue for admin provisioning before record import.

Saved monitoring alert configurations and monitoring search parameters use Cision's proprietary schema and are not portable. We document the alert criteria (keywords, filters, date ranges, notification settings) during the discovery call and provide a written handoff specifying the recommended Salesforce equivalent (e.g., Salesforce Reports with scheduled notifications, or a custom Alert object). The saved widget layout for custom dashboards is documented as a manual rebuild task.

Saved dashboard configurations and scheduled report templates use Cision's proprietary widget schema and are not exportable in reusable format. The underlying report data (metrics, coverage charts) migrates as exported CSV records. We reproduce dashboard visualizations from the underlying data post-migration in Salesforce Reports and Dashboards, but the saved widget layout must be manually rebuilt by the customer's admin.

Pitch activity records that track outreach to journalists (pitch sent date, pitch response, follow-up status) map to Salesforce Task with custom fields for pitch_status__c and follow_up_required__c. Pitch content and subject line migrate to Task Subject and Description. The relationship to the target Contact journalist resolves via WhoId on the Task.

Media inquiries and Help A Reporter Out (HARO) requests received through Cision map to Salesforce Lead if the reporter is not yet an existing Contact. Fields including reporter name, outlet, deadline, and inquiry subject migrate to Lead fields (FirstName, LastName, Company, Description) and custom fields for outlet__c and deadline__c. If the reporter already exists as a Contact in Salesforce, the inquiry maps to a Task linked to the Contact instead.