So you want to move to a new CRM solution. This might be your first time using CRM with this organisation, or you could be migrating from one CRM solution to another. Perhaps you feel your existing solution has become too expensive; there are countless reasons that might prompt a move.

On top of getting the new system up and running and educating your Users, one of the main challenges is getting your data imported.

There are a number of things which can make this task either quick and simple, or long and painful. Having been in involved in the data migration process for numerous systems, here are a few pointers which might help.

• Have you mapped all the fields you need in the information you are exporting? One field that is often not present in data we see is the “assigned to” field. It is easy to add this field to a csv file by copying and pasting the relevant users prior to import, and this means that ownership is assigned to your data right from the start.

• Have you looked at the format in which the data is presented in the system you will be using? Look at the fields that contain details such as name and address – are they separated into first and last name? Is the street address all contained in one field? And is the data in the correct field? Looking at data on a csv file it is easy to see where email addresses have erroneously slipped into the phone number field.

• Have you looked at the related entities and how the data needs to interact within your new system? If you are importing companies and contacts, do you have the right company name on the contact record and are those names consistent? If you have a “Jones Limited” in one spreadsheet and a “Jones Ltd” in the next, this will create two unrelated records, which brings you quickly into those murky waters known as duplication.

• If you are importing other data such as Activities, do you have a means of identifying the related contacts and companies in the import data?

• Remember, all of your information is easy to merge, delete, re-arrange and tidy up at this early stage, when your data is contained in a spreadsheet format such as csv.

Of course in a CRM solution such as OpenCRM you can filter your data and should you need to bulk update records, this is easily done. But the earlier you start to tidy up your records and data, the easier it will be to manage when on your CRM solution, not to mention starting with a clean slate like this will help encourage a solid practise for future data management.

For more advice and tips have a look here: http://opencrm.co.uk/crm-knowledgebase/kb1401086/Things-to-consider-when-importing-data-into-OpenCRM--Troubleshooting-imports-that-are-not-working.html

Imagine your office being filled with filing cabinets – all containing the same files over and over again. The waste of space, time and resources is obvious. If you need to update one file, you need to go round the room, editing each of the identical files you have stored. You simply wouldn’t do it.

Yet when it comes to digital file storage it seems we lack that sense of order and discipline. Can’t find the record you are looking for? Create a new one! Didn’t ask the contact how their name or company is spelt? Create a new one with the name you heard or thought you heard! Search for that record later and can’t find it? Create a new one now you have the correct name!

With precise financing, contact and time management being more relevant than ever before, having clean data has never been more important. De-duplicating your records for use in your CRM software solution streamlines your operation more than you probably think. I recently read this interesting article which made all these points succinctly, particularly as we have been busy with de-dupes for some of our clients ourselves lately.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/24/datacentre_not_deduping

There you have it in black and white – de-duping saves time, money and resources.

Sales pitch: At OpenCRM we recognise the importance of de-duping and our system deals with this in many ways - warning you when you are about to create a duplicate record, giving you the option to merge records should duplicates be present and perhaps most importantly using filters to read and analyse records to prevent duplicates being created when importing larger volumes of information.

An aside: if we performed a de-dupe on the current singles charts would we be left with one song only?!? Signed, a Grumpy Old Man