ProStart Migrations are a continuation from the Sales process and is offered only to eligible firms. Reach out to your Client Success Manager to learn more.
ProStart Data Migrations are a complex process that involves coordination between the Smokeball data migration team and your firm.
The migration process will take anywhere between 5-8 weeks depending on availability, the amount of data presented, and the data integrity of the legacy system.
This process will involve some manual entry/cleanup before and after the import by your firm in order to result in a successful migration. We do our best to coordinate with your schedules and keep you on track!
Smokeball assume that you have received these items from your Sales Account Executive:
- Onboarding Overview & Migration Slide Deck
- ProStart Data fields list
- Client acknowledgement Form for ProStart Migrations
Data migration with Smokeball is a 5-step process.
Step 1: Onboarding Welcome Call & initial data collection
A data migration specialist will meet with your firm on your Onboarding Welcome Call. Here, the project plan will be discussed and your specialist will confirm the migration scope of work & your data requirements. Additionally the meeting will:
- Review Sales collateral & confirm data types to be migrated
- Discuss the Data Review Call
- Schedule a initial data collection
- Your firm needs to provide us with the login credentials of the practice management system you're moving from, or provide a backup if the software is server based.
The data migration specialist will review the data and will commence with Step 2.
Step 2: Data review meeting
We’ll first meet with your firm to confirm how data from your legacy system will be mapped into Smokeball.
After that, we’ll provide a Matter Mapping Document for you and your Onboarding Specialist to complete together. During this stage, any recommended or required data clean-up will also take place. The amount of clean-up needed depends on your firm’s data and can range from as little as 20 minutes to several hours.
We’ll also advise on any Post-Migration tasks that may need to be completed later if they can't be addressed during this step.
Your data migration specialist may perform a second data collection. This is to ensure we have the most up-to-date data in readiness for Step 3.
Step 3: The Test Migration
The Test Migration is the most important step of the whole migration process! We will meet with your firm and provide a virtual machine that hosts a practice migration of the firm’s data in a test environment.
We aim to have the Test Migration built and ready 2 weeks prior to launch day.
Once the meeting is complete, your firm will be provided with access to the machine, a checklist that must be approved to confirm data accuracy and to provide feedback to the Smokeball migration technician for any changes over the next 2 weeks.
*Don't enter real changes into the test migration - this environment will be deleted after 2 weeks! If you wish to make changes, record them in your legacy system or let the technician know. For more details on this step please visit this article: How to validate the firm's data in your test migration
While validating your data, make sure your firm is also working on the following:
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Record your firm's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Define how your team will use Smokeball day-to-day to ensure consistency and efficiency. -
Create a solid Training & Adoption Plan
Outline who needs training, what topics to cover, and how the training will be delivered. -
Build your Post-Migration Process
Plan for any tasks that need to happen after migration, such as manually data entry, template updates, or process changes.
Step 4: Launch day and final data collection
The day before the migration begins, the technician will connect to the firm’s legacy system at the end of the workday and start the final data collection.
There will be one buffer day for the migration process. During this time, we recommend that your firm treat the legacy system, including documents, as Read Only. Any data entered after the final data collection on Friday will not be migrated. Any documents opened at the time of the document migration will produce an error.
Please manually track your activities and be ready to manually add to your Smokeball account on your launch day.
Here is a breakdown of what will occur the week leading up to the go-live date. As an example, let's say the go-live date is set for Tuesday 27th of September.
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The final data collection will commence on Thursday 22nd September.
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Smokeball team is connected to the Migration Hub Computer for document migration by Friday 23rd.
- Friday 23rd September will be the firm's buffer day.
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The migration process will commence over the weekend.
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Monday 26th September your firm will see migrated data in Smokeball Account and begin using full time.
How are documents migrated?
Your data migration specialist will set up a LogMeIn remote session with your firm's Migration Hub Computer so we have access to a PC at the firm which holds the locally downloaded documents. We will import the documents to the associated matters in Smokeball.
- Document folders without a relational field/connection to their matters will need to be manually migrated by the firm.
- The firm is responsible for migrating any documents to their TemplateLab folder.
Timeline: Documents migration cannot begin until after the contact & matter data is migrated. Therefore, documents are imported after launch day and typically takes an additional 3 – 5 days on average until they are complete. Based on the number of documents and the firm's connection speed this time frame can vary. We prioritize your open matter documents so they are populated first.
Step 5: Migration complete
Once the document import has been completed we will come to the end of your data migration process.
Your data migration specialist will continue to be in contact with you that week to ensure everything is working as planned.
Our service to you does not end there, you will continue your journey with your onboarding specialist/training team to ensure you can easily navigate around Smokeball and we make sure that you are fully supported.
Your Smokeball Onboarding specialist post migration will remain your sole point of contact for all things regarding Smokeball.