What are my options for
converting Pipedrive to Salesforce?
Data is so expansive and super connected to each other, data experts or a partner who specializes in doing this ALL THE TIME, are the way to go and would advise strongly to consider. Only data migration experts make your transition as smooth as possible and you can focus on the key parts of your business. Learn more about Migrating from Pipedrive to Salesforce here.
The main thing to remember is that migration is quite feasible. If the CRM system is not adapted to the specifics of the business, look for other options and do not be afraid to change it. Yes, it will be difficult for the whole team, you will definitely lose some information or clients, but the end result will pay for everything in abundance. Do not be afraid to change CRM already taking into account all business processes and their inherent specifics, because the effectiveness of the program is always the company's money.
The CRM vendor/product is focused on their own internal features and NOT how it connects with other systems. Keep in mind, the CRM vendor is trying to activate you as quickly as possible, so make sure you have a migration resource lined up and you feel comfortable there (pricing, timeline, involvement, etc) prior to signing with them.
Option 1: Migrating myself and using the CRM vendor’s import tool
Too often have we seen customers who purchased the new solution and has tried to manage the import on their own, use the CRM vendor’s “native” tools and have ultimately just ended up with a mess, three months down the road with half of the data in and the rest left in pieces. Before you purchase your CRM solution, you need to feel comfortable with a plan, a partner, or the tools in place in order to move forward.
Pro
If the most important thing for you is the price and you don't care about importing scanty data, then this option is for you.
Con
The downside of this, other than bringing in the rest of your data, is you will be working with files of data, so make sure you know what you’re doing and feel comfortable that you are not jeopardizing the integrity of the data. Deleting rows of fields can get hairy, especially if there was something there your team needed or will need in the future, so make sure you always have them highlight what’s important to maintain.
Option 2: Migrating with a wizard import tool or an integration tool
On the market today, a few data migration technologies offer direct API to API transfer capability. Additionally, you can employ middleware or iPaaS (integration platform as a service) solutions. The iPaaS suppliers will want to get you on a contract for a longer length of time, and as they are developed for continuing data syncs, they will be too sophisticated and challenging to comprehend for your use case. Therefore, I would prefer the technologies designed exclusively for data migrations. You will be paying for a lot of features that you don't need.
The data migration wizards on the market built just for data migration purposes are what you should consider in our opinion, as they will be simpler and more straightforward. The main differentiator with these tools you need to look out for, are some will require you to create all the custom fields one by one, which is half the migration and a lot of work/hours. Others, the tool is robust enough to create the custom fields for your, saving you a tremendous amount of time and a lot more valuable. Make sure to check..
Trujay has a data migration wizard app and even an additional option with guided support to ensure your mapping, testing, QA, delta migration goes smoothly. With it, your Pipedrive to Salesforce data migration will become much easier.
You can run as many free random samples as you wish with Trujay's migration tool. The goal is to keep experimenting with the mapping until the sample data appears precisely way you want it to. Every sample you run will overwrite the previous one, so don't worry about piling up sample data in Salesforce. Once you're satisfied with the mapping, you may proceed with the entire migration and make a payment.
Pro
Benefits of Trujay's Wizard are:- intuitive interface;
- turnkey solution for popular CRM;
- free trial migration;
- it does not require additional installations and skills.
Con
With doing it yourself, you will not have guidance. You’re moving into a new system here and re-design, starting fresh, understanding the logic/ functionality of the new system will not be here to aid you. Check to see if there is a level of professional services support to help you if you get stuck.
Step by Step screens of Trujay’s Self Service Migration Wizard
Option 3: A custom migration
So this is the option that defines “doing it the right way.” Not that the previous options are doing it the wrong way, but this will take the entire lift and process off your plate and you can focus on training and configuring Salesforce, which is very important for you to be focusing on and your business processes. Finding a company that specializes in data migrations, they know Pipedrive and Salesforce like the back of their hands will make for a seamless transition and save you an endless amount of hours.
With a custom migration, you might have a CRM implementation partner where they have fit this into their entire onboarding plan with you. This option is the most valuable in our opinion, because trying to adopt Salesforce on your own and not optimizing all of its features can slow down the investment you are making. Time to value with your investment in Salesforce is key if your true ambition with your business is growth.
Having a project manager or CSM guide you through the entire Pipedrive to Salesforce migration process gives you time to consider things like fields/properties clean up, consolidation of pipelines or processes, automations, etc. Better yet the project manager/CSM can give you guidance on turning text fields into dropdown fields, so you can report more accurately on data points you collect.
Free Sample Migration Demo Video
Pro
A custom migration allows you to truly customize: filter, move objects to different objects, merge data, de-duplicate, etc. The burden of the migration and integrity of the data will remain intact and not opened up to risk as the data migration partner will/should be data experts. Some businesses can get caught up in migrating their own data for 6 months! You can find a data migration partner who can do it in 2-4 weeks, depending on your complexity.
Con
This option will cost more as you are paying for professional services. To thwart this, find a data migration partner who uses their own tools to automate a lot of the migration, therefor will have lower costs, lower human effort.
FAQs
Knowledge Base
What is a Sample Migration?
Sample Migration is a process where we transfer a small part of your records (approximately 10% of all data) to the target CRM platform and estimate the price of a Full Data Migration. You can test our service using the Free Sample Import.
You can change options and rerun the sample migration as many times as you need.
How does Free Sample work?
During the Sample Migration, we take a part of your records and migrate them to your target CRM platform, along with relations between those records. The entire process may take up to 15 minutes; it depends on the specification of your CRMs.
