On October 9, 2017, Microsoft released a migration tool to help its Parature customer service customers migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365. This blog post is a continuation of the first post in the Parature migration series.
The Parature migration tool provides capabilities to export data from Parature, map the data to Dynamics 365 fields, and configure a Dynamics 365 portal to replace the Parature customer service portal functionality. The tool is accompanied by training videos.
In order to use the migration tool, you must be a Parature customer and request access from Microsoft technical support. The tool is tied to your specific instance of Parature, so it requires configuration by Microsoft before you can use it. It includes solutions that are installed in your instance of Dynamics 365.
Microsoft provides mapping of fields for entities such as contacts, accounts, cases (trouble tickets) and knowledge base articles. In addition, the tool supports mapping of your custom fields. You can save your configurations and perform as many test migrations as necessary.
Migrating your data from Parature to Dynamics 365 provides an opportunity for data cleansing. For instance, you may want to delete fake email account records if you receive online support inquiries from bogus email addresses or identities. Many organizations are hit by spammers who use support email aliases because they are published on your website and discovered through searches for email addresses.
You could also clean up your data further if desired by removing erroneous cases that do not contribute to improving your customer service or are not used to derive your case performance metrics. These may be cases submitted by SPAM accounts but they could also be other forms on illegitimate cases.
Part 3 of this series will focus on the migration of the customer service portal.