First thing, before we dig into a time-tested CRM migration strategy — a huge congratulations to you and your team. The CRM or AMS selection process is usually a long, painfully detailed slog. That so much is riding on the choice only amplifies the pain of all those RFP reviews, right?
But now that you’ve made your selection, it’s time to tackle one of the most daunting parts of the implementation: your CRM migration. All your hard-won data and contact records, arguably one of the most valuable assets in your entire association, need to move over to your new system. You can’t get this part wrong, so let’s review a comprehensive CRM migration strategy that our team has trusted for hundreds of successful moves with a bare minimum of CRM downtime.
Building Consensus for the Effort
One of the biggest reasons CRM migrations ultimately fail has nothing to do with data mapping or the technical expertise of your vendor or association staff.
It’s a lack of consensus or real buy-in from your team on the importance of this move.
We’ve seen that it’s never too early to start hyping the benefits of your new CRM (or AMS) to the team members who will be using it for day-to-day operations. Use the selling points in this list to buy the energy and attention you’ll need from your crew to make your migration a success.
- Better Customer Service: Everything from faster response times to more personalized communications to improved support ticket experiences start with clean data in a new, modern CRM system.
- Efficiency That Eases Frustrations: Automating the gruntiest of the grunt work and giving your staff some of their precious attention back is also dependent on dependable data and records.
- Access to Exactly What You Need: So much has changed recently with report generation, business intelligence, and finding the best insights hiding in your data. AI and low-code/no-code tools can turn anyone on your team into a data analyst genius — if you mapped and migrated your old data well.
- Fastrack Your CRM ROI: Some of your team (especially whoever is in charge of your technology budget) will be very concerned about getting your money’s worth out of this huge investment. A solid CRM data migration effort puts you in the black much sooner.
- Using the Bells & Whistles: Many teams never get to the point that they can utilize the advanced (and really exciting) features of their AMS or CRM. Dirty data or a botched migration are frequently the culprits robbing your association of those possibilities.
- Next-Level Data Security: They aren’t paranoid — team members who lose sleep over data breaches or what a compromised CRM database means for your association’s PR and member retention are right. A successful migration isn’t just about getting all the right information moved over — it’s about doing that securely and ensuring the new system has the safeguards you need.
Your First Big Decision
If you’ve been through a new CRM implementation project, you get it. This will take months. Many hours from many people. It’s complicated and, again, oh-so critical.
You might be tempted to outsource your CRM data migration — and that might not be a bad choice! If you can afford it and find the right team to entrust this part of the process to, great.
What you’re most likely choosing between is burdening your in-house IT team with a huge project that will affect their capacities for months or working with your CRM provider’s team. In either case, you can use our template and tips below for a rock-solid CRM data migration plan to scaffold a successful project with your team or whoever you partner with.
The Heart of Your CRM Migration Strategy
Whoever does the work, your CRM migration should be following four distinct, essential phases for the data migration portion of the project. Let’s quickly name and explain what happens at each step.
Extraction
This is the initial phase that produces a copy of your original data in a format compatible with the transformation environment (which comes next). The critical success marker here is ensuring all the extracted data is valid and readable in the system that will perform subsequent transformations. Whether migrating from Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Access databases, or spreadsheet files, the extraction must deliver uncorrupted, functional source data.
Transform
Phase Two is the heaviest lifting in the most difficult part of your overall CRM migration strategy. Here, the migration team applies programmatic rules to arrange the extracted data into configurations suitable for your destination system. Transformation involves all this (and more):
- translating values and data types
- deduplicating records
- aggregating or deriving calculated values
- generating new identifiers
- splitting fields into multiple columns or tables
- transposing data between fields and rows
This step is where you turn up data that shouldn’t migrate—eliminating redundant, inconsistent, or unnecessary information.
Staging
A crucial intermediate step before the data migration is complete, the transformed data is now staged in staging tables—copies of data for destination tables after all transformations are finished. Staging verifies that transformed data fits the CRM architecture, maintains control separate from user testing changes, and preserves original identity references from source data, creating a reference path between source and destination systems for easier updates based on feedback.
Load
Finally, transformed data records are directly inserted into your new CRM where users can access and edit them. With loading, the data migration portion of your CRM migration strategy and project is complete.
