Migrate from Smart Hire to BambooHR

Discovery and export profiling

We audit the Smart Hire admin portal to enumerate all record types in scope: candidate records, job openings, screening sessions, psychometric assessment exports, custom property schemas, and user accounts. We run trial CSV exports across each view (candidates, jobs, applications, users) to understand file structure, field headers, ID references across files, and any pagination or filter artifacts in the output. The discovery output is a written migration scope document with a complete field mapping draft, a list of custom fields to provision in BambooHR, and a confirmation of the BambooHR plan tier and ATS module status.

BambooHR schema provisioning

We create all required custom fields in the BambooHR admin panel before any data migration. This includes employee custom fields for assessment scores, screening session notes, and any candidate-level custom properties; job custom fields for requisition metadata; and any custom tabs or tables needed to replicate Smart Hire's data structure. We also confirm ATS module status on the destination account and configure job stage lists matching Smart Hire's pipeline vocabulary. Schema provisioning is validated by attempting a test employee creation via the BambooHR API with all custom fields populated before the production migration begins.

CSV parsing, type coercion, and transform

We parse all Smart Hire CSV exports using the field headers discovered during profiling. Type mismatches (dates stored as text, numbers stored as strings, empty strings where null is expected) are corrected during this phase. Assessment scores are normalized to the numeric or text format agreed upon during scoping. Candidate-to-job associations are reconstructed by matching foreign key IDs across the candidate export and the application/job export. Custom properties are mapped to their corresponding destination custom field IDs. The transform output is a set of typed, validated CSV files ready for BambooHR API ingestion.

Sandbox validation (optional)

If the customer requests validation before production migration, we run a sandbox migration using a cloned dataset representative of the full volume. The customer's HR lead spot-checks 25-50 candidate records against the Smart Hire source, verifies job association integrity, confirms assessment score accuracy, and signs off the sandbox results. Any mapping corrections are applied to the transform pipeline before the production migration phase begins. Sandbox validation adds approximately one week to the timeline.

Production migration in dependency order

We run production migration in record-dependency order: BambooHR Users (validated against the destination User table by email match), Employees (candidate data loaded with custom fields), Jobs (job openings loaded with custom fields), Employee Files (resume and document attachments linked to the corresponding employee), then screening session and assessment data (written to custom fields or notes on the employee record). Each phase emits a row-count reconciliation report showing records attempted, records succeeded, and any errors requiring remediation. BambooHR API rate limits are handled with exponential backoff and batch chunking throughout.

Cutover, validation, and inventory handoff

We freeze Smart Hire writes during cutover and run a final delta migration of any records modified during the migration window. We perform a final reconciliation comparing Smart Hire record counts to BambooHR record counts for each object type. We deliver the migration inventory document listing all active workflows, email templates, career site configurations, and any automation logic in Smart Hire that requires rebuild in BambooHR. We support a one-week post-migration hypercare window for reconciliation issues. We do not rebuild Smart Hire workflows, email templates, or career sites inside the migration scope; these are documented for the customer's admin to rebuild as a separate task.