Will my Act! data preserve original timestamps in Dynamics 365?

Yes, using the Dataverse import-data API mode (or Power Automate dataflow with audit-preserve) we set createdon and modifiedon to match Act!'s original values. Without this, Dataverse stamps the import time and the chronology breaks.

How does the Lead-vs-Contact split work in Dynamics 365?

We agree the rule during scoping (typically: Contacts with closed-won Opportunity history → Dataverse contacts; without → leads). Once set, we apply consistently and reconcile counts before commit.

Where do Act! Documents live in Dynamics 365?

Two options: as annotation (note) attachments (inline blobs in Dataverse) or in SharePoint with Dataverse document location pointers. SharePoint is preferred for large libraries (>1 GB total) because Dataverse charges per GB above included allotments.

Are Act! Custom Tables supported?

Yes, as Dataverse custom tables. We deploy via a Power Platform solution package that the admin imports before record load. Custom tables integrate with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI for downstream extension.

What's the right Dynamics 365 Sales tier?

Sales Professional ($65/user/month) covers most Act!-migration use cases. Sales Enterprise ($95) adds embedded intelligence, sales playbooks, and predictive scoring. Sales Premium ($135) adds Copilot for Sales. We recommend the tier during scoping based on which features you'd actually use.

Can Act! continue running during the migration?

Yes. Read-only extraction. Cutover-day delta sync. Act! stays online in read-only mode for 30–90 days as a safety net.

Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Migration — Field-Level Mapping & Rollback

Overview

What this migration involves

Dynamics 365 Sales is the enterprise destination for Act! tenants going up-market or consolidating onto Microsoft 365. The underlying Dataverse platform has a richer security model (security roles, business units, field-level security, hierarchical access) than Act! ever had, so migration involves not just data movement but role + business unit mapping that's signed off by the destination admin. Act!'s Contacts split into Dataverse Contacts (qualified) and Leads (unqualified) per the customer's rule. Companies → Accounts. Opportunities → Opportunities with Opportunity Products as line items. Activities → Tasks, Phone Calls, Appointments, Emails on the corresponding parent entity. Custom Tables map cleanly to Dataverse custom tables which integrate with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI. The Dataverse Web API requires explicit annotations for navigation properties (parent record links), which we handle in transformation.

Field-level fidelity

Every standard and custom field arrives verified.

Schema-aware mapping

AI proposes the map; you confirm before any record moves.

Relationships preserved

Parent–child, lookups, and ownership stay linked.

Full activity history

Calls, emails, meetings — with original timestamps.

Attachments & notes

Documents, uploads, and inline notes move with the record.

Why teams make this switch

Two sides of the same decision

Leaving

Act!

What's pushing teams away

Dated UI and on-premise legacy feel — long-time Act! Desktop users describe the experience as 'Office 2007-era' compared to modern cloud CRMs, and the upgrade path between major versions historically requires reinstalling and re-syncing data.
Limited modern integration ecosystem — Act!'s Zapier and native integration count is in the low double digits, where HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive all measure integrations in the thousands.
Act! Premium Desktop's reliance on SQL Server, IIS, and Windows Server makes IT maintenance an ongoing cost — patching, backups, and disaster recovery fall on the customer's IT team rather than the vendor.
Team collaboration features lag modern CRMs — Act!'s historical strength is the individual contact owner, and shared pipelines, real-time activity feeds, and built-in chat are weaker than HubSpot, Pipedrive, or monday.
Reporting is functional but inflexible — most users export to Excel rather than build inside Act!, where modern CRMs ship dashboards, pivot charts, and embedded BI as core features.

Choosing

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

What's pulling them in

Deep Microsoft 365, Teams, and Outlook integration makes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales a natural fit for Microsoft-first organizations already invested in that ecosystem
Sales Enterprise and Premium tiers offer unlimited custom tables and advanced AI-driven forecasting and predictive analytics not available in lower tiers
Professional tier pricing at $65 per user per month offers a lower entry cost than Salesforce for SMB teams with straightforward CRM needs
Flexible customization options allow businesses to build bespoke apps, tailor forms and views, and integrate with other Dynamics 365 modules
Microsoft Copilot AI tools are embedded directly into the sales workflow on Enterprise and Premium, automating routine tasks and providing deal intelligence

Object mapping

How Act! objects map to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Each row shows how a Act! object lands in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales , including any object-level transformations, lookup resolution, or schema-design dependencies.