What happens after the Sample Migration is complete?
Once complete, you can review the transferred records in the target platform. Evaluate the results to make sure they work for you.
How to make a Salesforce backup?
When your existing Salesforce edition doesn't have the API access, the optimal solution to switch to another CRM in an automated way is to transfer data with the help of CSV files.
You can do Salesforce backup files in two ways:
1. Use Trujay service.
It allows you to export different modules or all the modules with saved relations between records. That means if you decide to transfer your data from CSV to another platform, it will have the same connections as it had in your Salesforce account.
2. Use the option Salesforce offers.
First of all, you have to backup your current CRM data:
- Go to your Salesforce admin panel and choose 'Setup'.
Then go on the left side of the page layout, press ‘Data Management’ and ‘Data Export’
- Push "Export now" button.
- Now, you may export your Salesforce. To that, do the following:
- Put mark on "Include all data".
- Make sure you’ve marked the switched fields.
- Press "Start export".
What is a Guided Migration?
A guided migration provides you with a Trujay dedicated CSM that will complete all the mappings for you.
This is an excellent option for people that need an extra layer of support with their migration.
Included:
- Everything in Wizard
- Customer Success Manager
- Mapping Verification
- Quality Assurance
- 1 - 2 Week Delivery
What is a Record?
A Record is the data item that exists in the CRM's system
- 1 record = 1 Account/Task/Opportunity/Attachment/Note/Email, etc.
- 1 record = one entity of CRM data (no matter what type is it).
For example:
Your current CRM possesses:
- 1 account
- 2 tasks
- 3 emails
- 2 notes.
In summary you have 1 account + 2 tasks + 3 emails + 2 notes = 8 records.
What is a Delta Migration?
A delta migration is the final migration performed during your custom migration process.
It ensures that all the data you have requested to be migrated is transferred and your target CRM is up to date right before the launch.
Can I migrate users to Salesforce?
Unfortunately, you cannot migrate users from your source CRM to the Salesforce CRM platform using API.
Therefore, please make sure that all necessary users are created in Salesforce before proceeding with your migration process. During the migration, once you map the corresponding users between your source CRM and the Salesforce CRM, all data and relations will be migrated to the corresponding users.
You can clean up the data yourself in the Pipedrive portal. This will require some effort and time on your side, however it will have no additional cost.
You might request that the data migration partner filter the data while it is being sent. If you've identified problematic data and can provide the partner with bullet points of what data you don't want to move to Salesforce, they can develop bespoke scripts to transfer only what you specified.
You can clean the data post-migration and should be relatively easy with Salesforce’s segmenting tools. Create the filters or custom views and then delete!
De-Duplicating
There are several de-duplication tools on the market to consider and all of them are low costs. Most likely the data migration partner has relationships installed and can get the prices at a discount for you, make sure to ask.
Bad or Outdated Contacts
Using a tool like Neverbounce is great to identify which emails are invalid, unverified, or a catch-all email (hello@trujay.com or support@trujay.com). From there you can mark and remove those and these costs are pretty minimal as well.
What are my options?
Pipedrive to Salesforce: Objects
Pipedrive Objects | Salesforce Objects | |
Organizations | ➜ | Accounts |
Files | ➜ | Attachments |
Activities (Calls) | ➜ | Calls (Tasks) |
Comments | ➜ | Comments |
People | ➜ | Contacts |
Emails | ➜ | Email Messages |
Activities (Events) | ➜ | Events |
Leads | ➜ | Leads |
Notes | ➜ | Notes |
Deals | ➜ | Opportunities |
Deal Products | ➜ | Opportunity Line Items |
Products | ➜ | Products |
Labels | ➜ | Tags |
Activities (Tasks, Deadlines, Emails, Lunches, etc) | ➜ | Tasks |
Users | ➜ | Users |
Additional objects will need to be investigated for a Custom Migration
“Great service with even greater customer service”
“Couldn't be happier, the team over there are top-notch. Ease of use with consistent delivery of product. Time from start to implementation should be communicated on the front end to set expectations.“
Ryan McConville
- President Marketing & Advertising at Kargo
“Trustworthy, effective and straight talking”
“Trujay are the people I call when I look at an implementation issue and think 'how on Earth could that issue be resolved.' They've completed fabulous work for us and our clients. Highly recommend.“
John Kelleher
- Chief Executive at ESM Inbound
“Great experience for a migration which use to keep me up at night”
“A migration between CRMs is a very painful process, you want to make sure that your sales teams are not going to lose critical information in the process badly affecting their results. With Trujay I planned the migration myself and they were ready to help me when I couldn't figures some parts out myself.“
Alexandre Gaudelet
- CEO at Hospitality Firm
You have options
To wrap up
You have options. Depending on your timeline, budget, bandwidth, etc. you can find a solution for you and your teams. There are several ways to do it, which is great, but you need to ask the right questions, understand the limitations, and define the process and goals clearly.
If you are serious about your business, we suggest that you implement the Trujay complex into your workflow. Many company owners worry that they will have to manually enter all the information into the new system. However, this is not the case, our team will transfer all the necessary data from Pipedrive to Salesforce, while all data will be preserved. We make the transition from crm in a short time.
If you ever want to just simply discuss, get assessed for a data migration from Pipedrive to Salesforce done properly with Trujay, you can reach out to us here. Happy to provide the limitations, pitfalls, gotchas, pricing and timelines depending over a quick phone call.