Migration Checklist: Moving to Salesforce

Phase 0

Decide & Plan

Lock scope, owner, success criteria, and cutover window before any work starts.

• Define migration scope by Salesforce object. Document explicitly which standard objects are in scope (Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, OpportunityLineItem, Product2, Pricebook2, Campaign, CampaignMember, Task, Event, Note, ContentVersion) and which custom objects from the source map to which destination object.

  Risk if skipped: Scope ambiguity surfaces mid-cutover as missing objects, forcing emergency re-imports against governor limits.

• Define historical-data scope and cut-off date. Decide how many years of closed Opportunities, completed Tasks, Events, and Notes move over. Decide whether email and call logs are in or out. Decide whether attachments / ContentVersion files are in or out.

  Risk if skipped: An unbounded historical scope inflates storage, breaks the cutover window, and bumps into File Storage and Data Storage limits.

• Identify the Salesforce edition and storage profile. Confirm Enterprise (500 custom fields per object) vs. Unlimited (800), and check current Data Storage and File Storage allocations against projected post-migration usage.

  Risk if skipped: Hitting storage caps mid-load aborts bulk loads and forces a paid storage add-on at short notice.

• Document legal and residency constraints. Confirm whether the org must run on Hyperforce in an EU region for GDPR, capture SOC2/HIPAA evidence requirements, and document any data-retention policies that change at cutover.

  Risk if skipped: EU residency violations after go-live require a Hyperforce region migration that is far more expensive than placing the org correctly up front.

• Assign a single accountable DRI and a stakeholder map. Name one decision-maker for scope changes, plus a RACI covering Sales Ops, Sales Leadership, RevOps, IT, Security, and Legal.
• Define written success criteria. Specify the exact conditions that must hold before sign-off: record-count parity per object, aggregate pipeline value match within X%, sample-record field-by-field accuracy at Y%, and zero open critical UAT defects.

  Risk if skipped: Without falsifiable criteria, the sponsor declares the project done while critical data gaps persist.

• Set the cutover window and source-system freeze date. Pick a specific date and time, the freeze hour for source-system writes, and the planned read-only date for the legacy system.
• Document out-of-scope items explicitly. List the data, automations, and integrations that will not move, so they are not raised as defects later.
• Estimate load volume and storage consumption against the cutover window. Multiply expected record volume by Data Loader batch behavior, factor in test runs and re-loads, and confirm the org fits within its 24-hour load budget and 15,000 daily batch cap.

  Risk if skipped: Cumulative load volume from sandbox tests plus reloads can hit ceilings hours before cutover finishes.

Phase 1

Pre-Migration Prep

Clean the source, stand up the destination, and prep people before the first export.

Phase 2

Source Export

Pull every byte you will need, with the exact timestamp captured for delta reconciliation.

• Export Accounts with every standard and custom field as UTF-8 CSV. Include the source primary key column so it can populate Account.LegacyId__c as External ID.

  Risk if skipped: Missing the source primary key forces fuzzy matching downstream and reintroduces duplicates.

• Export Contacts with every standard and custom field as UTF-8 CSV. Include the source Account-FK column so the loader can wire Contact.AccountId via External ID.
• Export Leads with every standard and custom field as UTF-8 CSV. Capture Lead.Status, Lead.Source, conversion flag, and any custom score fields.
• Export Opportunities with every standard and custom field as UTF-8 CSV. Include StageName, CloseDate, Amount, OwnerId-equivalent, AccountId-equivalent, source primary key, and the historical CreatedDate.

  Risk if skipped: Missing CloseDate or Amount blocks Opportunity load because both are required on insert.

• Export Opportunity-Product line items as a separate CSV. Capture quantity, unit price, discount, and parent-opportunity source key per line.
• Export Tasks and Events to separate CSVs. Salesforce stores closed Tasks/Events in an archive after a year and IsArchived cannot be edited after the fact. Plan migration order accordingly.

  Risk if skipped: Archived activities in the destination cannot be patched after the fact; capture all needed fields on the first load.

• Export Notes and ContentNotes content as a separate CSV. Confirm whether source notes preserve line breaks and HTML formatting; document the encoding.

  Risk if skipped: Line breaks and special characters lost in export cannot be reconstructed.

