How to Create a CRM Migration Plan That Includes ERP Integration

What happens if you’ve successfully integrated your CRM with your ERP, but then for whatever reason decide to migrate your CRM to another system? An example of this would be a business that is using SYSPRO CRM and SYSPRO ERP but wants to migrate to Dynamics 365 CRM while maintaining the SYSPRO ERP integration.

SYSPRO CRM + SYSPRO ERP -> Migrate to -> Dynamics 365 + SYSPRO ERP

In a situation like this, you must take a two-pronged approach: 1) migrating your CRM data to the new system and 2) ensuring the new CRM system integrates with your ERP.  Next, we’ll look at how to do this, step-by-step.

Key steps to implement a CRM migration and simultaneous ERP integration

1. Internal Buy-In
   Make sure you have your team on board with the upcoming CRM migration, especially the teams that will need to use it every day. 

2. Set Goals
   What would your ideal CRM be able to accomplish? Imagine what success would look like and set goals for the upcoming migration. 

3. Find the Right Partner
   A vendor can help you choose the right CRM to meet your goals. The vendor should also have migration experience for the specific CRM you choose.

4. 360 CRM Assessment
   With a vendor on board, it’s time to assess what’s under the hood. What types of data, file attachments, third-party integrations and customizations need to be mapped out?

5. Data Mapping
   The data mapping stage is essential for matching data from your old system to your new system in the right format, with the right automation and the necessary customizations. If you need to migrate your CRM data and integrate the new system with your ERP, this should also be considered in the data mapping phase.  

6. Migration
   This is where the magic happens. Your CRM migration partner might use different strategies for the CRM Migration, depending on your goals. For example, they might do a custom migration or use a pre-built tool to streamline the process. 

7. Integration
   With the data safely in its new CRM environment, your partner can now connect it back to your ERP to synchronize this data.

8. Team Onboarding
   Once your new CRM is ready to use and loaded with data, it’s time to get your team familiar with the new system to ensure CRM success. This involves training, motivating and potentially even personal CRM customizing. You want your team to not only use the system but love it.

Fully Customized Integration vs. Using a Pre-Built Tool

While the steps above can be completely customized and implemented on a project-by-project basis, another more efficient option is to use a tool that has been pre-built to handle migrations and integrations for your CRM/ERP combination. A pre-built tool will have the data mapping, migration and integration phases ready out of the box to configure to your specific data.

Pre-Built Tool Example: Connector for SYSPRO®

An example of a pre-built CRM migration tool is our proprietary Connector for SYSPRO® that is designed to fit a wide range of migration scenarios for moving from SYSPRO CRM to Dynamics 365 and then integrating this data with SYSPRO ERP. Our CRM Migration package includes drivers and mappings (DTS) for all the necessary integration points that also utilizes a variety of “Reference Table” integration points for ancillary SYSPRO Tables (like customer classes, price lists, tax tables and more). A pre-built tool like Connector for SYSPRO® can save a lot of time and cost for your CRM migration project.

Do you have an upcoming CRM Migration?

Check out our CRM Migration Services, including fully customizable CRM migrations and our SYSPRO CRM standard migration package, using our proprietary Connector for SYSPRO® tool.