Expectations and Mistakes Teams Overlook in Their CRM Migration Strategy
Even with the most comprehensive checklist and experienced team, CRM data migrations always present challenges that could derail your project timeline, inflate costs, or compromise data integrity. Let’s take a closer look at the hidden potential pitfalls before they occur. Accounting for these in your overall CRM migration strategy and scope of work will help you avoid some (very) painful obstacles.
Downtime During Your CRM Migration
Practically Unavoidable at Some Point
Let’s address the elephant in the room: some level of system downtime during your CRM migration is virtually inevitable. The final data conversion requires your team to upload the final data source, perform the conversion, conduct smoke testing, and execute business continuity steps—all of which necessitate taking your system offline temporarily. The question isn’t whether downtime will occur, but how long it will last and how significantly it will impact your operations.
How to Minimize Your CRM Downtime
The key to minimizing downtime lies in meticulous preparation and rehearsal. Executing mock business continuity steps in your user acceptance testing (UAT) environment confirms execution accuracy and allows you to make final adjustments before go-live. What else should include in your plan?
- Create a detailed task list for each person responsible for the go-live and ensure everyone understands their role in the process.
- Schedule your migration during off-peak hours or slower business periods when system unavailability will have the least impact.
- Communicate the timeline clearly to all stakeholders well in advance, so they can plan accordingly and set appropriate expectations with members or customers.
A Lack of Documentation
Don’t Risk Lost Data
Inadequate documentation is one of the most preventable—yet common—causes of migration failures. When data mappings, transformation rules, and business decisions aren’t properly documented, you risk losing critical institutional knowledge if team members change. It creates confusion about data origins, and then you’re unable to troubleshoot issues that arise post-migration.
Without proper documentation of which data is important and what it represents, bad assumptions that corrupt the data migration and implode the project are just around the corner.
What You Can Do About It
- Document everything from the outset.
- Include mapping and data transformation information reflecting decisions and plans for each relevant module.
- Maintain records of champion contact records used for auditing and testing purposes.
- Document all feedback received during review sessions and track how it was addressed.
- Create child cases under parent module cases to ensure feedback is properly tracked and nothing falls through the cracks.
This documentation becomes invaluable not only during the migration but also for long-term system maintenance and future enhancements. Even if your documentation has been woefully inadequate (or just missing) in the past, this project is a golden opportunity to draw a line in the sand and start implementing a better system.
Mis-identifying Critical Data
Don’t Overdo It
While it’s tempting to migrate every scrip and scrap of legacy data you have “just in case,” this approach leads to bloated systems, (much) higher CRM implementation costs, and decreased performance. Not all historical data serves a purpose in your new system, and migrating outdated or irrelevant information only creates clutter that your team must keep managing indefinitely.
Crucial Steps
Here’s a trusted, clear, systematic approach:
1. Data Mapping – Work directly and early with subject matter experts to discuss and understand the data source and determine what data is important and how it will fit into the new system. This collaborative mapping process ensures alignment between technical capabilities and your core association needs.
2. Data Documentation – As you identify critical data elements, document why each piece is essential. This creates accountability and provides a reference point if questions arise later about why certain data was (or wasn’t) migrated.
3. Data Cleanup – Before migration, cleanse your data by removing duplicates, correcting inconsistencies, and archiving outdated records. Clean data migrates more smoothly and performs better in your new system.
4. Prioritization – Not all data is equally important! Categorize your data into must-have, nice-to-have, and non-essential categories. Data corresponding to base functionality should be migrated first, with data corresponding to custom functionality and database architecture migrated later.
Navigating the Complex Relationships in Your CRM Data
Types of Complexities
Your AMS or CRM system should thrive on relationships—members linked to organizations, transactions tied to accounts, activities connected to opportunities. These interconnections create a web of dependencies that must be carefully preserved during migration.
Parent-child relationships, many-to-many associations, hierarchical structures, and cross-referenced data all require special handling. Transforming data often removes the identity references from the original source data to make it conform to the destination database structure, which is why staging tables that preserve original identity references are crucial.
Watch Out for Emails
One area deserves particular attention here: email histories. The email threads between your staff and members maintain complex threading relationships and attachments that can easily break during migration if not handled properly. The email side of your member engagement is typically some of your most actively used data. Any errors here will be immediately visible to users. Plan extra testing time for these complex data types and involve the teams that use them most heavily in validation.
Overspending for Data Storage
Only Move What Is Needed
Cloud-based CRM solutions typically charge based on data storage volume. That makes every unnecessary migrated record a recurring cost. Migrating decades of historical data that will never be accessed again isn’t just inefficient—it’s the kind of expensive that just keeps getting more expensive.
