Searchlab Data Migration
A migration is a data quality project wearing an IT costume. The upload takes an afternoon. The value comes from deciding what to keep, deduplicating properly, and mapping records so deals still connect to the right people and companies afterwards. We handle the whole chain and reconcile the numbers at the end.
Order matters. Organisations import first, then persons linked to those organisations, then deals linked to both, then activities and notes attached to deals. Import in the wrong sequence and Pipedrive creates orphan records or duplicate companies with slightly different spellings. We prepare each file separately with a matching key column so the relationships survive the load.
Deduplication is where the real hours go. Business databases accumulate the same company under three spellings and the same person under two email addresses. We normalise names, phone formats and domains, cluster likely duplicates, and give you a review sheet for the ambiguous ones. Pipedrive can merge records after the fact, but merging thousands of them later is far more expensive than cleaning first.
We are deliberate about how much history to bring. Open deals, active contacts and the last two to three years of closed deals are almost always worth migrating, since they feed conversion reporting. Ten-year-old dead leads usually are not. Where old data has archival value but no operational use, we park it in cold storage rather than clutter a CRM your team has to search every day.
For larger or messier sources we migrate through the API instead of the import wizard. That lets us preserve created dates, original owners, activity timestamps and note authorship rather than stamping everything with the import date. We always run a small pilot load of twenty to fifty records first, check it end to end with you, and only then run the full migration.
Everything in Data Migration
Source data audit
A written assessment of your existing CRM, spreadsheets and mailboxes covering record counts, field coverage, duplicate rate and the fields worth carrying forward.
Field mapping document
Every source field mapped to a Pipedrive destination field with its type and transformation rule, or explicitly marked as not migrated, and approved before the load.
Deduplication and cleanup
Normalised company names, phone numbers and email domains, clustered duplicates resolved, and a review sheet for the cases that need a human decision.
Linked record import
Organisations, persons, deals, activities and notes loaded in the correct order with matching keys so every deal ends up attached to the right person and company.
History preservation
Original creation dates, owners, won and lost dates and activity timestamps carried across through the API, so your historical reporting is not flattened to the import date.
Owner and user mapping
Old system users mapped to Pipedrive seats, including a defined destination for records owned by people who have left the business.
Reconciliation report
Record counts, total open pipeline value and won revenue compared between source and destination, with any differences explained line by line.
Rollback plan
A tagged import batch and documented removal procedure so a bad load can be reversed cleanly instead of being untangled record by record.
The process
Extract and profile
We export everything from the source system, profile field completeness and duplicate rates, and agree with you exactly which records and which years are in scope.
Clean and map
Data is normalised and deduplicated, then mapped field by field to the Pipedrive structure. You approve both the mapping sheet and the duplicate decisions.
Pilot load
A sample of twenty to fifty records is imported and inspected together, checking links, dates, owners, currencies and custom field values before anything else moves.
Full load and reconcile
The complete migration runs, usually outside working hours, followed by a reconciliation report comparing counts and values against the source and a joint sign-off.
Questions about Data Migration
Which systems can you migrate from?
Commonly Zoho CRM, HubSpot, Salesforce, Freshsales, Bitrix24, Excel and Google Sheets, and occasionally custom or in-house databases through their export or API. The source matters less than the data quality. A well-structured spreadsheet is often easier to migrate cleanly than a large CRM full of duplicates.
Will we lose our email history and notes?
Notes migrate as note records attached to the correct deal, person or organisation. Emails are different. Historical email usually stays in your mailbox, and once email sync is connected, Pipedrive links past correspondence with matched contacts going forward. We set expectations on this before the migration rather than after.
How long does a migration take?
A clean spreadsheet of a few thousand records takes a few days end to end. A messy CRM with fifty thousand records, heavy duplication and custom fields takes two to four weeks, most of which is cleanup and review rather than loading. The full load itself typically runs in a few hours.
What if something goes wrong during the import?
Every batch is tagged, so a bad load can be filtered and removed rather than picked apart manually. We run the pilot precisely to catch mapping errors while they cost minutes. The reconciliation report at the end is what confirms nothing was silently dropped or duplicated.
More in Pipedrive
Ready to talk about Data Migration?
Tell us where you are stuck. We reply within the hour on WhatsApp, usually sooner.
Or email Searchlabtools@gmail.com