Zoho CRM has been challenging Salesforce as a viable CRM alternative for managing customer relationships.  More importantly, they have been raising eyebrows over at Salesforce, when you consider the price, breadth of features, ability to customize application & ease of use.  So before committing to another year or multi-year contract with Salesforce, you should be asking the question..."are there other options"?

If your ready to migrate data from Salesforce to Zoho CRM, the following are some best practices to keep in mind.  If your still considering making the transition, contact us at Batipi, to discuss a migration strategy & learn more about using Zoho CRM in your business.

1. Request data export & schedule a time for migration

Your first step, will be to request your companies data from Salesforce, considering the time it will take to receive your exported Zip file.  On average we have seen this take anywhere from 2 – 5 business days.

When you receive your data export, you should check one of the CSV files included, to see how recent the data is.  In most cases this should be the current or previous day.  Your now ready to migrate your data.  At this point you should have your users switch over to using Zoho CRM. 

Tip: You can prepare user accounts prior to migrating over to Zoho CRM.  This will allow users to go through account validation, and ensure they are ready to access the application.

2. Prepare custom fields in Zoho CRM

While your waiting for your data, you can use this opportunity to establish your custom fields in Zoho.  With the custom fields in place, for each module, you will be able to map the Salesforce data to the appropriate Zoho CRM field.

Review the fields you are actively using in Salesforce, if these fields do not exist in Zoho, then you will need to create new custom fields, under "set-up" in Zoho CRM.  More information here on creating custom fields.

3. Follow specific order for importing CSV files

When you click on “migrate data from other crm”, under set-up in Zoho CRM you need to select the module that your importing.   It is required to follow the order presented in the list, starting from “users”, “campaigns”, “leads”, “accounts”, ect.

Note:  If you have already created user accounts, you still need to start with importing the "user.csv" file.  This process assigns specific user id's and ensures the data will be mapped properly

4. Use a custom date display in CSV file

Zoho CRM needs to read all dates as yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss, for the field to be mapped properly.  For example prior to importing leads, update all columns to display the above mentioned format.  You can update the custom format through "format cells" in Excel,  select “custom” from the category list.  

From here, copy and paste the Zoho CRM desired format, in the “type” field.  For the rest of the columns in your CSV file, you should now be able to select the custom date format from the list.

Tip:  After updating the custom dates, click save, and leave the document open.  Now toggle back to Zoho, and import the file.  If you close the file, the custom date format may be lost. 

5. Using the Rollback option

After you have mapped all fields from your Salesforce CSV file, to Zoho CRM fields, you want to check that your data has migrated correctly.  Navigate to one of the new leads and look at the “created by” & “modified by” fields.  These should be specific dates, not today’s date (unless the record was created on same day as data migration).  Also, you should notice that the “lead owner” field is mapped appropriately to the correct user. 

If these fields do not map correctly, then you can use the “rollback” option, which is found under “set-up”, “data administration tools”, “import history”.  Click on the import file name, and click "rollback".

Note: The rollback option will delete data only associated to the recent migration attempt.  Your users can still be creating new records in Zoho CRM, without any disruption.

Let us know in the comments, if you have other best practices or tips to consider, migrating from Salesforce to Zoho CRM.  If you have any questions about this process, contact us here.