For contractors moving off field service software, a sales tool or a spreadsheet of maintenance contracts, we carry over the sites, equipment, agreements and service history crews rely on.
A migration for a commercial trades contractor is less about contacts and more about what sits at each customer location. The valuable data is the equipment list, the service agreements and their visit schedules, and the history of what was done to each unit and when. We extract it from the old field service software, sales tool or spreadsheets, clean duplicate sites and customers, rebuild the relationships between them in Salesforce, and load it in an order that lets dispatch run on the new system from the first morning after cutover.
Trade contractors often hold their most important data in the least structured places. Equipment details live in technician notes, spreadsheets or photos of nameplates. The same building may appear under a property manager, an owner and a tenant, each typed differently. Maintenance agreements might be scanned contracts with visit frequencies nobody entered anywhere. Service history matters for warranty claims, recurring failures and repair recommendations, yet older platforms stored it as free text. A migration has to decide how much of that to structure, how much to archive, and how to avoid a first week where dispatch cannot tell which visits are due.
We separate who pays from where the work happens. Property managers, building owners, general contractors and tenants become accounts with clear relationships to each service location. Duplicate sites created by different spellings or suite numbers are merged, and access notes, entry instructions and contact roles are carried across. Dispatch then sees one record per building instead of guessing which duplicate holds the current contact.
Equipment is loaded as assets tied to each site, with make, model, serial number, install date and warranty where the data exists. Where it only exists in notes, we extract what can be parsed and flag the rest for technicians to confirm on their next visit. Document AI can help read structured forms; we used it for a contractor whose inspection sheets were full of checkboxes older tools could not read.
Active maintenance agreements become service contracts with entitlements and maintenance plans, so upcoming visits generate themselves in Salesforce. We compare the migrated schedule with what dispatch expects for the next period and resolve differences before cutover. Expired agreements are kept and flagged for renewal targeting, because a lapsed customer with known equipment is often a warm prospect for service sales.
Recent work orders load as structured history linked to sites and assets, while older records may be archived in a searchable form rather than recreated. Inspection reports, photos and signed service tickets move as files attached to the right records. We agree the cutoff with service managers based on how far back technicians, warranty claims and customer disputes realistically look.
We profile the source data first and show the service manager and dispatch what they will get, including gaps. Mapping decisions are made with the people who use the records, not only IT. We run at least one full trial load into a sandbox and have dispatchers and a few technicians work normal shifts against it. Cutover is scheduled for a slower period, the old system is set to read-only rather than switched off, and open jobs are either finished in the old system or moved as a clean final batch.
We extract customers, sites, equipment, agreements, work orders and attachments, and keep the old platform read-only for reference until service managers agree it can be retired.
Customer and site identifiers are matched to accounting records so invoicing continues without new duplicates, and open balances stay in accounting rather than being copied.
Agreement terms, equipment lists and inspection reports stored in folders are sorted, parsed where possible and attached to the right site or asset.
Loading every old ticket feels safe but slows the project and clutters the new org. Agree with service managers how much history technicians need on the device, how much warranty and dispute handling require, and what can sit in an archive that is searchable when needed.
The riskiest moment is the first week after cutover, when dispatch must trust that recurring visits generated correctly. Compare the migrated schedule against the old system for the coming period and have a coordinator review exceptions before the old platform goes read-only.
Some cleanup is faster in the old system or a spreadsheet than after load, such as merging obvious duplicate customers or closing stale work orders. Assign that work to office staff early, since they know which records are real and which are leftovers.
Client names are anonymized.
Usually. Options include database access, reports exported in batches, an API if the vendor offers one, or scheduled exports the vendor runs on request. We check what the contract allows and what the platform can produce before committing to a plan. Attachments and photos are often the hardest part, so we test extracting them early rather than discovering limits near cutover.
No. Load what you have, mark records that need verification, and give technicians a quick way to confirm or correct nameplate details on their next visit. Waiting for perfect data delays the move indefinitely. Within a normal maintenance cycle, most active equipment will have been seen, and the register improves as a side effect of routine work.
We prefer to close as many as possible in the old system before the switch. Jobs that must continue across cutover are moved in a final batch with their notes, parts and time so far, and flagged for a coordinator to review. New work is created only in Salesforce from cutover day, which avoids jobs running in two places.
Open quotes and active pursuits move with their amounts, stages and attachments, while closed history can be summarized or archived depending on how often service sales refers to it. We also link past quotes to sites and equipment where possible, so a salesperson preparing a replacement proposal can see what was quoted on that unit before.
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