How do you decide what becomes a Salesforce Lead vs a Contact?

We agree the rule during scoping. The most common rule is: Act! Contacts with at least one closed-won Opportunity migrate as Salesforce Contacts on the relevant Account; Contacts without Opportunity history (or with only closed-lost) migrate as Leads. Some teams use the Act! ID/Status field instead. Once the rule is set, we apply it consistently and reconcile counts so you know exactly how the migrated population splits.

Will my Act! Activity and History data preserve its original timestamps in Salesforce?

Yes, but it requires a Salesforce org setting: 'Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation' enabled by your Salesforce admin. With that enabled, we load Activities, Tasks, and Events via Bulk API 2.0 with explicit CreatedDate values so the Salesforce timeline reads in correct chronological order. Without that setting, Salesforce stamps the import user/date and the timeline loses chronology.

Are Act! Custom Tables supported?

Yes — they map 1:1 to Salesforce Custom Objects. Salesforce Custom Objects are available from Professional tier ($80/user/month) at no add-on cost, making Salesforce the lowest-friction destination for Act! tenants with Custom Tables (Policies, Properties, Cases, Loans). We capture the Custom Table metadata during scoping and deploy matching Custom Objects before load.

What happens to my Act! Marketing Automation campaign data?

AMA campaign data lives in a separate database. We extract via the AMA API and roll up engagement signals (last open, last click, total sends, bounce status) as custom Contact properties in Salesforce. Per-send historical detail is archived as CSV rather than re-created as live Salesforce records. If you're moving marketing automation to Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement), we deliver a parallel integration plan during scoping.

How are Act! Documents stored in Salesforce?

As Salesforce Files (ContentDocument/ContentVersion) attached to the parent Contact, Account, or Opportunity via ContentDocumentLink. Storage counts against your Salesforce file-storage allotment (10 GB at org level + additional 50 GB increments purchasable). For large Document libraries, we calculate the post-migration footprint during scoping so you know whether storage tier upgrades are needed before load.

Can Act! continue running during the Salesforce migration?

Yes. Extraction is read-only (Web API for Cloud, read-only SQL for Desktop). Sales reps continue working in Act! through cutover. On cutover day, delta sync picks up anything modified since the bulk load and we formally switch the team to Salesforce. Act! stays read-only for 30–90 days as a safety net before formal decommission.

Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud Migration — Field-Level Mapping & Rollback

Overview

What this migration involves

Moving from Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud is a fidelity exercise: Act!'s contact-first model collapses into Salesforce's Account → Contact → Opportunity hierarchy, with a deliberate Lead-vs-Contact split decided up front. Act! treats every record as a Contact regardless of qualification state; Salesforce splits unqualified prospects into Leads and qualified buyers into Contacts attached to Accounts. We resolve that split during scoping by applying a rule the customer signs off on (e.g., Contacts with no Opportunity history → Lead, Contacts with at least one closed-won Opportunity → Contact + Account). Activities and History migrate through Salesforce's Bulk API 2.0 with chunking and parent-record resolution so the full Act! timeline lands against the correct Contact/Account/Opportunity. Act! Groups translate to Salesforce Campaigns when the membership is engagement-driven, or to Reports + List Views when the membership is segmentation-driven — we make that call during scoping. Custom Tables map to Salesforce Custom Objects (available from Professional tier with no add-on cost) — a structural advantage over HubSpot, where Custom Objects are Enterprise-only.

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

Salesforce Sales Cloud

What's pulling them in

The AppExchange marketplace with 5,000+ prebuilt apps gives enterprises integrations for nearly every business workflow without custom development.
Native Einstein AI for lead scoring, opportunity insights, and predictive forecasting adds intelligence without a separate platform purchase.
Territory management, multi-currency support, and advanced forecasting satisfy the needs of complex B2B sales organizations with structured revenue teams.
Slack, Tableau, and CPQ are deeply integrated into the core platform, keeping the sales stack unified for teams already in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Organizations with a large, established Salesforce implementation choose it because switching costs — integrations, custom code, trained admins — are prohibitive.

