Before you leave your scheduling app, export everything twice.
A small service business decided to leave its scheduling app for a cheaper-looking one. The owner pulled the export, imported it into the new tool, and cancelled the old account the same afternoon. Two weeks later a crew showed up at a house with no entry notes. The notes had been in a custom field, and the export never included it.
This is common. Export files are built for a generic case. Custom fields, plain-text notes, attachments and recurring-job rules are the parts most likely to be left out, and nothing warns you. The file opens fine and looks complete.
The fix is boring and takes an hour. Treat the export as something to be checked, not something to be trusted.
What to do
- Run the full export from the old app. Run it a second time a day later, and keep both files.
- Open the file in a spreadsheet. Count the rows for clients, jobs and notes.
- Open the old app and count the same things on its own screens. The numbers should match. If they do not, find out why before going on.
- Pick ten real records, including your messiest ones, and compare every field side by side with the old screen.
- Write down anything that does not come across: notes, tags, photos, recurring rules. Decide where each will live in the new tool.
- Keep the old account open, read-only if you can, until the new tool has run a full billing cycle.
When not to
If the vendor offers a supported migration to the tool you are moving to, use that. It was built for your data shape. Still do the row count afterwards. And if you are not actually unhappy with the old app, the right answer may be to stay where you are and build nothing.