Yes, you can move your Act! CRM to a hosted server without losing your customizations. An Act! CRM migration done properly keeps your custom fields, layouts, templates, saved reports, contact history, and add-ons intact, because most of that lives inside the database that travels with you. The fear of arriving in the cloud to find a stripped-down, unfamiliar Act! is understandable, but it comes from migrations done carelessly, not from hosting itself. Here is what moves with you, how the migration actually works, and why having people who know Act! run it makes the difference.
Moves with you
What moves with you (and what to double-check)
The core of Act! is your database, and your customizations are baked into it. Custom fields, screen layouts, document templates, saved lookups and reports, and your entire contact and history record all travel as part of that database. Your preferences and dashboards come along too. When a migration is done right, you log in to the hosted Act! and see the same system you left, just running in a data center instead of on an office machine.
That includes the parts people worry about most: attached documents and files, your opportunities and their history, secondary contacts, and your groups and companies. These are part of the database, not loose files scattered across a desktop, which is exactly why a database-level migration keeps them together instead of leaving pieces behind.
A few things deserve a deliberate check rather than an assumption. Add-ons need to be reinstalled and their licenses confirmed against your Act! version. Integrations that pointed at a local path or server have to be repointed to the hosted environment. And the hosted Act! version should match or cleanly upgrade from the one you run today, so nothing depends on an older build. None of these is difficult, but skipping them is exactly how a rushed move loses a customization.
It is worth being clear about where the risk actually sits. Hosting does not strip anything from Act!; a careless migration does, by skipping the review or the testing. Done as a proper project, moving to a hosted server is one of the safer things you can do with an Act! database, because it also lands you on backed-up, monitored infrastructure instead of a single office machine.
How Act! CRM migration works, step by step
A clean migration is a planned sequence, not a copy-and-hope. Here is the path we follow.
The database copy itself is quick. Most of the time goes into steps one, five, and six, the review up front and the testing and rollout at the end, which is exactly where a careful migration protects your setup.
Where consulting makes the difference
This is where a commodity host and a specialist part ways. Plenty of providers will copy your database to a server and call it done. That is fine for a plain setup and risky for a heavily customized one, where a missed add-on dependency or a broken integration path turns into days of frustration. Because CloudTop Office has worked with Act! since 1994, our Act! consulting team handles the move as an Act! project, not just a file transfer. If your database has grown messy over the years, we can clean it up or optimize it on the way in, and if you are due for a version upgrade, we can fold that into the migration rather than making it a second disruption. We have moved databases carrying a decade of custom fields and third-party tools, and the goal is always the same: you sign in afterward and cannot tell anything moved, except that it now runs from anywhere.
Ready to move your Act!?
Once it is hosted, your Act! runs on Microsoft Azure in U.S. regions with managed daily backups, multi-factor authentication, encryption, and 24/7 U.S.-based support, and your team reaches the same customized database from anywhere. The move is also a chance to leave behind VPNs, aging hardware, and the constant worry about whether backups are running, since all of that becomes part of the hosted service. You can read more about Act! hosting or, better, let us look at your database first. To plan a migration that protects your customizations, book a consultation with our team.
Migration worries, cleared up
Will I lose my custom fields and layouts?
No. Your custom fields and layouts are part of the Act! database, so they move with it. A proper migration restores them intact, and testing before go-live confirms they behave exactly as they did before.
Do my add-ons and integrations still work after moving?
Yes, once they are reinstalled and reconnected in the hosted environment. We confirm add-on compatibility and licenses against your Act! version and repoint any integration that referenced a local path, which is part of a careful move.
How long does an Act! migration take?
Usually a short, planned project. The database copy is quick, and most of the timeline goes into the upfront review, reinstalling add-ons, testing, and setting up users, so the actual switch is smooth.
Will my team be down during the move?
Migrations are scheduled to keep downtime minimal, often outside business hours, with the hosted environment tested before anyone switches over. Your original stays available until the new setup is confirmed working.
What if my Act! database is messy or very old?
That is a good reason to involve people who know Act!. We can migrate and clean up or optimize the database along the way, and fold in a version upgrade if you need one, so you land in a better state than you left, not just a relocated one.
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