Hotel PMS Migration Checklist: 40 Tasks Most Operators Miss

TL;DR

A successful hotel PMS migration requires 40+ discrete tasks across data, integrations, policies, training, and cutover. Skip any one and you'll bleed reservations during the transition.

Data Migration (Tasks 1–12)

1. Export all active reservations
2. Export all guest profiles
3. Export rate plan catalog
4. Export room type catalog
5. Export cancellation policy language
6. Export deposit policies
7. Export historical folios (last 12 months)
8. Export OTA channel mappings
9. Export loyalty member tier data
10. Export preferred guest notes
11. Export maintenance history
12. Export housekeeping schedules

Integrations (Tasks 13–22)

13. Connect payment processor (Stripe/Square/Worldpay)
14. Connect door-lock system (Salto/Assa Abloy/Dormakaba)
15. Connect channel manager (Siteminder/Cloudbeds)
16. Connect CRM (Revinate/Cendyn/Salesforce)
17. Connect review aggregator (TrustYou/ReviewPro)
18. Connect accounting (QuickBooks/Xero)
19. Connect telephony (Twilio/Zoom Phone)
20. Connect SMS gateway
21. Connect email (AWS SES or SendGrid)
22. Test all integrations end-to-end

Policies (Tasks 23–30)

23. Ingest cancellation policies by rate plan
24. Ingest pet policy
25. Ingest smoking policy
26. Ingest early check-in fees
27. Ingest late check-out fees
28. Ingest parking rates
29. Ingest rollaway/crib rates
30. Ingest minimum age for check-in

Training + Go-Live (Tasks 31–40)

31. Train front desk on escalation handoffs
32. Train housekeeping on voice reporting
33. Train night audit on AI monitoring dashboard
34. Train DOSM on group sales hand-off workflow
35. Set up rollback switch
36. Provision voice numbers + port existing
37. Run 20 test calls across languages
38. Run 48-hour parallel pilot
39. Cut over 100% of inbound
40. Monitor first 72 hours with on-call engineer

The Tasks Most Operators Forget

• #9 Loyalty tier data — without this, VIPs get treated like cold leads on day 1
• #14 Door-lock integration — mobile key issuance is the single highest-impact check-in feature
• #31 Front desk escalation training — your staff needs to know exactly what context they're getting when the AI hands off

FAQ

Q: How long does this take? A: 3–10 days for a boutique. 2–4 weeks for a multi-property chain.

Q: Can I do it in phases? A: Yes. Most operators start with inbound reservation calls only, then add housekeeping, then group sales.

Q: What's the biggest cause of delay? A: Policy ingestion. Operators discover their cancellation rules are inconsistent across rate plans during migration.

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Related: Hotel industry | Migration playbook

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