Importing your existing clients, pets and history

There is no import button, and you do not need one. The Alaga team moves your data for you as part of getting started. You send an export from your current system, we load it, and you check it before going live.

This is on purpose. Client and pet records are tangled together — one household with three pets, two phone numbers and years of visits. A do-it-yourself uploader makes a mess of exactly that.

What to send

Ask your current provider for a full data export or backup. Not a report, and not a spreadsheet you put together yourself. A full export keeps the links between a client, their pets and their visits. A list of names and numbers loses those links for good.

• Some providers take several days to make a backup. Ask early. This is usually the slowest step.
• Ask for whatever format they offer. We would rather convert it than have you try.

Send it to support with your business name, and we will tell you what we can see in it.

What usually transfers

How much comes across depends on what your old system can export. From a full export we usually bring:

• Clients — names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, notes
• Pets — names, breed, details, notes, and the right owner
• Appointments — past and upcoming, with dates, times, services and staff
• Services and prices, and often products

From systems that export them, we can also bring:

• Invoices, payments and tips
• Vaccination dates
• Pet photos
• Text message history with clients
• Loyalty points and account credit
• Staff, with their schedules and time off. Staff can be given logins, which they claim with Forgot password.

Some exports have far less. For example, one popular system's export has no payments or vaccines at all. We will tell you what yours contains before we load it.

What never transfers

• Stored card details. No provider can hand card details to another. Clients enter a card the first time they pay through Alaga.
• Marketing text consent. Clients must agree again in Alaga. Opt-outs do come across.
• Most settings. Opening hours may come across, but deposit rules, boarding capacity, message wording and permissions are set up in Alaga.

Signed agreements and documents usually stay behind too. Download anything you must keep before you close the old account.

Checking the result

When the load is done, spend twenty minutes on this:

1. Count the clients. Compare the total in Clients with your old system. A big gap means something did not load.
2. Check five clients you know well. Right pets, right phone number, right spelling.
3. Check a household with several pets. This is where imports go wrong most often — a pet on the wrong owner, or two records for one person.
4. Check your busiest upcoming week on the calendar against the old system, visit by visit.
5. Check your services and prices. Prices are what you notice last and regret most.

Tell us about anything wrong straight away. Fixing an import is much easier before you start booking on top of it.

Cut-over

Pick a cut-over date. Near that date we take a second, final export from your old system and add anything new since the first one. From that date, stop booking in the old system. If you book in both, a client can turn up with nobody expecting them.

Keep the old system open, read-only, for a few weeks. It is the easiest way to answer "what did we charge them last March?".

Duplicates after an import

If clients also sign themselves up through your booking page, one person can end up with two records. That is normal and fixable. See Fixing duplicate clients and pets.

Client messages start switched off on new accounts, so nobody is emailed while you check. Switch them on when you are ready. See Reminder timing and editing message templates.