Before migration, establish clear retention policies: determine how many years of historical data you truly need in the active system, identify records that can be archived externally, and eliminate obsolete or duplicate entries.
Understand Data Storage Pricing Models
Different CRM platforms calculate storage costs differently. Some charge per gigabyte, others per record, and some use tiered pricing models. Understand your new platform’s pricing structure before migration, and calculate projected costs based on the data volume you plan to move.
Factor in not just current data but also growth projections—will you still be cost-effective in two or three years? Sometimes it makes financial sense to migrate a smaller dataset initially and maintain older records in a separate archive with occasional access rather than paying to store everything in your active CRM indefinitely.
Compliance and Security Risks
Keep Data Security Top of Mind
Data security cannot be an afterthought in your migration planning. Ensuring data security and compliance with regulatory requirements is a critical consideration throughout the data migration process. Your migration checklist should include measures for safeguarding sensitive information and ensuring adherence to relevant regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA.
When selecting a migration partner, verify their security protocols, data handling procedures, and compliance certifications. For organizations requiring the highest level of data protection, platforms like Momentive offer enterprise-grade security features specifically designed to protect sensitive information during transitions and in ongoing operations.
Working with Sensitive Member Data and PII
Association CRM systems contain particularly sensitive information: member demographics, payment details, certification records, and personal contact information. This personally identifiable information (PII) requires special handling throughout the migration process.
- Implement encryption protocols during data transfer.
- Restrict access to migration data to only essential personnel.
- Conduct security audits at each phase of migration.
- Maintain detailed logs of who accessed what data and when.
Don’t forget that data breach notification laws may apply even during migration, so ensure your incident response procedures account for this transitional period.
Selecting the Right Migration Path for Your Organization
Choosing the right approach for your CRM migration significantly impacts your project’s success, timeline, and budget. Understanding your options helps you make an informed decision aligned with your organization’s resources and needs.
Way up at the top of this comprehensive CRM migration strategy guide, we said the first big decision your team would face is whether to outsource this project or not. Let’s return to that now and look at the four primary options you have to choose between.
1. Partnering with Your Provider
The largest CRM providers (Salesforce and Microsoft) offer migration services through their professional services programs. Microsoft’s FastTrack Migration Program provides a turnkey cloud migration option for larger customers requiring more than $100,000 annually in Dynamics 365 licenses. While these programs offer powerful benefits, the high minimum spend requirements eliminate many organizations from eligibility.
2. Lean on Your CRM Partner or Managed Services Partner
If you already have a CRM partner or managed services provider offering great ongoing support with migration experience, this can be an excellent option. However, exercise caution: partners without substantial migration expertise may charge you for their learning curve. Ask prospective partners how many successful migrations they’ve completed. Anything less than 50 projects means they’re still climbing the learning curve, and you’re going to pay for it.
3. DIY Migrations
Many organizations initially consider handling migrations in-house. With a seasoned IT team, proper planning, documentation, and staff support, DIY CRM migrations offer advantages. The big things to weigh are staff resource costs and potential productivity losses from extended downtime against hiring experienced partners.
4. Partner with a CRM Migration Team
This option is often ideal for organizations with medium-to-large databases, falling between having no migration budget and affording enterprise-level moves. Specialized migration teams bring refined processes, proven tools, and fixed-cost pricing that eliminates guesswork. Their deep expertise typically results in faster timelines, close to zero downtime, and fewer complications than less experienced alternatives.
CRM Migration FAQs
Here are some of the issues and challenges we hear most often from associations as they’re trying to build a solid CRM migration strategy. Some of these are things we’ve already touched on above, but you’ll find a little more below to consider as you’re planning.
How long does a CRM migration typically take?
The duration of a CRM migration project can vary depending on factors such as the complexity of your current CRM system, the volume of data to be migrated, and the chosen migration approach. Generally, a straightforward migration may take several weeks to a few months, while more complex migrations could extend the timeline.
For your planning purposes, we think the ideal window to start planning the migration is nine to twelve months before your current CRM contract renewal. The actual migration work itself—including data mapping, transformation, and loading—typically happens in a more condensed timeframe of a few weeks, but the overall project timeline accounts for planning, testing, training, and go-live activities.
What are the potential risks of CRM migration?