Object mapping

How Act! objects map to Salesforce Sales Cloud

Each row shows how a Act! object lands in Salesforce Sales Cloud, 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

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Contact (linked to Account)

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Contacts with a closed-won Opportunity (or matching a customer-defined qualification rule) migrate as Salesforce Contacts attached to an Account. We resolve the Account first (creating it from Act! Company or deriving from Contact.Company) then create Contacts with explicit AccountId.

Act!

Contact (unqualified)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Lead

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Contacts that don't meet the customer's qualification rule migrate as Salesforce Leads. We preserve the original Act! ID/Status as the Lead Status field and the original creation date as Lead CreatedDate via the Bulk API's data-preserve mode.

Act!

Company

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Account

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Companies map to Salesforce Accounts. Where Act! Company is missing, we derive an Account from Contact.Company_Name with deduplication on normalized name. Parent-child account hierarchy is preserved if Act! tenants used the Company → Sub-Company convention.

Act!

Opportunity

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Opportunity

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Opportunities map to Salesforce Opportunities linked to the resolved Account. Stage names map via a translation table aligned to the customer's Salesforce Sales Process. Weighted forecast preserves via Probability; close date and status carry over.

Act!

Opportunity Product

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

OpportunityLineItem

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Opportunity Products map to Salesforce OpportunityLineItem records. We pre-create matching Salesforce Products and PricebookEntries during setup, then attach line items with the standard Pricebook association.

Act!

Activity (scheduled)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Task / Event

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Calls and To-dos → Salesforce Tasks. Meetings → Salesforce Events. Attendees, location, and description preserve. Recurring Activity Series expand within an agreed active window and the rule stores as a custom field.

Act!

History (completed)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Task (closed) / EmailMessage

1:1

Fully supported

Act! History items migrate as closed Tasks with the original timestamp preserved (Salesforce Bulk API supports CreatedDate preservation). Email correspondence migrates as EmailMessage records linked to the parent Contact/Account/Opportunity.

Act!

Group (Static)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Campaign + CampaignMember

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Static Groups used for engagement (mailing lists, event invitees) become Salesforce Campaigns with CampaignMember rows. Groups used for pure segmentation (industry classification, region tagging) become Salesforce List Views or Reports rather than Campaigns.

Act!

Group (Dynamic)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Report / List View

lossy

Fully supported

Act! Dynamic Groups translate to Salesforce Reports with filter criteria mirroring the Act! query. Where filter operators don't translate 1:1, we rewrite with the customer's sign-off.

Act!

Document

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

ContentDocument / ContentVersion + ContentDocumentLink

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Documents upload to Salesforce Files (ContentDocument/ContentVersion) and link to the parent Contact, Account, or Opportunity via ContentDocumentLink. Storage usage is tracked — Salesforce charges for file storage above the included allotment.

Act!

Custom Table (v18+)

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Custom Object

lossy

Fully supported

Act! Custom Tables map 1:1 to Salesforce Custom Objects with typed fields (text, number, picklist, date, formula). Custom Object schema is built during scoping based on the Act! metadata. Relationships back to Contact/Account are preserved via lookup fields.

Act!

Secondary Contact

maps to

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Contact (linked Account with relationship custom field)

1:1

Fully supported

Act! Secondary Contacts migrate as standalone Salesforce Contacts on the same Account as the primary, with a 'Primary Contact' lookup custom field preserving the original relationship.

Act!	Salesforce Sales Cloud	Compatibility
Contact (qualified)	Contact (linked to Account)1:1	Fully supported
Contact (unqualified)	Lead1:1	Fully supported
Company	Account1:1	Fully supported
Opportunity	Opportunity1:1	Fully supported
Opportunity Product	OpportunityLineItem1:1	Fully supported
Activity (scheduled)	Task / Event1:1	Fully supported
History (completed)	Task (closed) / EmailMessage1:1	Fully supported
Group (Static)	Campaign + CampaignMember1:1	Fully supported
Group (Dynamic)	Report / List Viewlossy	Fully supported
Document	ContentDocument / ContentVersion + ContentDocumentLink1:1	Fully supported
Custom Table (v18+)	Custom Objectlossy	Fully supported
Secondary Contact	Contact (linked Account with relationship custom field)1:1	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

