Preparing for a Migration to Salesforce

Making the Choice to Switch CRMs 

If you’re looking into making the switch to Salesforce or have already decided to make it your CRM of choice, there are additional steps before you’ll be ready to use a Salesforce account that’s up and running after migrating your data. The migration from another CRM (or conglomerate of data sources) can take a significant amount of time and resources, so the more prepared you are, the more successful your outcome will be. Even Salesforce itself understands that a migration to its platform isn’t the easiest endeavor.

Being Prepared: The Planning Process 

Once you’ve decided to move forward with migrating to Salesforce, there are several immediate questions that need answers: 

1. Will this be handled internally or by outside consultants?
2. What are the pain points for your current CRM and how will Salesforce solve them?
3. Have you set up a hypothetical timeline for the complete migration process?
4. What information outside of your current CRM will also need to be imported into Salesforce?
   • Outlook contacts
   • Internal databases
   • Accounting Systems 

It’s important to note that just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should import all available data. That’s why it’s included early on in the planning process: So you don’t take the time and resources to migrate data that isn’t necessarily or valuable on the Salesforce platform. 

Whether you have a team internally handling the migration or you are working with outside consultants, you’ll want to work with them to answer those questions. It’s important to be realistic about the timeline for the migration, especially if you are a large company with many users and records that will need to be moved. If you have data being migrated from other sources, that will also take additional time to process and migrate. 

Next Steps: Readying Your Data 

Your internal team or outside consultants should go over this information with you as you begin to plan your migration process, but it’s good to know what you’ll be expected to know ahead of time. You may be asked about: 

• User mapping: how to match new records and ownership in Salesforce to the old ones. You will be asked about required versus optional data fields in your current CRM that will need to be migrated over to Salesforce.
• Will the same levels of security need to be set up in the new Salesforce system? Will additional measures need to be updated? 
• Have you organized your current data system while eliminating any duplicate data? 

Questions You Should Ask While Preparing 

The team helping you plan and execute your data migration not only will have questions for you, but you should also have questions for them, if these specific pieces of information haven’t already been explained: 

• Is the new Salesforce account set up to accurately host all the new information that will be entered? Does your account need to be upgraded based on the number of records and/or expected users? 
• Is there a plan for a test migration before porting over the complete database? 
• Is there a backup protocol set up before initiating the migration process? 
• Has a training series been planned for users so that they will know how to use Salesforce on a day-to-day basis? 

You’re on Your Way 

Now that you have the information you need to get started and a team to execute your data migration to Salesforce, you’re ready to begin the process of data-prepping and migrating to your new CRM platform. If you’re looking for an outside team to help you with your migration, train your users how to use Salesforce, or maintain your system after the migration is complete, contact Oceanforce today for a consultation to learn more.