Typical mapping — final map is confirmed during the sample migration step.

Act!

Contact (qualified)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

contact (Dataverse)

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Contacts meeting qualification rule map to Dataverse contact entity with parentcustomerid_account link to the resolved Account.

Act!

Contact (unqualified)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

lead (Dataverse)

1:1

Fully supported

Unqualified Act! Contacts migrate as Dataverse leads. Lead Status preserves the original Act! ID/Status as a translated picklist value.

Act!

Company

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

account

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Companies map to Dataverse accounts. Parent-child account hierarchy preserves via parentaccountid.

Act!

Opportunity

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

opportunity

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Opportunities map to Dataverse opportunities linked to the resolved account and customer. Stages map via translation table to opportunity statecode and statuscode.

Act!

Opportunity Product

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

opportunityproduct

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Opportunity Products map to opportunityproduct line items. Products pre-created as product entity records with pricelevel association.

Act!

Activity (Meeting)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

appointment

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Meeting activities map to Dataverse appointment with scheduledstart/scheduledend, location, and attendees.

Act!

Activity (Call)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

phonecall

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Call activities map to Dataverse phonecall with phonenumber, scheduledend, and direction (inbound/outbound).

Act!

Activity (To-do)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

task

1:1

Fully supported

Act! To-do activities map to Dataverse task with scheduledend and prioritycode.

Act!

History (Email)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

1:1

Fully supported

Logged email correspondence in Act! History maps to Dataverse email records with from/to parties and subject preserved.

Act!

History (other completed)

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

annotation (note) or closed-state activity

1:1

Fully supported

Non-email completed History items map to closed-state activities (task/phonecall/appointment) or to annotation records depending on type.

Act!

Custom Table

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Dataverse custom table

lossy

Fully supported

Act! Custom Tables map to Dataverse custom tables with typed columns, deployed via Power Platform solution package.

Act!

Document

maps to

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

annotation (note) with attachment / SharePoint

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Documents upload as annotation attachments (inline blobs) or to SharePoint with Dataverse document location pointers, depending on customer's document strategy.

Act!	Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales	Compatibility
Contact (qualified)	contact (Dataverse)1:1	Fully supported
Contact (unqualified)	lead (Dataverse)1:1	Fully supported
Company	account1:1	Fully supported
Opportunity	opportunity1:1	Fully supported
Opportunity Product	opportunityproduct1:1	Fully supported
Activity (Meeting)	appointment1:1	Fully supported
Activity (Call)	phonecall1:1	Fully supported
Activity (To-do)	task1:1	Fully supported
History (Email)	email1:1	Fully supported
History (other completed)	annotation (note) or closed-state activity1:1	Fully supported
Custom Table	Dataverse custom tablelossy	Fully supported
Document	annotation (note) with attachment / SharePoint1:1	Fully supported

Gotchas + challenges

What specifically takes care here

Platform-specific issues from each side, plus the pair-specific challenges that don't show up on either platform's page on its own.

Act! gotchas

High

Act! Premium Desktop and Cloud use different export paths and cannot share a single migration script

High

Act! Custom Tables (v18+) have no standardized schema across customers

Medium

Activity Series (recurring activities) explode into thousands of occurrences

Medium

Act! Marketing Automation campaign history is in a separate database

Low

Act! contact layouts can hide fields without dropping them from the schema

Low

Document attachments in Act! Desktop are file-system pointers, not blobs

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales gotchas

High

Professional tier 15-table custom table limit blocks migrations

High

October 2024 pricing increase applies at renewal for all customers

Medium

Custom fields must be created in the UI before API writes

Medium

Power Platform request limits apply to bulk migrations

Medium

Activity records orphaned to inactive owners fail silently

Act! gotchas		Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales gotchas
Severity	Issue	Severity	Issue
High	Act! Premium Desktop and Cloud use different export paths and cannot share a single migration script	High	Professional tier 15-table custom table limit blocks migrations
High	Act! Custom Tables (v18+) have no standardized schema across customers	High	October 2024 pricing increase applies at renewal for all customers
Medium	Activity Series (recurring activities) explode into thousands of occurrences	Medium	Custom fields must be created in the UI before API writes
Medium	Act! Marketing Automation campaign history is in a separate database	Medium	Power Platform request limits apply to bulk migrations
Low	Act! contact layouts can hide fields without dropping them from the schema	Medium	Activity records orphaned to inactive owners fail silently
Low	Document attachments in Act! Desktop are file-system pointers, not blobs

