When migrating from your current CRM system to Merchant Central, there are several steps to take beforehand that will help make the migration smooth.
Ask yourself the following questions that tune your focus on the successful Merchant Central data migration:
- Did I export all the files necessary, such as for leads, accounts, notes, contact, and ticket?
- Are duplicates and unnecessary items removed?
- Are the columns (fields) named the same as in Merchant Central?
- Do the values match the field type? E.g. if it's a drop-down field in Merchant Central, the file must have the same spelling for all options.
- Are the records complete? They may need manual updating.
- Is there a column for who to assign to the lead/account? It must have their username, not their full name.
When it comes to cleaning your lead/merchant data, a great place to start is by ensuring that all of your company names are unique.
If they're not, a unique ID should be added to each row so that the duplicate check in the import does not see them as the same business.
- Contacts should have a lead ID or other indicator of which lead/merchant they go with.
- Do you have contacts without email addresses? Add any missing info or remove the contact from the file.
- Deals/Opportunities are typically de-duped based on the name of the deal. So if you have duplicate deal names, please add a unique identifier to the name of the deal or merge duplicate records.
Finally, here are the steps that you may take in getting the files over to us once you have made your considerations or changes based on the points mentioned above.
- Make sure that the Lead form in Merchant Central is set up to accommodate all the information that is being migrated.
- If there are fields that you want to migrate that don't yet exist, create these and ensure that the field types match between the old system and Merchant Central.
- For list/drop-down fields that you want to migrate that already exist in both your current CRM and Merchant Central, ensure that the values in the list match.
- Merchant Central will expect a Status Category and Status State to be set for each record. So, make sure that you replicate the setup of the process flow for your pipeline and stages from your current CRM into Merchant Central.
- Provide each object in a separate CSV file (i.e. Accounts, Contacts, Deals/Opportunities, etc. should each have their own file).
- Ensure each file has a column that can be used as a unique ID.
- If you need data to be linked together (i.e. your Contacts and Deals), ensure that you have the corresponding ID column in each file that we can use to set the relationship.
- If you need Attachments, Notes, Tasks, etc. imported, check that your file(s) contains a column that indicates which object is the parent record (i.e. is the parent an Account, Contact, Deal, etc.).
- Already know where you want the data to go in Merchant Central? Add a new header row to your file and enter the Merchant Central field name above each column in your source file. For example, if your source file has "address_1" as a column, Merchant Central may have a field called "Address". Enter this internal name above address_1.
- Consider removing any unneeded or empty columns from the source files.
- Do you want to migrate lost or canceled accounts? If not, remove these from your source files.