“Moving house” to a new CRM is a task that makes many managers anxious. A mass transfer of data frightens sales and marketing teams: one mistake—and leads, interaction history and reports can disappear. Thoughts of lost contacts, endless Excel sheets and halted sales can paralyse any modernisation initiative.

Yet with the right approach the process is completely safe. Below is the step-by-step method ZD Agency uses when migrating clients to Svit.One CRM. Follow it yourself or outsource the work to us—the result will be equally reliable.

Stage 1: Preparing the Database — a “spring clean”

This is the most important phase and drives 80 % of success. The goal is to ensure that only high-quality, up-to-date information reaches the new system. Remember the golden rule: garbage in → garbage out.

What to do:

Inventory every source

List every place where contacts live—your old CRM, desktop Excel files, email tools, Google Contacts—and assign a person responsible for each source.

Merge data and remove duplicates

Collate all contacts into one master file. Use Excel functions, Power Query or OpenRefine to delete duplicates based on unique identifiers (email or phone).

Normalise formats

Phones in E.164 international format (e.g. +380991234567).

Dates in ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2025-07-05).

Currency—ensure monetary fields use the same currency (USD, UAH, etc.).

Check mandatory fields

Filter out records missing critical values (name, phone). Add a column called OwnerID so each contact or deal is immediately assigned to its manager in the new CRM.

Stage 2: Field Mapping—matching “apples to apples”

Once the data are clean, map them to the correct fields in the new CRM.

Export the CRM structure

In Svit.One, export the list of all standard and custom fields for contacts and deals.

Create a correspondence map

In your master file add a column such as CRM Field. For every column (First Name, Phone, etc.) write the exact name of the matching CRM field.

Check field availability

If your data need a field that does not exist (e.g. “Contract Number”), create that custom field in the CRM before importing.

Save the file correctly

Export the final import file in UTF-8 encoding (.csv or .xlsx) with no formulas—values only.

Stage 3: Test Import on a Small Sample

Never bulk-import the entire base first. Rehearse on 5–10 % of the data (say 500–1 000 records out of 10 000).

Verify:

Data integrity—are Cyrillic, special characters, dates and phone numbers displayed correctly?

Entity relationships—does the contact ↔ company link work?

Key workflows—create a lead, change its status, add a task, build a report from the imported data.

Found errors? Return to earlier steps, fix them and repeat the test until it is absolutely clean.

Stage 4: Full Migration—your “Go-Live” Day

When the test passes, you are ready for the final move. Choose the period of lowest business activity—Friday evening is ideal.

Sample timeline

22:00 — Save the final cleaned database and create a backup (.csv or .sql) so a rollback takes < 10 minutes.

22:30 — Launch the full import into Svit.One CRM.

23:00 — Check system logs and manually correct any error rows.

23:30 — Restart and test key integrations (telephony, email, chatbots).

08:00 (next morning) — Official “Live” announcement; inform the team that the system is ready for work.

Stage 5: Post-Migration Support

The job is not finished after you click “Import”. Help your team adapt.

Run a 30-minute walkthrough for managers: demonstrate filters, quick search and where to find new dashboards.

For the first 14 days closely monitor automations, system speed and key KPIs.

Store the final mapping file and screenshots of critical settings in a shared repository or knowledge base.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we migrate notes, emails and interaction history?

Yes. Use Svit.One’s API or prepare a separate CSV with fields ContactID, NoteBody, Date.

What about legacy internal IDs from the previous system?

They matter. Add them to a custom field (e.g. LegacyID) so you can easily match old and new records later.

How do we keep UTM parameters?

Create text fields utm_source, utm_campaign, utm_medium, etc., in the CRM and copy the values as plain text to preserve marketing attribution.

Need Help? Let Us Handle the Heavy Lifting

At Zona Digital, we routinely migrate databases of 10 000–500 000 contacts into Svit.One CRM and other systems end-to-end—from audit and data cleansing to complete post-migration support and team training.

Get in touch to complete every stage without stress, sales downtime or data risk.