A solid pre-migration checklist prevents costly mistakes and data loss
Follow the 8 key phases: Planning, Audit, Cleaning, Mapping, Testing, Import, Validation, and Training
Involve stakeholders from sales, marketing, and operations in the planning process
Always run a test migration before importing your complete dataset
Keep documentation of your migration for future reference and support
Data migration is one of the most important projects your company will undertake. Get it right, and your team has a clean, organized CRM that works for them. Get it wrong, and you're stuck with bad data and frustrated employees. This checklist ensures you get it right.
Whether you're migrating from Salesforce, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Pipedrive, or any other system, this checklist covers every step you need to take.
Before you touch any data, plan carefully.
Planning Phase Checklist:
Identify project team — Who will lead this? Who from sales, marketing, and IT needs to be involved?
Set a timeline — When do you want to be fully live on HubSpot?
Define success — What does a successful migration look like? (All data transferred, team trained, zero data loss, etc.)
Get executive buy-in — Make sure leadership understands the timeline and cost
Plan communication — How will you communicate progress to the team?
Establish contingencies — What's your backup plan if something goes wrong?
Review HubSpot editions — Do you have the right HubSpot plan for your needs?
Set budget — Will you hire a migration partner, or do it in-house?
Create project management — Use a tool to track tasks and timeline
Schedule training — Book training sessions with HubSpot Academy or a partner
Accountability: Assign one person to own the migration timeline.
You can't migrate what you don't understand.
Audit Checklist:
Count your records — How many contacts, companies, deals, etc.?
Document custom fields — List every custom field in your current system
Map your data structure — How is your data organized? (Multiple databases? Separate systems?)
Identify your workflows — What automations are currently running?
Document integrations — What other tools are connected?
Review custom objects — Have you created any custom objects?
Assess data quality — Is your data clean or messy?
Identify inactive records — How much data is outdated or unused?
Document user permissions — Who has access to what?
Create an inventory — Spreadsheet with all systems, data types, and field counts
Deliverable: A comprehensive audit document you can reference throughout migration.
Clean data before you move it.
Cleaning Checklist:
Remove duplicates — Merge or delete duplicate records
Delete test records — Remove any fake data created during testing
Validate email addresses — Use a validation tool to check emails
Remove obviously bad data — Spam emails, incomplete records, etc.
Standardize formatting:
Phone numbers (XXX) XXX-XXXX
Dates YYYY-MM-DD
Names (proper capitalization)
Addresses (consistent format)
Fill missing critical fields — Especially email and company name
Remove unneeded records — Old leads, archived companies, etc.
Standardize dropdown values — If you have status fields, make sure values are consistent
Check for encoding issues — Make sure special characters display correctly
Archive old data — Move very old records to an archive or separate system
Document what you're cleaning — Note what data you're removing and why
Tool suggestion: Use a data cleaning tool or spreadsheet formulas to automate this where possible.
Quality metric: Your goal is a clean, workable dataset, not necessarily 100% perfect data.
Plan exactly where each piece of data goes.
Mapping Checklist:
Create mapping document — List every field and where it's going in HubSpot
Identify standard properties — What fields does HubSpot have built-in?
Plan custom properties — What custom fields do you need to create?
Decide on custom objects — Do you need any custom objects in HubSpot?
Map relationship fields — How do your contacts relate to companies? Deals? Custom objects?
Plan your tag structure — How will you organize contacts with tags?
Set up deal stages — What are your sales pipeline stages?
Create custom deal properties — Any fields specific to your deals?
Plan your company properties — How are companies organized?
Document field transformations — Do any fields need to change format or structure?
Review for data validation — Which fields are required? Which are optional?
Involve your team — Get input from sales, marketing, and operations on the mapping
Review with stakeholders: Make sure the people who will use the data agree with your mapping.
Set up HubSpot before you import data.
Structure Setup Checklist:
Create all pipelines — Set up each sales pipeline with the right stages
Create custom contact properties — Add any custom fields you need
Create custom company properties — Add company-specific custom fields
Create custom deal properties — Add deal-specific custom fields
Create custom objects — If you need them
Set up your team — Add team members with proper permissions
Create teams/groups — If you have multiple sales teams, set them up
Configure email preferences — Set up email signatures, opt-out settings, etc.
