CRM migration checklist: move useful records and keep follow-up clear

Decide what needs to move and why

Start with the work the new CRM must support. List the active enquiries, customers, deals and communication history needed for that work. Do not assume every old field, duplicate record or abandoned pipeline should be recreated.

Choose a migration owner who can resolve business questions: which status is current, who owns an enquiry and which information is still useful. A technically successful import can still leave the team with confusing or misleading records.

• List source systems and the records they own.
• Separate active work from archives and records that should not move.
• Confirm what can be exported, who can access it and any missing history.
• Agree where new enquiries go while migration work is in progress.

Map meanings, formats and communication preferences

Create a field map with the source field, destination field, format and any transformation. A status called new in one system might mean uncontacted, unqualified or newly imported in another. Decide the meaning before mapping it to a live sales stage.

Preserve relevant unsubscribe, do-not-contact and channel preferences. An imported email address is not, by itself, permission to begin a marketing sequence. Check the applicable requirements and the evidence your business needs before enabling follow-up.

Agree duplicate and relationship rules

A business, a person and an opportunity are different records. Decide which identifiers are reliable for matching them. Shared phone numbers and inboxes can make a simple match-by-email rule unsafe for some businesses.

Write down what happens when a match exists, information conflicts or one person represents several customers. Decide which fields may update and which should be reviewed. Keep a sample of the cases that would otherwise overwrite useful information.

Run a small trial and reconcile the result

Use an authorised test environment or an agreed isolated sample. Include the difficult cases, not only clean records: missing values, shared contact details, different date formats, restricted communication and existing relationships.

Compare source counts with imported, rejected, skipped and merged records. Check meaningful field values and relationships in the destination. A total count alone cannot show whether the right people, stages and owners were preserved.

Control follow-up and the cutover window

Before importing, understand which actions could send messages, create tasks or change sales stages. Agree how imported history is distinguished from a genuinely new enquiry. Do not start live communication merely because a contact was created during migration.

For cutover, set a time and owner, keep a usable export or recovery plan and account for records that changed after the trial. Tell the team which system is now the source of truth. If you run two systems temporarily, define how conflicting edits will be resolved.

A rollback plan should say who decides to use it and what happens to records created after launch. Do not switch off the old system simply because the first import completed.

Make the handover about daily work

Walk through receiving an enquiry, assigning its next action, updating the opportunity and recording the result. Confirm that reporting uses the agreed definitions for enquiries, qualified leads and wins. Keep test and historical imported records out of new-acquisition totals.

YungsEnterprises scopes CRM and automation around the work your team needs to complete. Migration feasibility depends on source exports, account access, supported destination fields and the records involved. The written proposal should identify migration, testing and handover work rather than treating them as automatic inclusions.

• Field map and duplicate rules approved by the migration owner.
• Trial results reconciled, including rejected and matched records.
• Communication preferences and active enquiry owners checked.
• Forms, calendars and relevant workflows verified separately.
• Cutover, recovery, team training and unresolved issues recorded.

Further reading

• ACMA: consent and unsubscribe requirements (opens in a new tab)

Related reading

• Website enquiry follow-up workflow →
• Measure received enquiries and outcomes →
• CRM & AI service →

Turn the questions into a clear scope

Tell us what your business needs. We will discuss the feasible approach and confirm scope and pricing in writing.