Migrating from MS Dynamics to Salesforce: Everything You Need to Know

Okay, it is not unusual for businesses to change their CRM platforms. According to the 2018 Salesforce salary survey, the top three CRM vendors from which Salesforce-using businesses have migrated were Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, and SAP.

And there is no fixed criterion around why companies migrate from MS Dynamics to Salesforce as it is totally based upon the business requirements of a company. Based on our experience, we have compiled a few reasons why companies decide to shift from Dynamics to Salesforce:

• Inability to meet with growing business requirements: Every business tries to advance its existing business processes to keep up with the dynamic business environment. Therefore, they need a tool that offers flexibility to align with those requirements.
• Limited Product Functionalities: In contrast to the old MS Dynamics system, Salesforce comes handy with various product functionalities such as Einstein, Omni-channel, Triggers, Macros, etc, to accommodate the ever-evolving business needs.
• Limited Integrations: Since Salesforce is a cloud-based platform, it can be integrated with almost all the applications and systems (API-based) and that is not the case with MS Dynamics as it supports very few third-party integrations.

While the migration process might seem straightforward, it comes with multiple challenges including:

1. Varying data structure calls for a meticulous approach and migration planning.
2. Replicating workflows of MS Dynamics into Salesforce is tricky and creating custom workflows isn’t possible via standard means.
3. Securing existing integrations within Salesforce could be a major obstacle.
4. Preserving every bit of data while moving from MS Dynamics to Salesforce.

The above-mentioned challenges are just the tip of the iceberg as various technical challenges such as text characters, HTML tags, inline images, the limit of data files, and character length limitations also follow.

To keep up with their business requirements, one of our customers approached us to help them with the transition from MS Dynamics to Salesforce. Keeping in mind the aforementioned challenges, our experts put their experience to use in implementing a hassle-free migration process. Here is a step-by-step description of what was needed to be done to ensure a swift transition:

1. Detailed analysis of the data and processes of the customer’s MS Dynamics instance, followed by the formulation of a data migration strategy.
2. Salesforce Service Cloud set-up including objects, rules, and process workflows based on the requirements and enabling out-of-the-box functionalities like Email-to-Case.
3. Customizing their newly set up Salesforce instance based on the requirements.
4. Setting up their Community in Community Cloud and Knowledge Base in Lightning Experience followed by several customizations.
5. Data migration for which the team fetched the data and prepared it in accordance with the Salesforce requirements using SQL Server.

The solutions mentioned above are just a snippet of the migration process. The step-by-step detailed version of the migration—from MS Dynamics to Salesforce—is what we have covered in our Strategy Guide. Download it here.

Want to ensure a smooth migration to Salesforce? Let’s talk.