Set up view permissions — Who can see what?
Create your organizational structure — How are teams organized?
Test run: Create a test environment to validate your structure before importing data.
Never import your full dataset without testing first.
Test Migration Checklist:
Create test dataset — Export 1,000-5,000 sample records
Export from source system — Get your test data out
Format for HubSpot — Prepare the CSV for import
Create test account — Use a sandbox or test HubSpot account
Run the import — Import your test dataset
Verify field mapping — Do fields appear in the right places?
Check data accuracy — Do records look correct?
Validate counts — Did all records import?
Test relationships — Are contacts linked to the right companies?
Look for duplicates — Are there unexpected duplicates?
Test data formatting — Are phone numbers, dates, and names formatted correctly?
Document any issues — Note anything that needs fixing
Fix mapping problems — Adjust your import settings and re-test
Verify compliance — Are unsubscribed contacts marked correctly?
Delete test data — Clean up after testing
Don't skip this step. A test migration usually reveals problems that would be much bigger if you discovered them after importing all your data.
Time to actually migrate your data.
Import Checklist:
Do final data export — Get your complete dataset out of the source system
Do final cleaning — Run one more cleaning pass
Prepare CSV files — Format data according to your mapping
Back up source data — Keep your original files as backup
Create import schedule — What time will you import? (Avoid business hours)
Notify the team — Let people know the CRM will be unavailable during import
Import contacts — Run your contact import
Verify contact import — Check that contacts arrived correctly
Import companies — Run your company import
Verify company import — Check the numbers
Import deals — Run your deal import
Verify deal import — Check deal counts and values
Import custom objects — If you have them
Verify custom objects — Check that they imported correctly
Check for duplicate — Use HubSpot's duplicate detection
Review import logs — Look for any errors or warnings
Pause source system — Stop syncing from your old CRM to prevent conflicts
Keep detailed notes of what you imported when, for troubleshooting.
After import, verify everything is correct.
Validation Checklist:
Verify record counts — Do your numbers match the source?
Spot check random records — Open 50 random contacts and deals. Do they look right?
Test contact searches — Search for specific records. Do they come up?
Verify company associations — Are contacts linked to the right companies?
Verify deal associations — Are deals linked to the right contacts and companies?
Check custom property values — Do custom fields have the right data?
Validate email addresses — Are they all present and formatted correctly?
Check phone numbers — Are they properly formatted?
Verify dates — Are date fields correct and properly formatted?
Check numeric fields — Are amounts and numbers correct?
Look for data loss — Did anything important not import?
Verify tags — Do your tags match your structure?
Check deal stages — Are deals in the right pipeline stages?
Verify unsubscribe status — Are unsubscribed contacts marked correctly?
Test reporting — Do your reports work? Do numbers look right?
Check integrations — Do your connected tools still work?
Fix issues immediately. Don't launch with bad data—fix problems now.
Set up automated processes in HubSpot.
Automation Checklist:
Create lead scoring workflows — If you use lead scoring
Set up email workflows — Automated email sequences
Create sales alerts — Notify team when deals meet certain criteria
Set up task assignments — Automatically assign tasks to salespeople
Create escalation workflows — Flag urgent deals or customers
Set up form workflows — Automatically process form submissions
Create contact property updates — Auto-populate fields based on triggers
Set up duplicate detection — Prevent duplicate records from being created
Create list membership workflows — Automatically add contacts to lists
Test all workflows — Make sure they work as intended
Test thoroughly. A broken workflow is worse than no workflow.
Connect HubSpot to your other tools.
Integration Checklist:
Reconnect email — Outlook, Gmail, etc.
Set up calendar sync — Sync meetings to HubSpot
Reconnect marketing tools — Mailchimp, Zapier, etc.
Connect payment systems — Stripe, Square, etc.
Set up accounting connection — QuickBooks, Xero, etc.
Connect support tools — Zendesk, Intercom, etc.
