Ten questions to ask before you migrate to a new AMS or CRM — and an honest read on where you really stand.
TW
Switching association software is one of the biggest operational moves your organization will make. Your vendor will configure the platform — but getting your data ready to live in it is on you, and it's where most implementations stall, blow their timeline, or quietly lose history. The good news: data readiness is knowable in advance.
Tick every statement that is true of your organization today — not what you hope to fix later. Your score updates as you go.
Your readiness score0 / 10
Start ticking to see where you stand
Work through the ten points below. Each one maps to a place migrations most often go wrong.
Access & inventory
01
You can export your own data.
You can pull a complete export of your member and contact data out of your current system yourself — without waiting on the vendor. If you can't get it out, you can't move it in.
02
You know where all your data lives.
You have an inventory of every place member data exists — core database, spreadsheets, event tools, the email platform, finance, and inboxes. Data trapped in side systems is the #1 migration surprise.
03
Your records are de-duplicated.
The same member doesn't exist two or three times under slightly different records. Duplicates migrate too — and they're far harder to untangle after go-live.
Data quality
04
Core fields are complete and current.
Contact info, membership status, and join/renewal dates are populated and up to date. Missing required fields stall imports and break renewals on day one.
05
Your definitions are consistent.
"Membership type," "active," and "lapsed" mean the same thing across membership, events, and finance. Inconsistent definitions reintroduce mess no matter how clean the data looks.
06
You understand your data relationships.
You know how members connect to organizations, chapters, events, transactions, and households. Relationships are where migrations most often break.
07
Your financial data reconciles.
Transactions, payments, and invoices line up with your accounting records. Money discrepancies surface fast and erode trust in the new system.
Migration plan
08
You've decided what NOT to move.
You've identified obsolete records, dead fields, and legacy codes to archive rather than migrate. Moving everything adds cost and complexity without adding value.
09
You have a field-mapping plan.
You know which field in the old system maps to which field in the new one. Without a map, migration becomes guesswork — and guesswork becomes rework.
10
You have capacity to test and validate.
Someone owns the project, and there's time set aside to run a sample migration and check the results before go-live. Rushed, unvalidated migrations cost more to fix than they ever saved.
Whatever you scored — the next step is a plan
Don't start a migration on a hope and a spreadsheet.
I'm Tracy Warrington, a systems designer who specializes in association data readiness. My Data Readiness Assessment turns this checklist into a real audit — a data inventory, a quality-and-risk report, a field-mapping plan, and a prioritized "fix-first" list — so you walk into your AMS or CRM project knowing exactly what you have and what to do. Scored below 8? That's exactly the gap I close — and I do the heavy lifting for lightly-staffed and volunteer-led teams.