Migrate from Market Maker to Zoho CRM

Zoho Contacts stores the same fields as a standard CRM contact — first name, last name, email, phone, address. Primary company is mapped as a lookup to the Account record. We migrate contacts first so the AccountId lookup resolves correctly during the Deals phase.

Zoho Accounts serves as the direct structural equivalent of the Company object in Market Maker. Company hierarchies featuring parent-child relationships translate directly to the Parent Account lookup field in Zoho, preserving organizational structure. For contacts associated with multiple companies in the source system, those associations collapse into a single primary AccountId reference in Zoho, with additional company links handled through Account Contact Relations. Contact roles are applied to secondary associations to maintain the full relationship context from the source platform.

Zoho Potentials (labeled Deals in some UI configurations) holds the deal with Amount, Stage, and Close Date. Pipeline is not a native Zoho field — we create a custom multi-select pick-list field called Pipeline in Zoho and map the source pipeline value into it so the data is preserved even without Zoho's native pipeline view.

Zoho has no native pipeline module — deals live in a single Potentials module with stage-based Kanban views. We create a Pipeline custom field (multi-select pick-list) and map every source pipeline name into it so reporting can filter by pipeline without rebuilding the concept from scratch.

Each pipeline stage in Market Maker maps to a corresponding Zoho Potential Stage value. Stage names that do not have a matching Zoho stage are created in Zoho Settings > Stages before migration. Probability and forecast-category values are re-applied from the source side in a companion custom field.

Zoho CRM does not include a native lifecycle stage attribute for leads or contacts, which means source lifecycle values require a custom field approach. We create a Lifecycle_Stage custom pick-list field on both the Leads and Contacts modules in Zoho, populating it with the complete set of source lifecycle values extracted during the pre-migration audit. Additionally, timestamp tracking for lifecycle stage changes is preserved in a companion datetime field named Lifecycle_Stage_Updated, enabling reporting continuity and historical analysis of stage progression after the migration completes.

Zoho Tasks hold calls, emails, and general to-do items with Subject and Description. Original timestamps and owners are preserved. Engagement type (call vs. email) is stored in the Task Subject prefix so the activity history is readable in Zoho's Activity Timeline.

Zoho Events store meetings with start time, end time, and venue fields. The Subject maps from the source meeting title. All-day events and recurring events are handled via separate mapping — recurring events are flattened to one Zoho Event record per instance to avoid Zoho's recurring event import limitation.

Zoho Notes attach as separate Note records linked to the parent CRM entity. Rich-text formatting in the source note is preserved as HTML within the Note body so that formatting context is not lost. For notes with embedded images, the images are downloaded, rehosted, and the URL is updated in the Note body.

File attachments are downloaded from the source and re-uploaded to Zoho CRM as Zoho Attachments, linked to their parent record. The 25MB per-file limit in Zoho is enforced — files over 25MB are flagged before migration so your team can split them or host them externally and link via URL.

Market Maker custom objects map to Zoho custom modules. Zoho Professional and above allow custom module creation via Settings > Modules. N:N relationships between custom objects in Market Maker translate to Zoho custom lookup fields on the related module — we generate the relationship diagram as part of the migration plan.

Multi-select pick-list values from Market Maker migrate to Zoho Multi-Select Pick-list fields. Value-by-value mapping is performed during the transformation step — values that do not have a matching Zoho pick-list option are created in Zoho Settings before migration and flagged in the pre-migration report.