Sometimes, it is difficult to estimate the potential value of using a chosen CRM for business needs. There are many aspects which ought to be taken into account. Foremost, you have toclearly understand what you expect from the system, what functionality it should provide, reliability of data storage, and your budget. Suitable solutions will bring new opportunities, and save a lot of time and money for your business. The client we are going to touch in this Case Study prints industrial labels for harsh environment applications. They needed a sweep data migration from Sugar CRM to MS CRM. The time frame was very ambitious, 1 week, and the project budget was very limited. Sugar CRM license renewal was due very soon, meaning the old system would become unavailable by the end of the data migration process.
Our approach
The client provided a list of priorities, the most important entities, such as Complaints (cases), Accounts, Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities we migrated first. During the data migration, it turned out the license expiration date was moved forward (it was expected that Sugar were going to provide the client with a grace period), so the Dynamica Labs team had to deal with the data source becoming inaccessible. We were forced to fall back on Sugar CRM backup files. We had to deploy MySQL Database urgently, to get hold of data in backups. It paid to have prioritized the key data, so that the back-ups were eventually used for less critical entities only. Obstacles which were encountered There was a problem with the fields that client decided to add to the scope after the Sugar access cut off. It was difficult, and at times impossible, to identify fields by schema name in backups, since the client could remember only field names (how they were referred to on Sugar forms).
Solution
The client provided data samples for fields that were difficult to find, and part of the fields were identified from the data examples. Though, a couple of fields were not uncovered, and hence they could not be migrated. Our advice to those who working on a similar project Drawing on experience from this data migration exercise, we would offer the following advice to those who like to learn from other people`s mistakes. 1. Don`t plan a transition to a new CRM system a few days before the expiration of the license for the source CRM. 2. Keep budget tight, but have contingency for unavoidable changes in a fast pace environment 3. Ask for a subject matter expert – an employee on the client side, who knows the old system well (Sugar CRM in this case), and the data and business processes. Such a person will be invaluable for the project.
Conclusion
Finally, in a very short period of time, this ambitious data migration project was completed. Dynamica Labs team navigated the stormy sea of limited time, budget, and lack of opportunity to plan migration in advance.
Dynamica Labs is one of the oldest Dynamics CRM Partners and one of a very few companies with ISO 9001 Quality Management System certification for Dynamics CRM project delivery services.
For over 15 years we have been focused on 3 key CRM project goals: delivering measurable business results, following a cost-effective approach, providing the highest quality standards. Over the course of these years, we've taken part in hundreds of projects from SMEs to blue-chip global companies.