Salesforce Sales Cloud gotchas

High

Workflow Rules and Process Builder are retired

High

Bulk API batch quota exhaustion during large imports

Medium

Storage overage billing is non-obvious

Medium

Account-Contact many-to-many relationship mapping

Low

Territory and team member import ordering dependencies

Act! gotchas		Salesforce Sales Cloud gotchas
Severity	Issue	Severity	Issue
High	Act! Premium Desktop and Cloud use different export paths and cannot share a single migration script	High	Workflow Rules and Process Builder are retired
High	Act! Custom Tables (v18+) have no standardized schema across customers	High	Bulk API batch quota exhaustion during large imports
Medium	Activity Series (recurring activities) explode into thousands of occurrences	Medium	Storage overage billing is non-obvious
Medium	Act! Marketing Automation campaign history is in a separate database	Medium	Account-Contact many-to-many relationship mapping
Low	Act! contact layouts can hide fields without dropping them from the schema	Low	Territory and team member import ordering dependencies
Low	Document attachments in Act! Desktop are file-system pointers, not blobs

Pair-specific challenges

Lead-vs-Contact split must be decided before extraction

Act! treats every record as a Contact regardless of qualification. Salesforce requires every record to land as either a Lead (unqualified prospect) or a Contact attached to an Account (qualified buyer). We need a clear rule before extraction — typically based on Opportunity history, ID/Status field values, or last interaction date. Trying to migrate everything as Contacts works mechanically but defeats the purpose of moving to Salesforce in the first place.
Activity history requires Bulk API 2.0 with audit-field preservation

Salesforce by default stamps the import user as the Activity owner and the import timestamp as the CreatedDate. For the Act! Activity + History timeline to render correctly in Salesforce, we need org-level audit-field preservation enabled and the records loaded via Bulk API 2.0 with explicit CreatedDate and OwnerId values. The customer's Salesforce admin must enable 'Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation' before extraction begins.
Custom Tables require Salesforce Custom Object pre-creation

Act! Custom Table schemas vary per tenant. The Salesforce Custom Object definitions need to be deployed before record load — including all custom fields, page layouts, list views, and any record-type assignments. We capture the Custom Table metadata during scoping and ship a Salesforce metadata package (.zip with object/field XML) that the customer's admin reviews and deploys.
Storage charges apply above 10 GB org-wide

Salesforce includes 10 GB of file storage at the org level (regardless of seat count) and charges for additional storage in 50 GB increments. Act! installations with large Document libraries can exceed this allotment on the first migration. We pre-calculate the post-migration storage footprint during scoping and surface any storage upgrade requirement to the customer before load begins.
Act! Group dynamic-query translation requires customer review

Act! Dynamic Group query operators (contains-any-of, regex, complex date math) don't all map cleanly to Salesforce Report filter criteria. We translate the supported subset and rewrite the rest with the customer's sign-off — usually by breaking one Act! Group into multiple Salesforce Reports or relaxing a filter and noting the original query in the Report description.

Migration approach

Six steps for a successful Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud data migration

Discovery + Lead/Contact split rule

We confirm Act! deployment model (Cloud vs Desktop), capture credentials, inventory Contact custom fields, Group definitions, Custom Tables, Document volume, and User roster. The output is a scope document plus the agreed Lead-vs-Contact qualification rule.
Salesforce pre-flight + metadata deployment

We deploy Custom Objects for Act! Custom Tables, custom fields on Contact/Account/Opportunity for every populated Act! custom field, Sales Process with stage mapping, Lead Status picklist, and Duplicate Management rules. Audit-field preservation gets enabled before extraction.
Sample migration + customer review

We migrate ~200 Contacts (mix of Lead and Contact per the rule), 50 Accounts, 30 Opportunities with Line Items, 100 Activities, and 500 History items spanning two reps. Customer reviews mapping fidelity, Lead-vs-Contact distribution, and stage translation before full run.
Full extraction + Document download

Bulk Act! extraction with chunking, staged in the migration database. Document library downloads in parallel and pre-stages to Salesforce Files via the ContentVersion API for batch attachment during load.
Full load via Bulk API 2.0

Bulk load Accounts first, then Contacts/Leads, then Opportunities + OpportunityLineItems, then Tasks/Events/EmailMessages, then ContentDocumentLinks for Documents. After load, field-level hash diff between Act! and Salesforce, with any miss surfaced for review.
Cutover + Act! decommission

On cutover day, delta sync captures records modified since bulk load. Sales reps switch to Salesforce. Act! remains read-only for an agreed safety window (30–90 days) before decommission — for Desktop tenants this includes SQL Server backup archival and license return.

