Moving a CRM is less about the export file and more about the organization behind it. This guide walks you through a repeatable migration playbook used to move revenue teams off Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive into Strkr with validated data, trained users, and zero deal slippage. Follow the steps in order and you will replace your source CRM on a predictable schedule.
Time: 2-6 weeks depending on scale
Before you export anything, inventory what actually exists in your source CRM. Pull record counts for every standard and custom object, list the reports and dashboards sales leadership relies on, and identify which fields are populated versus abandoned. Most migrations fail because teams move everything instead of what matters. Decide what is active, what is archive, and what is dead weight. Capture the ten reports leadership checks weekly so you can rebuild them in Strkr on day one.
With the audit in hand, map your source model to Strkr's object model. Strkr has Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Activities, Products, and extensible custom fields. Decide which source entities map one-to-one, which collapse into a single Strkr object, and which become custom fields. Resist the urge to replicate every quirk of your old system. A migration is the one time you get to simplify without permission.
Create a spreadsheet that maps every source field to its Strkr destination, one row per field. Columns: source object, source field, source type, Strkr object, Strkr field, Strkr type, transformation rule, and notes. This document becomes the single source of truth for everyone touching the migration, including engineers writing transforms and QA validating results. If a stakeholder cannot find their field in the mapping doc, it does not get migrated. Enforce that rule.
Never test a migration in production. Spin up a Strkr sandbox tenant, run the full import against it, and let your sales ops team work in that sandbox for several days. The dry run surfaces broken transformations, picklist mismatches, missing owner records, and permission gaps that would otherwise appear during cutover. Treat the dry run like a real launch: load every object, run every integration, open every dashboard, and have a rep try to log a call.
After each dry run, reconcile counts and audit samples. Record counts should match within tolerance for every object: Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Activities. Then randomly pull 20 records per object and compare field-by-field against the source. Pay extra attention to currency, dates, relationships, and multi-select picklists, which are where most silent corruption hides. Reconciliation is boring and non-negotiable.
A week before cutover, send the comms you drafted in prerequisites. Reps need to know when the source CRM goes read-only, when Strkr opens, who to call for help, and what deals-in-flight to pause on. Managers need to know how pipeline reports change during the window. Integrated systems need to know which endpoints will swap. Over-communicate. A migration that is technically clean but surprises the sales team is not a successful migration.
Execute the final import using the exact same scripts and mapping that passed the dry run. Do not change anything between dry run and production migration. Load the data in dependency order (Accounts first, then Contacts and Leads, then Opportunities, then Activities), verify each object completes cleanly before loading the next, and keep the source CRM read-only until Strkr is fully loaded and validated. Have your admins, sales ops, and one engineer available throughout the window.
With data in Strkr, run the full reconciliation one more time. Compare counts, open the top 10 reports, and have reps log into Strkr and complete real work. Then shift into training mode. Even if Strkr is intuitive, migration is the moment to retrain the team on the new workflow, picklist values, and reports. Schedule a short live training session, record it, publish a cheat sheet in your internal wiki, and keep office hours open for the first two weeks.
Keep the source CRM read-only for 60-90 days after cutover as a reference archive. During that window, resolve any gaps, pull historical data as needed, and let integrations fully transition. Once the review window closes with no unresolved issues, downgrade or cancel the source CRM contract, revoke access, and archive a final export of the source data in cold storage. Document what you kept, what you archived, and where it lives.
Expect 2-6 weeks for most teams. A small team with clean data and few integrations can finish in two weeks. A mid-market team with 50 reps, custom fields, and three integrations lands closer to four weeks. Enterprise migrations with multi-geo, custom objects, and SOX controls run six weeks or longer. Most of the time is spent on data audit, field mapping, and dry runs, not the actual import.
Yes, but merge them during the audit and mapping phases, not during import. Pick one as the primary source of truth per object (for example, HubSpot for contacts, Salesforce for opportunities) and treat the others as enrichment. Document the merge rules in your field mapping sheet so conflicts resolve the same way every time.
Skip inactive user records, abandoned custom fields with under 20% fill rate, converted leads older than two years, closed-lost opportunities older than three years with no revenue signal, and activities tied to deleted records. Archive these in a cold-storage export instead. Migrating only active, useful data gives your team a clean workspace on day one.
Pick a cutover window during a slow period, freeze the source CRM to read-only during the window, and publish a staffed hotline for reps. Reps hold any in-flight deal updates until Strkr opens, then log them fresh. Managers run pipeline reviews from the source CRM read-only until the Strkr reconciliation sign-off completes, usually within 48 hours.
Every integration owner needs lead time to swap endpoints, API keys, and webhook URLs. Add them to your communication plan early. Strkr supports native integrations with common billing, support, and marketing platforms, and provides a webhook and API layer for custom integrations. Test every integration in your Strkr sandbox before cutover so the production swap is a configuration change, not a code change.
Not on cutover day. Keep the source CRM read-only for 60-90 days as an archive while your team adopts Strkr and you resolve edge cases. After the review window closes with no unresolved issues, pull a final export, store it in cold storage, revoke user access, and downgrade or cancel the contract. The small cost of overlap is cheap insurance against needing data you cannot reach.
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