Migrate from The Case File to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

The Case File Client maps 1:1 to D365 Account — the client organization name, address, industry, and website fields translate directly. Client contacts that are not individual matter representatives land as related Contact records under the Account. Any billing or invoicing contacts stored separately in The Case File merge into custom fields on the Account (Billing_Contact__c, Invoice_Email__c) to prevent duplicate Account creation.

Client-side contacts (attorneys, paralegals, billing contacts, opposing parties) map to D365 Contacts. Each Contact is linked to its parent Account (the Client). Where The Case File stores multiple contact roles per client, D365 stores multiple Contact records with role pick-lists.

Cases translate to D365 Opportunities with the case number prepended to the Opportunity name. The case title becomes the Opportunity Subject. Case status maps via value mapping to D365's StatusCode pick-list. A custom field (Matter_Type__c) preserves The Case File's practice-area or case-type classification.

Named parties to a case — plaintiff, defendant, co-counsel, expert witness — map to D365 OpportunityContactRole records associated with the Opportunity. The party type becomes the Role field value. This preserves the relationship graph without requiring custom junction entities. Each party is resolved against the Contact table by email to avoid creating duplicate Contact records.

Opposing counsel details from The Case File (name, firm, contact info) are merged into a D365 Contact record with a custom field (OC_Firm__c) storing their associated law firm. This prevents duplicate Contact creation when opposing counsel appears across multiple matters.

The Case File documents are downloaded and re-uploaded to the D365-linked SharePoint Online document library under a folder structure keyed by Opportunity (case) ID. Inline document links in The Case File are re-associated to the D365 Opportunity record. Document metadata (create date, author) is preserved in SharePoint file properties.

Matter deadlines and calendar events map to D365 Appointments (for meetings and court dates) or Tasks (for deadline reminders). The original scheduled date, duration, and description are preserved. The associated Opportunity (case) is set as the regarding object so activities roll up to the matter in D365.

Case notes and attorney annotations migrate as D365 Annotations attached to the Opportunity record. Original create dates and owning-user references are preserved. Long-form notes with embedded references to other matter records are flagged for manual review to confirm cross-record linking.

Historical time entries have no native D365 equivalent — billable hours are aggregated by matter and stored in a custom Number field (Total_Hours__c) on the Opportunity. For firms requiring detailed time tracking post-migration, D365 Project Service or a third-party billing integration is recommended.

Practice-area codes, court jurisdiction, judge assignment, litigation status, and other legal-specific custom fields in The Case File are created as custom columns in Dataverse before the migration runs. API names follow the __c convention (e.g., Court_Jurisdiction__c). FlitStack generates the schema-change plan and can pre-create fields via the Dataverse API.

The Case File attorney and staff assignments resolve by email match to D365 SystemUser records. Unmatched owners are flagged before migration — firms either invite them to D365 first or assign records to a fallback owner. This prevents orphaned Opportunities with no responsible user.

Billing contact and invoice-recipient information stored separately in The Case File merges into the primary Account record as custom billing fields (Billing_Contact__c, Invoice_Email__c, Billing_Contact_Name__c, Billing_Contact_Type__c). This prevents duplicate Account creation when billing and matter contacts differ, keeping the Account table clean and maintaining billing precision across all matter records.