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Switching booking plugins without losing bookings

Your booking plugin is too limited, too expensive, or badly suited to your trade. You can switch without losing a single customer, provided you know what can be brought across, and never leave two forms open at the same time.

What there is to bring across

  • Your activities and their dates: what you offer, when, and how many places.
  • Your upcoming bookings: the most important ones. These are customers who are going to come.
  • Your customers: their contact details, if you want to keep them.
  • Your past bookings: keep them in an export, for your accounts.

Start by exporting

Before touching anything, export everything the old plugin can export, as a spreadsheet: bookings, customers, dates. Keep this file: it's your backup.

In what order

  1. Install the new plugin, without deactivating the old one, and create your activities.
  2. Bring in your dates, from a calendar file or a spreadsheet, if the new plugin can read them.
  3. Copy your upcoming bookings into the new plugin, starting with the soonest. Check beforehand whether a copied booking sends the customer a confirmation, so as not to surprise them.
  4. Switch forms in one go. On changeover day, remove the old form and put the new one in its place. Two forms open at the same time sell the same places twice.
  5. Keep the old plugin deactivated for a few weeks, rather than deleting it: its data stays within reach.
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