Every CRM migration entails certain risks, including data loss or corruption, extended downtime during the migration process, and unforeseen complications arising from complex data relationships. For associations, additional risks include losing critical member history, disrupting ongoing membership campaigns or renewals, and impacting member-facing services during the transition.
Partnering with experienced migration specialists and thorough planning can mitigate these risks effectively. The key is anticipating these challenges and building contingency plans into your migration strategy from the start.
Will we experience downtime during the migration?
In-house IT teams or CRM vendors without extensive data migration experience likely won’t be able to move everything to your new CRM seamlessly, meaning you’ll need to plan for downtime that freezes out your CRM users.
If your data structure is fairly straightforward and things go very smoothly for your IT team, it’s not unreasonable to expect anywhere from two to five days of downtime.
However, experienced migration partners can often achieve migrations with nearly zero downtime for your users.
To minimize disruption: take your time in the data mapping stage, migrate and test data in your UAT environment before go-live, conduct smoke tests, and consider a phased approach where you migrate historical data ahead of your cutover.
How do I ensure data security during the migration process?
Data security around sensitive member data and personally identifiable information (PII) is especially critical. Implementing encryption protocols, restricting access to sensitive information, and utilizing secure migration tools are essential measures to safeguard data integrity. Additionally, conducting regular audits and compliance checks can help maintain robust data security practices. Ensure both your old and new CRM systems comply with relevant regulations like GDPR or HIPAA. When in doubt, your migration partner should be equipped to help you plan for and respond to any security issues that arise.
What member data should we migrate to our new system?
This is a huge question with a complicated answer (for every association). What you decide will probably be the biggest deciding factor in the overall cost of your new AMS or CRM implementation.
Before embarking on a CRM migration journey, it’s essential to conduct a thorough assessment of your data to determine what truly needs to be migrated. Essential member data includes basic details like names, contact information, demographics, membership types and levels, join dates, and engagement data such as event registrations, newsletter sign-ups, website visits, and social media interactions.
That said, not all data is created equal. Prioritize the migration of essential data that directly impacts your business operations and member interactions. Consider how much historical data you really need—the default for most organizations is to bring everything “just in case,” but this leads to inflated storage costs and performance issues.
How much does data migration cost, and how can we control expenses?
When it comes to avoiding a big online storage cost bill from your CRM, there’s a critical conversation to have before the project is even in motion: How much of your data do you really need to move? Migration costs vary widely based on data volume, complexity, and whether you handle it in-house or with a partner.
Migration costs are tied to data volume, and in many cases, migration costs can exceed the cost of the CRM itself due to additional data storage in cloud-based systems. With an on-premises CRM solution, PDFs or image files that aren’t optimized for digital presentations are relatively cheap to house, but these are the kinds of assets that can quickly spike your online CRM storage costs each month. Smart data decisions before migration save money over the long haul.
Do we need to clean our data before migration?
Absolutely. Take this opportunity to clean up your data by identifying and eliminating duplicate records, outdated information, or irrelevant data. Cleaning your data before migration can streamline the process and improve the quality of your data in the new CRM system.
Data cleanup involves deduplication, standardizing formats, removing obsolete records, and validating data accuracy. Think of this migration as your chance to finally tackle those data hygiene tasks that have been on your organization’s to-do list for years. Clean data migrates more smoothly and sets you up for long-term success in your new system.
Is it possible to migrate customizations and configurations to the new CRM system?
Yes, it’s possible to migrate customizations and configurations from your existing CRM to the new system. However, this is often one of the trickier aspects of migration. Thorough documentation of customizations and meticulous planning are crucial to ensure a seamless transition.
Working with migration experts who specialize in preserving custom settings can streamline this process. For associations with heavily customized workflows, membership tiers, or reporting structures, investing time upfront to document these customizations pays dividends during the migration. Not all customizations may transfer directly—some may need to be rebuilt or reconfigured in the new system.
What level of training is required for end-users post-migration?
End-user training is essential to facilitate a smooth transition to the new CRM system. It’s also a huge part of shoring up the buy-in from your team early on so they actually use the CRM or AMS you just spent all that money on.
Training programs should cover basic navigation, data entry procedures, and utilization of key features relevant to each user’s role. Providing ongoing support and resources post-migration can further enhance user adoption and proficiency.
Your association should consider role-specific training: membership staff need to understand member management workflows, event coordinators need event registration tools, and finance teams need billing and payment processing features. Compile key processes and workflows into knowledge-base articles with screenshots for easy reference, and develop quick-start guides.
What roles do we need on our migration team?
