Migrate from Smokeball to Twenty CRM

Smokeball contacts map directly to Twenty People via a one-to-one field correspondence. Each contact's primary matter association is stored as a custom field (Primary_Matter_Number__c) that links the People record to the corresponding Opportunity in Twenty. For multi-contact households or legal parties represented as a single contact in Smokeball, we expand these into individual People records to maintain accurate contact granularity in the general CRM model.

Smokeball staff records containing first name, surname, email, employment status, and salutation map directly to Twenty WorkspaceMembers. The email address serves as the unique identifier for matching staff across systems. Staff records lacking email addresses cannot auto-resolve to Twenty WorkspaceMembers — these are flagged during the audit phase for manual assignment before the migration commits.

Smokeball matters have no native Twenty equivalent — the closest object is Opportunity. We map matter description to Opportunity name, open-debtor balance to a custom monetary field, and matter type to a custom pick-list field (Practice_Area__c). The matter number is preserved as a custom text field for traceability.

Smokeball captures opposing parties or 'other side' contacts associated with a matter as separate contact records. These map to Twenty People with a custom role field (Party_Role__c) set to 'Opposing Party' or 'Other Side' depending on the Smokeball classification. This preserves the adversarial context specific to legal matters while maintaining a standard People record in Twenty's general CRM model.

Smokeball Document Containers (letterhead/header templates) have no Twenty CRM equivalent. Document containers cannot be migrated — we export the container configuration as a JSON reference file so your team can rebuild letterhead templates in Word mail-merge or a third-party document tool post-migration.

Smokeball documents attached to matters map to Twenty file attachments on the corresponding Opportunity record. Files are re-uploaded via Twenty's attachment API using the original filename and any document-type label preserved as custom metadata on the attachment record. This maintains the document-to-matter relationship without requiring manual re-association after migration.

Smokeball notes attached to matters map to Twenty Notes linked to the corresponding Opportunity record. Original create timestamps are preserved to maintain historical context. Rich-text formatting is converted to plain text where the Twenty field type does not support HTML markup, ensuring the note content remains readable without formatting dependencies.

Smokeball time entries (AutoTime records linked to matter activities) have no native Twenty equivalent. We preserve them as Notes on the Opportunity with custom fields capturing the billing details: Time_Entry_Hours__c records the hours worked, Billing_Rate__c stores the applicable rate, and Billing_Method__c captures the fee arrangement from the originating matter record.

Smokeball activities — including logged calls, emails, and administrative tasks from the Activity feed — map to Twenty Tasks attached to the relevant Opportunity or People record. Original timestamps are preserved to maintain the activity chronology. Assigned staff members are resolved via email match to Twenty WorkspaceMember records, ensuring accountability carries forward without manual reassignment.

Smokeball custom fields defined on contacts and matters are identified during the audit phase when the full data model is extracted. Each custom field is created as a Twenty custom field on the corresponding target object before migration begins, then populated with Smokeball source values during the data load to preserve all firm-specific data captured in the legacy system.

Smokeball matter types (personal injury, family law, real estate, civil litigation, business law, and 200+ others) are captured as a custom pick-list field on the Opportunity object. Each Smokeball matter type value is created as a pick-list option in Twenty.

Smokeball trust-account balances and office-account tracking have no native Twenty equivalent for active fund management. Open trust balances and account identifiers are migrated as read-only custom monetary fields on the Opportunity for historical reference. Firms needing full trust-accounting functionality should maintain a separate legal accounting tool; these custom fields provide CRM-level visibility without replicating accounting logic.

Smokeball matter-stage workflows and automated task sequences are legal-practice-specific constructs with no Twenty CRM equivalent. These cannot be migrated. We export the workflow definitions as a JSON reference document so your Twenty admin can rebuild them using Twenty's workflow builder or a third-party automation tool.

Smokeball automated document templates built in TemplateLab — including field mappings to matter data and conditional logic — have no Twenty CRM equivalent and cannot be transferred. We extract all template field names and mapping configurations into a structured JSON reference file. Your team can use this to rebuild equivalent templates in Microsoft Word mail-merge or a comparable document-automation platform after migration.