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ACT! Data Conversion Questions

  • Steve Chipman
  • November 7, 2010

ACT! Data Conversion Questions

If you are planning to migrate your company’s ACT! data into a CRM system, there are a number of questions that you can ask yourself as you start to plan a data migration.  Coming up with answers to these questions can make your ACT! data conversion a smoother experience.

Here’s a list of the more common questions that might be asked when an organization is planning to convert data.

  1. How many active users do we have in ACT!?
  2. Will all these users be licensed users in CRM?
  3. How many inactive users do we have in ACT! for which we want to preserve Contact and/or History association in a CRM system?
  4. Approximately how many Contact records do we have in ACT!?
  5. Are we using Secondary Contacts in ACT!?  If yes, to what extent are they being used?
  6. Are we using Company records in ACT! and if so, are we using them consistently?
  7. Are we using Groups in ACT! and if so, how many of them to we need to preserve? (It can be a difficult task to migrate Groups that are not query-based, as most CRM systems don’t allow for ad hoc group membership)
  8. Do we need Notes migrated? If yes, approximately how many Notes records do we have in our ACT! database?
  9. Do we need History migrated? If so, approximately how many History records do we have in our ACT! database?
  10. Do we want to migrate all Notes and History or will we have a cutoff date? (it often makes sense to exclude History records that are more than a few years old)
  11. Do we want to filter out specific types of History records during conversion, such as mail merges or mass emails?
  12. Do we need Activities migrated?  (unless there are a large number of scheduled activities, it’s often not worth the time and effort to migrate these)
  13. Do we need user-defined and/or custom fields migrated? If so, approximately how many user-defined and/or custom fields do we have in our ACT! database?
  14. Are there any fields that we aren’t using and that therefore should not be migrated?
  15. Do we have any large pick lists that should be changed into lookups in a CRM system? (it often makes sense to change a large pick list into a lookup on a related table or object)
  16. Do we need any data normalized from a series of flat, duplicated fields into a Related List in a CRM system? (a major benefit to a CRM system is that it has a relational structure)
  17. Do we want to redefine the way in which we use any of the existing fields? (are there free form text fields that should become pick lists or lookups?)
  18. Do we need Opportunities migrated?
  19. Do we need Attachments migrated?  If so, are all of our attachments in a single, shared folder — or are they in a variety of local and network folders?

Considering questions like these — up front — can help your organization get on a path toward a successful ACT! data conversion.

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