Pair-specific challenges

Security role design must precede record load

Dataverse security (Security Roles, Business Units, Field-Level Security, Row-Level Access) is meaningfully more complex than Act!'s permission model. Mismapped owner assignments at load time mean records land but users can't see them. We work with the customer's Dynamics admin during pre-flight to define the security role assignments for migrated records.
Dataverse Web API uses navigation properties for parent links

Dataverse Web API requires the @odata.bind annotation for setting parent record references (e.g., contact's parentcustomerid_account). Plain ID values don't work. We handle this in transformation but it's a frequent gotcha for migrations attempted without specialized Dataverse experience.
Custom Table deployment via Power Platform solution

Act! Custom Tables deploy to Dataverse via a Power Platform solution package — XML manifest with table, column, form, view definitions. The customer's Power Platform admin reviews and imports the solution before record load.
Activity audit fields require Bulk API import mode

To preserve Act! Activity timestamps in Dataverse, we use the import-data API mode (or Power Automate dataflow with audit-preserve) so createdon and modifiedon match Act!'s original values rather than the import time.
Lead-vs-Contact split rule applies

Same as Salesforce: Act! Contacts split between Dataverse leads (unqualified) and contacts (qualified) per a rule decided during scoping.

Migration approach

Six steps for a successful Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales data migration

Discovery + security model design

Confirm Act! deployment, define Lead/Contact qualification rule, work with Dynamics admin on Security Roles + Business Units for migrated records. Inventory custom fields/Groups/Custom Tables/Documents.
Dataverse pre-flight

Deploy Power Platform solution for Custom Tables, custom columns on contact/account/opportunity, sales process flow with stage mapping, Lead Status picklist values, Duplicate Detection rules.
Sample migration + customer review

200 Contacts (mix of lead/contact), 50 accounts, 30 opportunities + opportunityproducts, 100 activities, 500 historical activities. Customer reviews security visibility and field mapping.
Full extraction + Document staging

Bulk Act! extraction. Documents prepared for either annotation attachments or SharePoint upload.
Full load via Dataverse Web API

accounts → contacts/leads → opportunities → opportunityproducts → activities (appointment/phonecall/task/email) → annotations with documents. Field-level hash diff after load.
Cutover + Act! decommission

Delta sync on cutover. Sales reps switch to Dynamics 365. Act! read-only for safety window.

Platform deep dives

Context on both ends of the pair

Act!

Source

Strengths

Deep, mature contact-management feature set: layouts, custom fields, secondary contacts, and relationship-tracking refined over 35+ years of releases.
Available as on-premise (Act! Premium Desktop) for teams that require local data residency — most modern CRMs are cloud-only.
Per-user pricing is predictable and competitive with mid-market CRMs for SMB use cases without integration complexity.
Strong fit for relationship-driven verticals: financial advisors, accountants, insurance brokers, real-estate, legal — workflows where the contact record is the center of the universe.
Built-in Act! Marketing Automation add-on covers basic email marketing without needing a separate Mailchimp/Constant Contact subscription.

Weaknesses

Dated UI and on-premise legacy architecture — the look and feel hasn't kept pace with modern cloud CRMs.
Small integration ecosystem (low double digits of pre-built integrations) versus thousands on HubSpot/Salesforce/Pipedrive.
Act! Premium Desktop requires customer-managed Windows Server, SQL Server, and IIS — ongoing IT overhead.
Team-collaboration and real-time-feed features lag behind modern collaborative CRMs.
Reporting is rigid — most teams export to Excel rather than build dashboards inside Act!