• Export ContentVersion / Attachment binaries plus a metadata sidecar. The sidecar maps each file to its parent record source key and captures original filename, file size, and upload timestamp.
• Export Campaigns and CampaignMember junctions. Capture member status, response date, and parent Campaign source key.
• Export the user list with role hierarchy and Profile assignments. Capture email, alias, ProfileName, RoleName, manager, and active status so Salesforce users can be mapped to source owners.
• Export pipeline / stage definitions and any custom workflow states. These become the source side of the picklist mapping in Phase 3.
• Capture screenshots and exports of source automations, reports, and dashboards. These do not transfer; the screenshots seed the rebuild list in Phase 7.
• Record the exact UTC timestamp of every export. This defines the delta window for the Phase 5 final pull.

  Risk if skipped: Without timestamps, the delta cannot be computed and last-minute source edits are lost.

Phase 3

Transform & Map

Reshape source CSVs into Salesforce-shaped files, with every picklist, stage, and relationship resolved.

Phase 4

Sandbox Test Migration

Catch every defect in a sandbox before it costs real records in production.

• Refresh the Full or Partial Copy Sandbox immediately before the test run. A stale sandbox lacks the latest metadata changes from Phase 1b and will not reflect production load behavior.

  Risk if skipped: Testing against stale metadata hides field-level-security and Validation Rule defects.

• Load a 1–5% representative sample of each object via Data Loader. Data Loader auto-chunks into batches; use Workbench for ad-hoc small loads.
• Spot-check 10 random sandbox records per object field-by-field against source. Verify standard fields, custom fields, picklist values, and number/date formats.

  Risk if skipped: Sampling fewer than 10 misses encoding and transformation bugs that affect 1% of rows.

• Specifically test long strings, special characters, NULL, and Unicode emoji. Load a fixture row that exercises maximum-length values, embedded quotes, embedded newlines, leading/trailing whitespace, NULL, and 4-byte UTF-8 characters.

  Risk if skipped: Unicode astral characters silently truncate at the database layer and corrupt names.

• Test relationship preservation via External ID lookups. Confirm Contact.AccountId, Opportunity.AccountId, OpportunityLineItem.OpportunityId, and Task.WhatId all wire to the correct parent record.

  Risk if skipped: Lookup-by-external-ID failures point children at the wrong parent and corrupt the whole hierarchy.

• Confirm the 'Set Audit Fields' strategy actually preserved CreatedDate. Inspect a sample of sandbox records via SOQL to verify CreatedDate matches the source timestamp, not the load timestamp.
• Run a Validation Rule and Apex Trigger fire-pattern audit during the test load. Use the Bulk Data Load Jobs setup page to confirm rules fired or were bypassed as designed; review any per-row errors emitted by Triggers.

  Risk if skipped: A Trigger firing on insert can exceed the 150 DML statement governor limit and abort a batch partway.

• Test ContentVersion / file-attachment upload at sample scale. Confirm files arrive, parent-record links resolve, and File Storage consumption per record matches the projection from Phase 0.
• Run a full-volume rehearsal in the Full sandbox. Load every record at production volume. Time each step end-to-end.

  Risk if skipped: Skipping volume rehearsal hides bulk throttling and 24-hour load budget consumption that only appears at full scale.

• Extrapolate sandbox timing to the production window. Multiply by 1.5x for safety margin. If the projection exceeds the cutover window, re-plan before Phase 5.
• Have 2–3 sales-ops domain experts spot-check the sandbox data. Pick known accounts and open opportunities; ask the expert whether everything looks right at the record level.
• Document every defect with the failing row, the rule that rejected it, and the fix. Maintain a defect ledger; close each defect before sign-off.
• Obtain written sandbox sign-off before scheduling production cutover. Sponsor + sales-ops lead must sign.

  Risk if skipped: Proceeding to production without sign-off transfers all sandbox defects into the live org.

Phase 5

Production Cutover

The tightly-sequenced execution window. Idempotent loads, dependency order, and visible row counts.

• Confirm the source-system freeze is in effect. Query source audit logs to verify no writes in the last 60 minutes before pulling the final export.

  Risk if skipped: Writes after the freeze produce a silent delta that never reaches the destination.

