The CRM Migration Checklist
35 checks across six phases — audit, mapping, automation rebuild, testing, cutover and the first 30 days. Tick items off as you go; your progress saves in this browser.
Audit what you actually have
Before exporting a single record, inventory what exists and decide what deserves to make the trip. Most CRMs carry a decade of clutter nobody wants to pay to move.
Pull every contact, company and custom field to CSV. Note the record counts now — you will compare them after import to prove nothing vanished.
Screenshot each pipeline and record stage names, order and probabilities. Open deals are the highest-risk data in any migration.
Name, trigger, actions, and whether anyone would notice if it stopped. Anything nobody can justify goes on the do-not-rebuild list.
Ads platforms, accounting, scheduling, forms, phone system. Note which direction data moves and who owns the credentials.
Any URL printed on a card, embedded on your site or sitting in an email signature needs a redirect plan before cutover.
Remove departed staff, decide who gets admin in the new system, and identify one owner accountable for the migration.
Map fields before you export
Field mapping is where migrations quietly break. Decide the destination for every field before data moves, and write it down so the import is reproducible.
One row per source field: source name, destination field, data type, transformation rule. This document is the migration.
Deduplicate in the old system where the history lives. Importing duplicates doubles the cleanup work later.
If a field is empty on most records and unused in reporting or automation, leave it behind. Archive the raw export as insurance.
Collapse near-duplicate tags into a naming convention now. Tag sprawl is what makes segmentation useless two years later.
Owner assignment and original creation date drive reporting and follow-up. Confirm both are included in the import mapping.
Unsubscribes, SMS opt-outs and DNC flags must transfer. Emailing an opted-out contact after a migration is a compliance problem, not a mistake.
Rebuild automations, do not copy them
A migration is the best chance you will get to delete workflows that exist only because someone built them years ago. Rebuild what drives revenue.
Instant reply, qualification, booking link. If only one automation ships on day one, make it this one.
Match stage names to how the team actually talks so adoption does not require translation.
Reconnect calendars, confirm time zones, and test the reschedule path end to end.
Keep the sequences with measurable booking rates. Retire the ones nobody can attribute revenue to.
Define who gets what, and what happens when nobody responds within the escalation window.
Speed to lead, booked appointments, pipeline value by stage, close rate by source. Three or four numbers, not thirty.
Test with real data
Import a sample set and run every path a customer could take before you touch production volume.
Spot-check ten records against the source system. Fix mapping errors here, where the cleanup is cheap.
Each form should create the right record, fire the right automation and notify the right person.
Confirm availability rules, buffers, time zones, reminders and the two-way calendar sync.
Walk a test deal through the full pipeline and watch what fires at every stage.
Run a real low-value transaction if possible, then confirm it appears correctly in accounting.
Authenticate your domain, register for A2P messaging, and send test sends to multiple providers before volume.
Cut over deliberately
Pick a date, run in parallel briefly, and make the switch boring for everyone who is not running it.
Mid-week mornings work best. Avoid month-end, promotions and anything your team is already stressed about.
New leads go to the new system, existing deals close where they started. Keep the window short or the team splits its attention.
Update the website, ad platforms, email signatures and Google Business Profile the same day.
Pull the delta of anything created since the first export, import it, then set the old system to read-only.
Where leads land, how to log a call, how to move a deal, who to ask. One page beats an hour-long recording.
Keep the raw CSVs and a copy of the field mapping sheet for at least a year after you cancel the old subscription.
The first 30 days after go-live
Migrations fail after launch, not during it. These checks catch the quiet breakages before they cost pipeline.
Contacts, companies, open deals. Any variance gets explained, not rounded away.
Median and 90th percentile first-response time by source. This is the number that proves the migration worked.
Filter for contacts with no owner, no source and no activity. Fix the intake path that created them.
Every workaround someone invents is a configuration gap. Fix them while attention is high.
Only after counts match, automations run and the archive is stored somewhere the business controls.
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