How long does a CRM migration take?
Plan on four to twelve weeks for a focused migration. Small teams with clean data and a handful of integrations can finish in four to six weeks. Mid-market programs with multiple business units, custom objects, and ten or more integrations land in eight to twelve weeks. Enterprise migrations with heavy process redesign stretch past six months. The schedule is driven less by record count and more by decisions: which records to bring, which fields to retire, and who signs off on the final mapping.
See the full timeline breakdown →
What data should we migrate to the new CRM?
The short list most teams land on: active accounts, their contacts, open opportunities, and closed-won deals from the last two to three years. That gives reps the pipeline they need and finance the revenue history they rely on. Activities, emails, and tasks are usually left behind because the volume is huge, the value decays fast, and the import rarely preserves threading. Attachments and notes travel with the parent record when they matter. Everything else goes into an archive the team can query but will not clutter the new tool.
Read the scoping checklist →
How does CRM data mapping work?
Mapping is the exercise of pairing every source field with a destination field, then deciding what happens to the ones that do not match. Start by exporting the source schema and the destination schema side by side. Mark each field keep, retire, or merge. For picklists, build a translation table so legacy values roll up to the new set. Document every rule in a single mapping sheet that the migration team and the business owner both sign. The spreadsheet is the source of truth, not the exporter settings.
See the mapping playbook →
How do we handle duplicate records during migration?
Dedupe before the import, not after. Run match rules on accounts first using normalized domain plus normalized name, then merge contacts under the surviving account using email plus phone as the composite key. Keep the oldest record ID so reports stay intact, and move the orphaned activities to the survivor. Run the pass twice: once on a sandbox for review, once on the final export. A dedupe pass after cutover costs ten times as much because reps have already touched the records.
What happens to custom fields and custom objects?
Custom fields are an audit opportunity. Pull a usage report from the source and sort by last-written date and fill rate. Any field below ten percent fill or untouched for a year is a candidate to retire. Custom objects usually survive the move but should be re-evaluated against the destination platforms built-in objects, since many legacy customizations exist only because the old tool lacked a native feature. Strkr AI can scan the source schema and flag low-value fields so the business owner is reviewing a short list, not a wall.
Read the custom field audit guide →
How do CRM integrations survive a migration?
Treat every integration as its own mini-project. Inventory the connected systems, note which direction data flows, and confirm whether the destination has a native connector or needs middleware. Rebuild in the new tool, run both pipelines in parallel for a week, and reconcile row counts before cutting the old integration. Email, calendar, and marketing automation are the usual suspects for breakage. Billing, support, and data warehouse connections hurt more if they slip because finance and leadership see the gap first.
See the integration cutover checklist →
What is the rollback plan if the migration fails?
Keep the source CRM in read-only mode for at least thirty days after cutover and freeze its license count instead of cancelling. Snapshot the final source export and store it with the mapping sheet so a reload is possible. Define a rollback trigger up front, usually a critical data integrity gap or a show-stopping outage, and name the person who makes the call. Reps keep the old login as a reference, not as a working tool. Most teams never need to roll back, but the option keeps the project calm.
How do we manage change for the team?
Pick a cutover date that avoids quarter-end and run training in the two weeks before, not the week of. Record every session and keep a searchable playbook inside the new CRM. Nominate a power user on each team who can answer questions in channel. Shrink required fields on day one so adoption does not stall on form friction. Measure logged activity per rep for the first ninety days and coach the outliers directly. A clean migration still fails if nobody opens the tool on Monday.
Read the adoption playbook →
How much does a CRM migration cost?
Budget in three buckets. Internal time is the biggest line and the one most teams undercount: a RevOps lead, a sales leader, a finance partner, and part-time help from marketing and support across six to twelve weeks. Consulting or an implementation partner handles mapping, scripting, and testing when internal capacity is thin. Platform fees include the destination licenses, any ETL or middleware, and a dual-run month on the source. Price the project across all three before signing, since license cost alone understates the real spend.
See the full cost breakdown →
When should we not migrate CRMs?
Skip the migration when the pain is process, not platform. If reps are not logging activity, forecasts are off because stages are not enforced, or reports are missing because nobody owns the data model, a new CRM will carry the same problems into a new interface. Also pause if the team is mid-reorg, in the final quarter of the fiscal year, or still rolling out a major pricing or product change. Fix the process on the current tool first, then revisit the switch when the business is steady.
Read the no-migrate checklist →