• Pull the final source export with timestamps. Capture the delta from the Phase 2 baseline plus any rows whose source CreatedDate or LastModifiedDate falls in the gap window.
• Disable Workflow Rules, Process Builder flows, Flows, and any active Triggers on insert. Either deactivate at the rule level or route every load through the bypass-condition pattern created in Phase 1b.

  Risk if skipped: Active automation fires emails, posts to Slack, and creates downstream records during the load, multiplying side effects by the row count.

• Disable Duplicate Rule blocking; leave matching in 'Report' mode. Re-enable blocking after Phase 6 reconciliation finishes.
• Load Users first, then Accounts, then Contacts and Leads. Use Data Loader upsert keyed on the External ID field per object so reruns are idempotent.

  Risk if skipped: Loading Contacts before their parent Accounts orphans the children and forces a delete-and-reload.

• Load Campaigns, Opportunities, OpportunityLineItems, OpportunityContactRole, and Junction Objects in that order. Children must reference parents by External ID — never by Salesforce Id, which does not exist until the parent insert completes.
• Load Tasks, Events, Notes, and ContentVersion last. These reference WhatId / WhoId on already-loaded parents and consume the most File Storage.
• Capture Data Loader job IDs, row counts, and error files for every load step. Persist these to a runbook log; they are evidence for audit and the basis for Phase 6 reconciliation.

  Risk if skipped: Without job IDs, error rows cannot be retrieved from the Bulk Data Load Jobs page after the retention window expires.

• Cross-check destination row count vs. source row count after every load. Variance above 0 must be investigated before moving to the next object.

  Risk if skipped: Continuing past a variance compounds errors and makes root-cause analysis impossible.

• On any partial failure, stop and diagnose before re-running. Idempotent External ID upserts let you fix the transform and re-run the same file without duplicates.
• Re-enable Validation Rules, Triggers, Workflow Rules, and Duplicate Rule blocking. Verify each is back to its production state before opening the org to users.
• Run a smoke test as 3 representative user Profiles. Log in as a Sales Rep, a Sales Manager, and an Admin; confirm record visibility, list views, and Sharing Rules behave as designed.

Phase 6

Validate

Prove the migration was correct before opening the org to users.

Phase 7

Post-Migration Cleanup

Hand the org to its operators, decommission the source, and capture lessons learned.

• Announce go-live to all end users with login URL and the first-responder contact. Include a one-page quick-start covering Lightning navigation and the locations of common reports.
• Run role-segmented training sessions for reps, managers, and admins. Cover the Opportunity Kanban, mobile app, Einstein insights where licensed, and how to log activities.
• Set the source system to read-only on the announced date. Block writes but keep reads available for the documented retention period.

  Risk if skipped: Leaving the source writable encourages reps to keep working in the old system, fracturing the source of truth.

• Rebuild reports and dashboards in Salesforce. Reports do not transfer; use the Phase 2 screenshots as a build list. Prioritize the 10 most-used reports first.
• Rebuild automations: Flows, Process Builder flows, Workflow Rules, and Approval Processes. These do not transfer; reconstruct from the Phase 2 capture. Test each one against migrated records before activation.

  Risk if skipped: Activating untested Flows on top of migrated data can mass-update or mass-email customers.

• Re-establish integrations: calendar sync, email sync, Marketing Cloud, Slack, BI tools. Re-authenticate, point at production, and run a smoke test per integration.
• Re-enable Duplicate Rules in blocking mode. Confirm matching keys still resolve to a single record per entity and that the Duplicate Job report runs clean.
• Configure Sharing Rules, Role Hierarchy, and Permission Set assignments per role. Confirm record visibility for each Profile against the agreed access matrix.

  Risk if skipped: Over-permissive Sharing Rules expose pipeline data to the wrong territory; under-permissive rules block reps from their own records.

• Schedule a 30-day post-migration retrospective with the project team. Capture what went well, what surprised the team, and what to change for the next migration.
• Document the source-system decommission date. Typically 90 days after cutover, after the final retention window. Confirm with Legal and Finance.
• Archive source-system exports and Data Loader job logs to long-term storage. Encrypt at rest, restrict access, and document retention per the policies captured in Phase 0.

  Risk if skipped: Without retained exports, a forensic question six months in cannot be answered.

• Close the migration project formally with a final status report. Include: tasks completed, deferred items, final defect count, sign-off list, and a recommended day-30 checklist for the operations team.