Set up documentation tools — Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
Configure API — If you use custom integrations
Test all integrations — Make sure data syncs correctly
Update team connections — Make sure each person reconnects their integrations
Go through each integration systematically. Bad integrations cause data sync problems.
Configure your team's access to the right data.
User Setup Checklist:
Add all team members — Sales, marketing, management, etc.
Assign appropriate roles — Admin, Sales Professional, Marketing Professional, etc.
Set visibility permissions — Who can see which records?
Create sales teams — If you have multiple sales teams
Assign records to owners — Make sure each contact/deal has an owner
Set up team hierarchies — Managers should have visibility into team records
Configure notification settings — Who gets notified of what?
Set personal preferences — Email, sidebar, etc.
Test access levels — Log in as different users and verify they see the right data
Document permission rules — Write down who has access to what and why
Security is important. Make sure you're not granting more access than necessary.
Your team needs to know how to use the new system.
Training Checklist:
Schedule training sessions — Group sessions for different roles
Create training materials — Documentation, videos, screenshots
Conduct hands-on training — Live walkthroughs of key functions
Cover key workflows — How to create a deal, add a contact, send an email, etc.
Go over reporting — How to find dashboards and reports they need
Explain best practices — How to use the system effectively
Address concerns — Listen to worries and explain how HubSpot solves them
Provide quick reference guides — Cheat sheets for common tasks
Set up ongoing support — Who do people contact when they have questions?
Plan follow-up training — More advanced topics after they're comfortable
Training is worth the time investment. Better-trained teams get more value from HubSpot.
The big day when you switch to HubSpot.
Go-Live Checklist:
Schedule the cutover — Pick a date and time
Notify everyone — Make sure the whole team knows
Close out source system — Stop accepting new data in the old CRM
Pause integrations — Stop syncing from other tools to avoid conflicts
Do final validation — One last check that everything is in HubSpot
Have support ready — Someone should be available to help with problems
Disable old CRM access — After you're confident, revoke access
Archive old data — Set aside your old CRM data for historical reference
Announce go-live — Celebrate the achievement!
Monitor closely — Watch for any issues in the first week
Have someone on standby during the first few days for troubleshooting.
The migration doesn't end on go-live day.
Post-Migration Checklist:
Monitor data sync — Make sure integrations are working
Address user issues — Help team members who are struggling
Review first-week data — Are people using the system correctly?
Check data quality — Is your clean data staying clean?
Verify no data loss — Did anything go missing?
Optimize workflows — Adjust automations based on actual usage
Refine permissions — Adjust access if needed
Provide ongoing support — Continue helping the team get comfortable
Plan advanced training — Once basics are solid, train on advanced features
Schedule a review — Meet after 30 days to assess how it's going
The first 4 weeks are critical. Invest in support and the transition will go much more smoothly.
Create documentation for future reference.
Documentation Checklist:
Document your data model — How is data structured in HubSpot?
Create field dictionary — What each field means and how it's used
Document custom objects — How custom objects work and why you created them
Record workflow logic — Why each automation exists and how it works
Create how-to guides — Step-by-step instructions for common tasks
Document integration setup — How each tool is connected and why
Create troubleshooting guide — Common problems and solutions
Record team roles — Who does what in HubSpot?
Document best practices — Standards your team should follow
Keep a migration log — Timeline and key decisions made during migration
Good documentation saves time later. When someone new joins, they can learn from your docs.
1. Executive Support
Make sure leadership understands the importance and is willing to invest time and resources. Migrations fail when executives don't support them.
2. Clear Owner
One person should own the migration timeline and decisions. Without clear ownership, projects stall.
3. Stakeholder Involvement
Involve people from sales, marketing, and operations from the beginning. They know what data matters. Exclude them and you'll miss important things.
4. Time for Testing
Don't rush the test phase. Most problems are caught here and fixed without affecting your production data.
5. Clean Data
Spend extra time cleaning data before migration. This prevents months of frustration with bad data afterward.
6. Proper Training
Invest in training. A well-trained team will adopt HubSpot faster and see better results.
7. Contingency Planning
Always have a backup plan. Keep your old system running for a few weeks in case you need to reference something.