You should assign at least these three key roles: a Project Manager who serves as the primary contact and liaison, a Technical Lead who understands how data functions and has knowledge of both the previous and new systems, and a Community Lead who understands how your membership functions.
Assemble a cross-functional team representing IT, operations, marketing, and end-users to ensure a holistic approach. Your association subject matter experts have to be involved—your membership staff knows your membership data, your accounting staff knows your accounting data, and your certification staff knows your certification data.
External partners can provide technical expertise, but they don’t know your data like you do.
Can we migrate data ourselves, or should we hire experts?
Many organizations at least initially plan to tackle the migration to their new CRM as an in-house project, and with a seasoned, confident IT team, the right plan, documentation, and support from your other staff, there can be a lot of advantages for the DIY option.
However, the cost in staff resources and lost productivity from downtime during migrations could be more than hiring the right partner. The question to ask: does your team have experience with CRM migrations specifically?
If your prospective CRM migration partner comes back with anything less than 50 (successful!) migration projects, they are still on the long uphill learning curve—and you’ll end up paying for it. Many associations find the optimal approach combines internal subject matter expertise with external technical migration specialists.
How do we handle complex data relationships like member hierarchies and organizational memberships?
AMS and CRM solutions are wildly complex, and there are some extremely complex relationships when you look closer. If you do not have experience handling this complexity, it will be frustrating, and the real pitfall lurking ahead for your team is another possibility of lost data.
Pay particular attention to emails and other activities—mapping the to, from, cc/bcc, and regarding relationships can be overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with the structure. For associations with organizational memberships where multiple individuals belong to a single company account, or chapter structures with hierarchical relationships, these complexities multiply. Consult with migration experts who understand these data architectures to avoid costly mistakes.
What happens if we’re running a membership renewal campaign during migration?
The key is ensuring the CRM migration doesn’t interfere with ongoing campaigns by using a bridge data approach—conduct a second migration phase to account for any new contacts or donations acquired during the campaign. Migrate the majority of historical data upfront and leave room to add new data after the campaign wraps up.
Here, the timing is critical. Avoid scheduling your go-live during peak renewal periods, major events, or other high-activity times when your staff needs uninterrupted access to member data. Build your migration timeline around your association’s calendar to minimize business disruption.
How can I measure the success of a CRM migration project?
Measuring the success of a CRM migration project involves assessing various factors, including data accuracy, system performance, user satisfaction, and alignment with organizational goals. Conducting post-implementation reviews, gathering feedback from stakeholders, and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) can help evaluate the project’s effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.
Your success metrics will probably include: member data completeness and accuracy, staff adoption rates, time saved on administrative tasks, member satisfaction with self-service portals, and whether you can run all the reports and workflows you need. Success ultimately means your team can resume normal operations without data-related disruptions.
What should I consider when selecting a CRM migration partner?
When choosing a CRM migration partner, consider factors such as their experience with CRM migration projects, expertise in your specific CRM platform, track record of successful migrations, and commitment to client support.
Requesting references, reviewing case studies, and conducting thorough evaluations can help ensure you select a reliable and competent partner for your migration needs.
Ask these critical questions:
- How many successful migrations have they completed? (Listen for 50+ projects.)
- What’s their migration process? (It should be well-documented, transparent, and effective.)
- How do they handle downtime?
- What’s included in their pricing? Be wary of lowball offers or quotes with ranges wider than $100,000—these are red flags indicating hidden costs or uncertainty about project scope.
Can I migrate data from multiple sources into a single CRM system?
Yes, it’s possible to consolidate data from multiple sources into a single CRM system through comprehensive data integration and migration strategies. Many associations have data scattered across multiple systems—a membership database, a separate event registration platform, email marketing tools, and financial software.
However, this process requires careful planning, data mapping, and validation to ensure data accuracy and consistency across sources. Engaging experienced migration specialists can simplify the integration process and minimize potential challenges. The benefit is enormous: finally having all your member data in one centralized system where you can see the complete member journey!
Conclusion
We know there’s an overwhelming amount of information and things to consider in this CRM migration strategy post. But now you have a comprehensive look at the pitfalls and opportunities that await your team in this project.
You’re looking at some of our most trusted recommendations and the kinds of insights you can only discover after hundreds and hundreds of successful CRM data migrations.
The team at Momentive is always ready to connect for a quick consultation call to see if our CRM and AMS migration experts are a good fit for what your association needs next.
