Import Notes into Salesforce

In Salesforce Lightning Experience, notes are stored as ContentNote objects rather than classic Note objects. This difference affects how you structure CSV files and how many import tasks you run in Dataloader from MuleSoft.

Salesforce provides two note-related objects:

The classic Note object.
ContentNote (Enhanced Notes), which supports rich text. See the ContentNote object reference.

In Lightning Experience, new notes you create in Salesforce typically use ContentNote. Older notes can appear differently in the UI.

ContentNote links to other records differently than classic Notes. Instead of a single Parent ID field, the relationship uses ContentDocumentLink. This means importing notes requires two separate tasks: one to create the ContentNote records, and one to link them to parent records. See the ContentDocumentLink object reference.

Create an import task for the ContentNote object.
Map the required fields (Content is the note body; there is no Parent ID on ContentNote itself) and run the task.

After ContentNote rows exist, link them with a second import on ContentDocumentLink:

Create an import task for ContentDocumentLink.
Include at least these columns in your CSV file:
- Linked Entity ID: Parent record ID (for example, Account ID).
- ContentDocument ID: ID of the note from the first task.
- ShareType: Permission value V, C, or I (see the ContentDocumentLink object reference).

When the second task finishes, Dataloader links the notes to the parent records.

To save steps, build your first CSV file with all ContentNote fields plus parent ID and ShareType as extra columns. Don’t map the parent ID and ShareType columns in the ContentNote task.

After the first task completes, download the success file and use it as input for ContentDocumentLink. The success file includes ContentDocumentId, which you need for the link task.