Practical guide

Migrate useful history without copying every old note

Last materially reviewed 2026-09-20

Quick answerPreserve decisions and obligations before importing a large archive of low-value commentary.
What to know

Setup checklist: preserve decisions before volume

A large archive of notes can make a migration look comprehensive while leaving the important commitments hard to find. Prioritize decisions, unresolved obligations and context that explains the current relationship. Do not summarize away evidence needed for an active matter, and do not rewrite uncertain history as fact. Keep the original source where appropriate. The aim is to make relevant context recoverable, not to produce the largest possible activity feed in the new CRM.

What to know

Classify the history

Separate active commitments, useful background and material that belongs only in an approved archive. A past preference may still matter; a superseded internal guess may not deserve prominence. Retain dates and authors where available so readers can distinguish what was known then from what is true now. When creating a concise handover note, label it as a summary and link or refer to the underlying evidence rather than pretending it is the original record.

What to know

Check supported import behavior

Capsule’s import documentation is the source for supported mappings and formats. Do not assume every attachment, note relationship or email history can be reproduced by importing a contact file. Demonstrate the required result with a representative pilot. If important information remains outside the CRM, document where authorized colleagues can find it and who maintains access. A limitation can be manageable when explicit; it becomes dangerous when everyone assumes the archive was fully transferred.

What to know

Keep privacy and retention decisions separate

More history is not automatically better. Avoid copying unnecessary sensitive information merely because it exists in the old system. Follow applicable organizational policies and obtain specialist advice for legal retention questions. The operational test is whether the record supports a legitimate current decision without misleading the next reader. After migration, ask a colleague to recover one active commitment from the notes; if they cannot, improve the summary and structure rather than importing another undifferentiated archive.

Continue when useful

Next: Choose which email history belongs in the CRM

Store the context colleagues need without treating every mailbox conversation as a team record.

Open Choose which email history belongs in the CRM →

Sources used for this page

These records support the facts and comparisons above. Merchant-controlled records are labelled so you can separate product claims from independent evidence.

  1. Capsule importing contacts — Merchant documentation · capsulecrm.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-20
  2. Capsule deliberate email storage — Merchant documentation · capsulecrm.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-20