Moving your records is often the biggest worry when changing shelter software. You have years of history, and you don't want to retype it or lose it along the way. A careful migration takes some planning, but you can break it into manageable steps.
This guide explains how to prepare your data, what to look for in an import tool, and how to confirm that everything arrived.
Step 1: Decide what to move
You may not need everything on day one. Sort your records into three groups:
- Must move now: animals currently in care, along with their medical records, fosters, and open applications
- Move soon: past adopters and adoptions, volunteers, and donors
- Keep as an archive: older records you rarely use
Keep a full copy of your original data in a safe place, however much you decide to import. You may want it later for reports or questions about an older adoption.
Step 2: Export your data
Most systems can export to a CSV or Excel file. If you're coming from spreadsheets, save each one as a separate file. Check that your export includes all the columns you need, and don't forget about documents, photos, and contracts that may be stored separately.
If your current vendor doesn't offer a full export, ask what they can provide. Do this early, since it may take some time.
Step 3: Clean up the files
Some light cleanup will make the import much easier:
- Remove obvious duplicate animals and people
- Use one header row, with one record on each row
- Agree on one spelling for each status
- Move notes out of columns where they don't belong, if you can
- Check that email addresses are correct, since they're often used to match people
- Keep microchip numbers formatted as text, so leading zeroes aren't lost
Don't aim for perfection, since a good tool will handle common variations. Spend your time on the fields that matter most, such as names, statuses, and dates.
Step 4: Check how records connect
Individual records are the simple part. The harder part is keeping connections between them, such as which adopter took which pet, or which foster has had which animals.
Ask how the tool links these records. You'll usually need a shared value in your files, such as a pet ID or name. Confirm how it handles people who appear more than once, as well as anyone who's both a foster and an adopter.
Step 5: Preview before you import
A good import tool should show you what it's about to do before it saves anything. Look for:
- A mapping screen that matches your columns with fields in the new system
- A preview of how dates, numbers, and yes-or-no values will be read
- A list of rows with problems, and the reason for each one
- A way to fix and retry failed rows without starting over
Start with a small test file of about 20 records, including some with unusual data. Look at those records in the new system before you import the rest.
Step 6: Check the results
After the import, compare the new system against your source files:
- Do the total counts match, by species and by status?
- Pick ten animals and compare their details and medical histories
- Check that adopters and fosters are linked to the right pets
- Run a report for last year's adoptions and compare it with your old numbers
- Ask someone who knows the animals well to look through the records
Note any differences while you still have the old system available.
Step 7: Plan the switch
Choose one date when the new system becomes the official record, ideally outside your busiest season. From that day forward, enter all new information in the new system, and keep the old one for reference only. Keeping two live systems for long makes it hard to know which one is right.
Migrating to PawPlacer
There are two ways to move your records to PawPlacer, and neither has a fee.
Have the team do it. PawPlacer's team handles migrations from spreadsheets and other platforms, including moving your records, recreating your workflows, and setting up your team. Tell them which tool you're using, what formats it can export, and roughly how many records you have.
Do it yourself. The Data Uploader imports pets, adopters, fosters, volunteers, donors, and surrenders from CSV, XLS, and XLSX files. It works in three steps:
- Upload your file. Nothing is saved at this point.
- Map your columns to PawPlacer's fields. Exact matches are accepted automatically, and you confirm the rest.
- Review and upload. You'll see which rows are ready, which are invalid, and which values will be normalized. Nothing is saved until you confirm.
The uploader handles common variations in your data, including different yes-or-no formats, numbers with units like "45 lbs," and common ways of writing species, sex, and size. Microchip numbers keep their leading zeroes.
If an import stops partway through, you can download a report showing what happened to each row, then retry only the failed or unstarted work. Pet image links from a public source can also be imported, so keep your old hosting available until you've checked the results.
Once your data is in, you can export it again at any time as CSV files.
