Migrate from Bolten CRM to Zoho CRM

Bolten Contact records map directly to Zoho CRM Contact. The primary fields (First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Address) map 1:1. Custom properties on the Bolten Contact record map to Zoho custom fields that we provision before import. Tags applied to Bolten Contacts migrate as Zoho Tags, and lead-source attribution stored on the contact migrates as a custom field. The Bolten Contact unique identifier is preserved in a custom field bolten_contact_id__c for cross-reference.

Bolten Leads and Contacts are separate lists in Bolten's model, and both map to Zoho's Lead module. Bolten's lead lifecycle status and owner assignment map to Zoho Lead Status and Owner respectively. Source campaign and UTM attribution data stored on Bolten Leads migrate as custom fields on Zoho Lead. Conversion attribution data from Bolten's Conversions add-on migrates as a custom field on Zoho Lead for reporting continuity.

Bolten Deals map to Zoho Deals. The Kanban stage names (free-text labels with no ordering property in Bolten's API) require explicit stage sequence collection during pre-migration discovery. We create Zoho pipeline stages in the customer-confirmed order, assign the correct probability percentage per stage, and map the Bolten stage name to the matching Zoho stage. Deal value, expected close date, and owner assignment migrate directly. Any Bolten Deal without a matching stage in Zoho is flagged for manual assignment before the import phase completes.

Each Bolten Kanban pipeline becomes a Zoho CRM pipeline with Stages. We collect the intended stage order and probability from the customer before migration, then create the Zoho Stage picklist values in that sequence. Probability percentages migrate from Bolten's stage-level data to Zoho's Stage Probability field. Stage names with special characters or non-standard formatting are normalized to Zoho's allowed picklist format during the transform step.

Bolten Tasks migrate to Zoho Tasks with assignee, due date, status, priority, and linked contact or deal preserved. The association between Task and the related Bolten Contact or Deal is resolved via the Bolten record ID cross-reference and written to Zoho as a lookup. Recurring task rules in Bolten do not transfer; we flag them in the delivered automation inventory for the customer's admin to rebuild in Zoho's workflow rules.

Bolten's full change-audit history per record migrates as a chronological Activity History feed attached to each Zoho record. Each audit entry (record edit, assignment change, stage move) is written as a separate Zoho Activity record with timestamp, operator, and change description preserved. This preserves the audit trail that Bolten maintains natively on every record change.

Bolten users are identified by email and name. We map source user email to destination user email during import. Any Bolten user without a matching Zoho User in the destination account is held in a reconciliation queue; the customer's Zoho admin provisions the missing user before record import resumes. Suspended or inactive Bolten users are flagged for remapping to active destination users at the customer's direction.

Bolten's flat-label string tags applied to Contacts and Deals migrate directly to Zoho Tags. We preserve the tagging relationship per record. Tags used for segmentation or scoring in Bolten are mapped to Zoho Tags with the same label so that existing Zoho reports filtered by tag continue to function after migration.

Bolten custom fields (text, number, date, dropdown, multi-select per object) map to Zoho CRM custom fields of equivalent type. We pre-create the destination custom fields in Zoho before import, matching the Bolten field name as the Zoho field label with the appropriate Zoho field type. Multi-select picklists in Bolten map to Zoho multi-select picklists; dropdowns map to Zoho picklists. Any Bolten custom field with a Zoho-unavailable field type is flagged during scoping for customer decision on transformation or omission.

Bolten WhatsApp conversations live on Meta's servers, not Bolten's database, and cannot be migrated as message history. We extract the contact phone number, conversation start timestamp, and last-activity timestamp from Bolten and write them to Zoho as Activity records linked to the corresponding Contact. This preserves the fact that a WhatsApp conversation existed and its timeframe, even without the message content. Actual WhatsApp message history requires a separate Meta data-portability request outside our pipeline.