Free planning guide
Five decisions
before a CRM migration.
Imports are mechanical. Readiness is deciding what should move, how it should be interpreted and what evidence will be enough to proceed.
USE THIS WHEN
You have chosen, or are close to choosing, a new CRM or implementation partner. It helps turn a vague “move our data” request into a handoff that can be quoted, reviewed and tested. It does not replace your security review, legal advice, implementation plan or final sign-off.
- 01 / SCOPE
List the source systems and the object that matters first.
Start with one practical lane: contacts, companies or another single record type. Record where it lives, who owns it, approximate rows, date range and whether the source export is actually available. “Everything in the old CRM” is not a delivery scope.
Ready when: you can name the source, target, one object, row range and decision date in one paragraph.
- 02 / MEANING
Make field meanings explicit before mapping them.
Two labels that look equivalent can mean different things. Define the current purpose of each important field, allowed values, date format, currency, required status and owner. Flag fields that have no target home instead of forcing an assumption.
Ready when: every priority source field is marked map, transform, archive, exclude or unresolved.
- 03 / EXCEPTIONS
Choose the duplicate and missing-data rules.
Decide which identifier is authoritative, what counts as a likely duplicate and what happens when a required field is empty or malformed. Keep an exception log; do not invent values to make a file importable.
Ready when: an implementation owner can apply the same rule to the next ambiguous record without guessing.
- 04 / TEST
Write acceptance checks before the first import.
Agree what must be reconciled: source totals, target totals, record samples, mandatory fields, relationships and exclusions. Separate checks that can be automated from decisions that need business approval.
Ready when: the team can say what evidence would stop, pause or approve the next migration step.
- 05 / OWNERSHIP
Name who can decide, approve and sign off.
One person may own the source export, another the target configuration and another the business definition. Record those roles and the escalation path. A migration stalls when every exception has an owner in theory but no decision-maker in practice.
Ready when: each unresolved issue has an accountable decision owner and a date.
WHEN THE CHECKLIST EXPOSES GAPS
Turn open questions
into a review pack.
TraceLead Ops offers a file-based Migration Readiness Sprint for one simple object and up to 10,000 combined rows. It produces a mapping workbook, issue log and decision-ready handoff before any production change.
See the $900 sprint File-based only · no credentials or customer records in the first message.