Insightly Migration: Move Data Without Losing the Thread

List every source and object before you design a Insightly import.

1. List every source: previous CRM, spreadsheets, mailboxes, invoicing tool, the one person's laptop.
2. List the objects: companies, people, open deals, closed history, activities, tasks, notes, files.
3. Map each object to a capability Insightly research confirms — contact management, lead management, pipeline management, and deal management are the anchors.
4. Classify each object as must-move, later, or archive-only.
5. Count records per object.

Worked example: a 12-person B2B advisory team finds 3,100 contacts, 780 companies, 62 open deals, four years of closed history, and two spreadsheets. Only contacts touched in 24 months, all companies, and open deals are must-move into Insightly; closed history stays in an exported archive.

Map meanings first. Bulk import second.

1. Three columns: source field → Insightly destination → transformation rule.
2. Map object names honestly (account → company, opportunity → deal).
3. Map stages by buyer-verifiable meaning, not labels — merging stages is fine.
4. Every record needs an active Insightly owner — no ex-employee owners.
5. Leftovers: Custom fields is researched across every Insightly plan we snapshot — only if someone names the decision it drives.
6. In Insightly, open the import or data-management area — confirm the current control labels in the product, docs, or trial.

Worked example: a 12-person B2B advisory team maps account → company and opportunity → deal, collapses seven stages into six, reassigns 40 orphaned records, and archives 22 unused columns.

1. Pick one seller with a representative book — roughly 30–60 open deals and their contacts.
2. Import companies first, then people, then deals, then activities. Order matters: relationships need their parents to exist.
3. Run the import on the plan you actually intend to buy, not just Plus if your must-haves live higher. Our snapshot records no trial length for Insightly — ask for an evaluation window in writing before you commit seats.
4. Check counts against the source before you look at anything else: companies in, people in, deals in, activities in.
5. Sit with that seller for 20 minutes. Ask them to find three deals and tell you what looks wrong. Their answer is the acceptance test.
6. Fix the map and re-import the sample. Expect to do this twice; that is the point of a pilot.

Worked example: a 12-person B2B advisory team pilots 62 deals into Insightly, discovers two stages mapped backwards and every activity timestamped as import day, fixes both, then re-runs the sample before touching the rest of the book.

1. Announce one rule for the dual-run week: all new activity goes into Insightly; the old system is read-only for history.
2. Bulk-import the remaining must-move records at the start of that week, in the same object order as the pilot.
3. Run the validation checklist in Insightly: every open deal has an owner and a stage; deal counts by owner match the source; contacts resolve to companies; no obvious duplicates on the top 50 accounts; activity dates are real, not import dates; required fields are populated.
4. Hold a 30-minute seller spot-check — each seller opens their own five biggest deals and signs off or flags. Admin approval is not validation.
5. Log every defect with an owner and a fix date. Unowned defects become permanent distrust.

Worked example: a 12-person B2B advisory team dual-runs for six working days, catches 14 duplicate companies and three deals with missing owners in Insightly, fixes them all before Friday, and gets verbal sign-off from all eight sellers.

Make Insightly the system of record on a named date.

1. Cut over; revoke edit access to the old system the same day.
2. Store source exports with a note of what they contain and when.
3. Confirm in writing how you export companies, people, deals, activities, and files out of Insightly — formats, attachments, post-cancellation.
4. Schedule the day-30 adoption review from the implementation guide.
5. Update the one-pager: what moved, what was archived, who signed off.

Worked example: once Friday’s Insightly pipeline matched reality, a 12-person B2B advisory team revoked spreadsheet edits, archived exports, and asked in writing how a future export works — before renewal.