With the Slate essentials and your outreach program built out, you can take your next big step in your transition: migrating historical data from your legacy system to Slate.

Slate processes all incoming data through the Upload Dataset tool. Ad hoc files can be imported using the New Spreadsheet/Data File file format.

📖 Further reading: Importing Data Overview

Importing historical person records

Once essential communications and other operations are built and tested, bring in active inquiries from your pre-Slate system using Upload Dataset. To prepare, build and test the import templates thoroughly.

📖 Further reading: Importing Core Data from an External System

Handling duplicate records

It is not necessary to clean up and de-dupe records in your legacy system before bringing them into Slate. However, duplicate ID records should be avoided at all costs. Record identifiers (such as a prospect or SIS ID) are used for matching records on import.

📖 Further reading: Manage duplicate person records in Slate using Consolidate Records.

(Optional) Importing historical application records

Complete existing applications in your legacy system, then collect new applications in Slate once you've built and tested the application process in Slate.

To communicate with active applicants who have applied using another system or import unsubmitted applications to Slate for completion, you must first establish a Period and Round schema and create necessary application-scoped fields in Slate.

We recommend waiting to bring in historical applications for reporting until after you have completed your implementation.

📖 Further Reading: Importing Current Applicant Data

Next up: Application and Reader processes

After you’ve mastered the import process for historical data, you can use these skills to prepare to bring in and evaluate the next round of data: applications.

➡️ Next: Step 4: Application and Reader Processes