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Destination

Strengths

Native integration with Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint for unified productivity workflow
Unlimited custom tables and complex workflows on Enterprise tier enable deep customization for complex sales processes
AI-driven predictive analytics and deal intelligence on Enterprise and Premium tiers help sales teams prioritize pipeline
Dataverse unified data layer provides a consistent API and data model across all Dynamics 365 and Power Platform apps
Strong security model with Field-Level Security and Record Ownership rules for governance-conscious enterprises

Weaknesses

Sales Professional tier caps custom tables at 15, creating a migration ceiling for highly customized SMB environments
October 2024 pricing increases of $15 per user across all tiers apply to existing customers upon renewal
Implementation typically requires costly certified partners, adding 30–50% to total project cost
Updates and platform releases can disrupt customizations and plugins, requiring regression testing after each wave
Non-Microsoft integrations require additional configuration or middleware, limiting flexibility for heterogeneous tech stacks

	Act! Source	Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Destination
Strengths	Deep, mature contact-management feature set: layouts, custom fields, secondary contacts, and relationship-tracking refined over 35+ years of releases. Available as on-premise (Act! Premium Desktop) for teams that require local data residency — most modern CRMs are cloud-only. Per-user pricing is predictable and competitive with mid-market CRMs for SMB use cases without integration complexity. Strong fit for relationship-driven verticals: financial advisors, accountants, insurance brokers, real-estate, legal — workflows where the contact record is the center of the universe. Built-in Act! Marketing Automation add-on covers basic email marketing without needing a separate Mailchimp/Constant Contact subscription.	Native integration with Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint for unified productivity workflow Unlimited custom tables and complex workflows on Enterprise tier enable deep customization for complex sales processes AI-driven predictive analytics and deal intelligence on Enterprise and Premium tiers help sales teams prioritize pipeline Dataverse unified data layer provides a consistent API and data model across all Dynamics 365 and Power Platform apps Strong security model with Field-Level Security and Record Ownership rules for governance-conscious enterprises
Weaknesses	Dated UI and on-premise legacy architecture — the look and feel hasn't kept pace with modern cloud CRMs. Small integration ecosystem (low double digits of pre-built integrations) versus thousands on HubSpot/Salesforce/Pipedrive. Act! Premium Desktop requires customer-managed Windows Server, SQL Server, and IIS — ongoing IT overhead. Team-collaboration and real-time-feed features lag behind modern collaborative CRMs. Reporting is rigid — most teams export to Excel rather than build dashboards inside Act!	Sales Professional tier caps custom tables at 15, creating a migration ceiling for highly customized SMB environments October 2024 pricing increases of $15 per user across all tiers apply to existing customers upon renewal Implementation typically requires costly certified partners, adding 30–50% to total project cost Updates and platform releases can disrupt customizations and plugins, requiring regression testing after each wave Non-Microsoft integrations require additional configuration or middleware, limiting flexibility for heterogeneous tech stacks

Complexity grading

How hard is this migration?

Standard CRM migration. All 8 core objects map 1:1 between Act! and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales .

Overall complexity

Standard migration

Derived from compatibility, mapping clarity, API constraints, and data volume across Act! and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales .

Object compatibility
A
All 8 core objects map 1:1 between Act! and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales .
Field mapping clarity
C
Field mapping is derived from defaults — final spec confirmed during the sample migration.
Timeline complexity
B
8-object category — typical timelines run 2–7 days end-to-end.
API constraints
B
Act!: Not publicly documented for Cloud; Desktop is limited only by the customer's SQL Server and IIS capacity.
Data volume sensitivity
B
Act! doesn't expose a bulk API — REST + parallelization used for high-volume runs.

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Migrate from Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

What this migration involves

Field-level fidelity

Schema-aware mapping

Relationships preserved

Full activity history

Attachments & notes

Two sides of the same decision

Act!

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

How Act! objects map to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

What specifically takes care here

Six steps for a successful Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales data migration

Context on both ends of the pair

How hard is this migration?

Estimate your Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales migration cost

What are you migrating?

Frequently asked questions about Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales data migrations

Can't find your answer?

Related migrations to explore

Move from Act!.
Land in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales , intact.

Migrate from Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

What this migration involves

Field-level fidelity

Schema-aware mapping

Relationships preserved

Full activity history

Attachments & notes

Two sides of the same decision

Act!

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

How Act! objects map to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

What specifically takes care here

Six steps for a successful Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales data migration

Context on both ends of the pair

How hard is this migration?

Estimate your Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales migration cost

Frequently asked questions about Act! to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales data migrations

Can't find your answer?

Will my Act! data preserve original timestamps in Dynamics 365?

How does the Lead-vs-Contact split work in Dynamics 365?

Where do Act! Documents live in Dynamics 365?

Are Act! Custom Tables supported?

What's the right Dynamics 365 Sales tier?

Can Act! continue running during the migration?

Related migrations to explore

Move from Act!. Land in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales , intact.

Move from Act!.
Land in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales , intact.