Moving a live desk without dropping anything

Before you export anything, before you look at a demo. Two numbers decide whether this is a move you can make this quarter or one you plan for: the date your current term ends, and how much notice you have to give before it. Both are on the order form you signed, not anywhere in the product — which is why almost nobody knows them. Miss the notice window and most of these contracts renew for the same length again: a three-year agreement renews for another three years, not another month.

Cannot find the paperwork? Email your account manager and ask, in writing, for your renewal date and the notice period. It is a reasonable question and they have to answer it. Do that today rather than after you have migrated.

Pull a CSV of each of these out of your current system, in this order: companies, contacts, jobs, deals or placements. Most systems bury this under Admin, Reports or Data Export; if yours only offers it by support ticket, raise that ticket now — it is usually the longest-lead part of the whole move. The reason for doing it first is not convenience. Several of these contracts delete your database shortly after you terminate, and one of them destroys it unless you asked for a copy beforehand. Export while your licence is live, keep the files somewhere of your own, and do it whether or not you end up switching to us.

If you are coming from Bullhorn, export the Candidate and ClientCorporation objects as they come. Deskspark recognises a Bullhorn export on sight and fills in the whole column mapping for you.

Order matters, and it is the one thing most migrations get wrong. Import companies before contacts and jobs, and Deskspark links each new record to the right company automatically by matching the name. Do it the other way round and you get a database of people and roles floating free of the businesses they belong to, which then has to be relinked by hand. Every import shows you the mapping and a preview before a single row is written.

Notes come across with contacts if your export has them — map the column and they land on the record rather than in a spreadsheet nobody opens.

Bulk-upload your CV folder from the Contacts page. Deskspark matches each file to the right candidate by the email address in the filename, uploads the ones it can place, and tells you plainly which it could not rather than dropping them silently. Most systems export CVs named by email already; if yours names them by candidate ID, a bulk rename is worth the ten minutes.

Connect your mailbox so sent history and replies sync into the record, set up SMS and WhatsApp if you use them, and invite your desk. Everyone works from the same contacts, jobs and pipeline from the first day, so there is no window where half the team is on the old system and half on the new one because the invites hadn't gone out.

Outlook and Microsoft 365 connect for any account. Gmail is in limited release while Google finishes reviewing our app — tell us and we'll get you added.

Keep the old system read-only and work entirely in Deskspark. Two weeks covers a full cycle of the things that only surface occasionally: an invoice going out, a placement hitting its guarantee window, a monthly report. Check those specifically rather than checking that contacts exist. Then treat serving notice and switching off as two separate events, because they usually are: serve notice by the date you found in step 00, keep both systems running until the term actually ends, and let the old licence lapse rather than paying to leave early.

Your trial is 14 days, deliberately the same length as the parallel run — so you can decide on real evidence. Ending a contract early almost always costs more than waiting for the renewal date, so the calendar, not the migration, is what sets the timing.