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!

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Destination

Strengths

Largest enterprise app ecosystem in CRM with 5,000+ AppExchange integrations covering nearly every vertical workflow.
Native Einstein AI delivers lead scoring, opportunity insights, and predictive forecasting without a third-party layer.
Advanced territory management, multi-currency, and flexible forecasting satisfy complex B2B revenue structures.
Deep platform extensibility: Custom Objects, Apex, Flow, and the Metadata API allow full schema customization.
Well-documented REST API, Bulk API, and Composite API with published rate limits for programmatic migration.

Weaknesses

Pricing model is layered and opaque in practice: per-seat fees plus storage overages, add-on subscriptions, and annual uplifts compound to 30–40% above sticker price.
Workflow Rules and Process Builder are deprecated, forcing all orgs onto Salesforce Flow — a migration task that catches many teams by surprise.
Steep administrative complexity: meaningful configuration requires a dedicated Salesforce admin or consultant.
API rate limits are edition-gated (100k/day base for Enterprise) and easily exhausted by large historical imports without throttling.
Data export is exportable via Data Loader but preserving relationship integrity across 30+ objects requires careful ETL sequencing.

	Act! Source	Salesforce Sales Cloud 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.	Largest enterprise app ecosystem in CRM with 5,000+ AppExchange integrations covering nearly every vertical workflow. Native Einstein AI delivers lead scoring, opportunity insights, and predictive forecasting without a third-party layer. Advanced territory management, multi-currency, and flexible forecasting satisfy complex B2B revenue structures. Deep platform extensibility: Custom Objects, Apex, Flow, and the Metadata API allow full schema customization. Well-documented REST API, Bulk API, and Composite API with published rate limits for programmatic migration.
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!	Pricing model is layered and opaque in practice: per-seat fees plus storage overages, add-on subscriptions, and annual uplifts compound to 30–40% above sticker price. Workflow Rules and Process Builder are deprecated, forcing all orgs onto Salesforce Flow — a migration task that catches many teams by surprise. Steep administrative complexity: meaningful configuration requires a dedicated Salesforce admin or consultant. API rate limits are edition-gated (100k/day base for Enterprise) and easily exhausted by large historical imports without throttling. Data export is exportable via Data Loader but preserving relationship integrity across 30+ objects requires careful ETL sequencing.

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Migrate from Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud

What this migration involves

Field-level fidelity

Schema-aware mapping

Relationships preserved

Full activity history

Attachments & notes

Two sides of the same decision

Act!

Salesforce Sales Cloud

How Act! objects map to Salesforce Sales Cloud

What specifically takes care here

Six steps for a successful Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud data migration

Context on both ends of the pair

How hard is this migration?

Estimate your Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud migration cost

What are you migrating?

Frequently asked questions about Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud data migrations

Can't find your answer?

Related migrations to explore

Move from Act!.
Land in Salesforce Sales Cloud, intact.

Migrate from Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud

What this migration involves

Field-level fidelity

Schema-aware mapping

Relationships preserved

Full activity history

Attachments & notes

Two sides of the same decision

Act!

Salesforce Sales Cloud

How Act! objects map to Salesforce Sales Cloud

What specifically takes care here

Six steps for a successful Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud data migration

Context on both ends of the pair

How hard is this migration?

Estimate your Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud migration cost

Frequently asked questions about Act! to Salesforce Sales Cloud data migrations

Can't find your answer?

How do you decide what becomes a Salesforce Lead vs a Contact?

Will my Act! Activity and History data preserve its original timestamps in Salesforce?

Are Act! Custom Tables supported?

What happens to my Act! Marketing Automation campaign data?

How are Act! Documents stored in Salesforce?

Can Act! continue running during the Salesforce migration?

Related migrations to explore

Move from Act!. Land in Salesforce Sales Cloud, intact.

Move from Act!.
Land in Salesforce Sales Cloud, intact.