Migration

LMS migration checklist: what really moves, and what you rebuild

The object matrix: three honest columns

List every object type you own, then sort it into one of three buckets. We do not claim any specific platform exports any specific object: export tooling is not in our registry, so the honest move is to inventory your own account and demand a sample export from each vendor during the trial. Use this as your inventory template.

• Commonly exportable, still verify: course structure and text, learner lists with emails, orders and one-time payment history, certificates as issued records. These are the objects most tools can hand you as a file. You still confirm the format and the fields.
• Commonly needs rebuilding: videos and their hosting, quiz logic and question banks, drip and completion rules, community content and threads, SEO URLs and redirects. A file rarely recreates these. Budget human hours.
• Must be verified with both vendors: learner progress and completions, active subscriptions and payment plans, certificate validity dates. These decide feasibility, and no marketing page settles them. Get each answer in writing.

How to inventory instead of guessing

Do not ask whether migration is possible. Count what you have, then measure what each vendor can actually deliver.

• Count objects and fields. How many courses, lessons, quizzes, learners, active subscriptions, issued certificates? For learners, which fields matter (progress percentage, completion date, score)? A number turns a vague fear into a task list.
• Ask for a sample export during the trial. Request an actual file for each object type from the platform you are leaving and from any migration tool the new vendor recommends. Open it. Count the rows. Check that the fields you need are present, not just the email column.
• Get the subscription answer in writing. Active subscriptions and payment plans usually cannot switch payment processors silently, because the card mandate lives with the old processor. Ask both vendors, in writing, exactly what happens to a live monthly plan: does the learner re-enter card details, does billing pause, does anything transfer at all?

The reconciliation test

Prove the export before you trust it. Build a small fictional dataset on the platform you are leaving: five courses, twenty fictional learners with known progress, a couple of test orders, one issued certificate. Run the export, import it into the new platform, then compare object counts and a few field values before and after.

If twenty learners go in and eighteen come out, or completion dates arrive blank, you have found the gap while it costs nothing. Do this on fictional data first, never on your live school. The reconciliation check is the single most useful hour in any migration, because it replaces a vendor promise with a count you did yourself.

The go or no-go rule

Migrate only when the unautomated work is quantified. That means you can write a sentence like: courses and learners export cleanly, quizzes and drip rules need roughly thirty hours of rebuilding, and both vendors confirmed in writing that active subscriptions must be re-created by learners. That is a decision you can make. What you cannot decide on is a hopeful assumption that everything transfers.

Cutover order protects you: build and verify the new school completely, run the reconciliation test, then and only then point your domain and announce. Never touch DNS or tell learners before the destination is proven. If subscriptions are your revenue, treat their migration answer as the gate for the whole project.

Frequently asked questions

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