Migrate from Smokeball to Zoho CRM

Smokeball Staff records (attorneys, paralegals, admins) map to Zoho CRM Users. Resolution happens by email address — each Smokeball staff email must match a Zoho CRM user email for automatic owner assignment. Inactive Smokeball staff become Zoho CRM inactive users. Role and profile mapping in Zoho (Manager, Standard User) must be configured post-migration.

Smokeball contacts are the client and debtor within a Matter. They migrate as Zoho CRM Contacts with the Account lookup populated from the Account created for the client company. If Smokeball stores the client as a standalone contact (no company), a Zoho CRM Account is created with the same name. Contacts without email addresses are flagged for manual review.

Smokeball does not have a standalone Company module — companies are implied by the contact record. When a Matter has a client with a known organization, that organization migrates as a Zoho CRM Account. All other clients without a company affiliation create Account records named from the contact name.

Smokeball Matters map directly to Zoho CRM Deals. Matter number and internal reference number migrate as the Deal name or a custom external-ID field. Matter type, client, debtor, other-side, and other-side attorney fields migrate as custom fields on the Deal. Open debtor balance migrates as a custom currency field.

Smokeball Matter Types (e.g., Family Law, Personal Injury, Real Estate) map to Zoho CRM Deal Stage values or a custom pick-list field. Each Matter Type becomes a distinct stage in the Zoho pipeline so deal lists can filter by practice area. The value-by-value mapping is documented in the field-mapping sheet before migration runs.

Smokeball Activities (tasks, document work, memos, emails, matter admin) are all activity types tracked against a Matter. They migrate as Zoho CRM Tasks linked to the Deal record. The original activity type is stored as a custom pick-list on the Task so the Zoho activity feed shows the Smokeball activity kind.

Smokeball AutoTime entries (time tracked per activity) do not have a native Zoho CRM equivalent. We migrate them as Zoho CRM Notes on the Deal record with the billable duration stored in a custom number field (Time_Duration_Minutes__c) and the rate stored in a second custom field. This preserves the billing data for import into Zoho Books or a law firm's accounting system.

Smokeball's hard costs (court filing fees, expert fees) and soft costs (photocopying, postage) are tracked per Matter. These migrate as two custom currency fields on the Zoho CRM Deal — Hard_Costs__c and Soft_Costs__c — so the financial picture of each Matter is preserved at the deal level.

Smokeball Document Containers (headers/footers with firm branding) have no Zoho CRM equivalent. We export the Document Container configuration and field mappings from Smokeball as a reference document. Zoho Creator or Zoho Writer templates must be rebuilt using this reference — FlitStack provides the export file and a setup guide for this step.

Smokeball file attachments on Matters and Contacts re-upload to Zoho CRM Files attached to the corresponding Deal or Contact record. Zoho's bulk write API has a 25MB per-file limit. Files exceeding this are split or flagged for chunked re-upload. Original file names and upload timestamps are preserved as metadata.

Smokeball Workflows auto-generate task lists tied to Matter Type. Zoho CRM Blueprint automation is the closest equivalent but does not automatically receive Smokeball workflow definitions. We export every Smokeball workflow as a JSON definition and a written step-by-step guide. Your Zoho admin rebuilds these in Blueprint or Deluge functions post-migration.

Smokeball Tags applied to Contacts and Matters migrate to Zoho CRM Tags. These tags are applied to the corresponding Deal or Contact record after migration completes. Zoho CRM tags support multi-value assignment on a single record, which closely matches Smokeball's tag model where multiple tags can be applied to matters and contacts. Tag names are preserved exactly as they appear in Smokeball, including any case sensitivity or special characters used in the original tagging scheme.

Smokeball notes on Contacts and Matters migrate to Zoho CRM Notes linked to the corresponding record. Rich-text formatting in Smokeball notes is preserved as plain text in Zoho Notes. If Smokeball notes contain HTML markup, we strip tags during the export phase before loading.