Migrate from Nutshell to HighLevel

Nutshell People records map directly to GoHighLevel Contacts. The contact's name, email, phone, address, and standard fields transfer as typed fields in GHL. Nutshell's company_id reference resolves to a GHL Company object lookup at migration time. Any Person-level custom fields from Nutshell are recreated as Contact custom properties in GHL. The migration uses Nutshell's JSON-RPC contacts API with paginated cursor-based extraction and inserts into GHL via the Contacts REST endpoint, batched to avoid rate-limit violations.

Nutshell Company records map to GoHighLevel Company objects. Unlike Nutshell's hierarchical model where People attach directly to Companies, GHL Companies function as a loose grouping mechanism that Contacts reference rather than a strict parent. Company-level custom fields migrate as GHL Company custom properties. The GHL Company is created before any Contact import so that the Company lookup reference is satisfied at Contact insert time.

Nutshell Leads are distinct records separate from People, with their own custom fields and lifecycle. GoHighLevel has no separate Lead object, so we merge Nutshell Leads into the GHL Contact object using a custom field nut_source__c set to Lead for origin tracking. We also create a lifecycle_status custom picklist on the GHL Contact to preserve the Nutshell Lead stage (New, Contacted, Qualified, Unqualified) so the customer can segment in GHL without a separate Lead management workflow. The original Nutshell Lead ID is preserved in nut_original_id__c for audit.

Nutshell Deals map to GoHighLevel Opportunities inside Pipelines. The deal name, amount, expected close date, owner, and associated People and Companies transfer. In GHL, the Opportunity is placed inside the appropriate Pipeline and assigned to a stage that mirrors the Nutshell pipeline and stage definition. We preserve deal stage probabilities by configuring matching stage weights in GHL Pipeline setup. Closed-won and closed-lost reasons from Nutshell custom fields become GHL Opportunity custom fields.

Nutshell's multiple pipelines (each with configurable stages) map to GoHighLevel Pipelines. We extract pipeline definitions including stage names, stage order, and win/loss status, then recreate them as GHL Pipelines with equivalent stage definitions. Stage probability percentages transfer as GHL stage weights. Note that GHL Pipelines are simpler than Nutshell's pipeline automation triggers; automation logic is documented separately for rebuild.

Nutshell Activities tied to People or Companies migrate to GHL Notes attached to the corresponding Contact or Company. Call logs, meeting summaries, and task records transfer with timestamps preserved. Email content from Nutshell's activity log becomes a Note on the Contact with email metadata (sender, recipient, date) in the Note body. We maintain activity timeline ordering by setting the Note creation date to the original Nutshell activity timestamp so the customer sees the chronological history in GHL.

We enumerate all Nutshell custom field definitions across People, Companies, and Leads during discovery. Each custom field is recreated in GHL with the equivalent field type (text, number, date, picklist, checkbox, phone, email, URL) before data import begins. Field-level constraints and picklist options are preserved. Custom field API names from Nutshell are mapped to GHL custom property keys, with nut_ prefixed to avoid naming conflicts with GHL reserved fields.

Nutshell uses a tag-based taxonomy for categorizing People and Companies. Tags are exported from Nutshell and mapped to GHL Tags. Nutshell tag hierarchy, if any exists, is flattened during transfer since GHL tags are a flat list. We use GHL's tag management API to create missing tags before Contact and Company import, then apply tags via the contact tagging endpoint during the data load phase.