The common path is a file. Export CSV or Excel from the old CRM, map columns to Frontline fields, and load into the object. Name your columns the way the fields are named: First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, Company. Dates and currency should look like dates and currency, not a sentence. Select fields need values that match the options you already created.

You can also ask Max. Give him the file, or the list, and tell him the object and the record type. “These 40 households are Contacts. Email is the key. Do not create a second James Harrington.” He will use the same unique rules. He will not invent a parallel People object.

You can bring your own agent the same way, through the CLI or the Public API. Bulk-create records, or create them one by one. Authenticate as a user who is allowed to create on that object. The API is not a back door around groups or uniqueness. If Sales cannot create Deals, your script cannot either.

Use the file when the book is a snapshot. Use Max when the list is messy and you want a partner in the mapping. Use the CLI or API when this will happen every week from another system.

People still deduplicate on email and phone, across Lead and Contact. Search or match before you create. If James is already in from Gmail, update him or skip the row. Do not import him as a new Contact with the same email. Conversion is a type change, not a second import.

Set the record type on the way in. A column for Lead vs Contact, or a single import into Lead, then convert later. The account default for sync does not have to be the default for a file of existing clients. Those rows should land as Contacts if they already are.

Company auto-link still runs on a work email. Importing sofia@harringtonfo.com can create or link Harrington Family Office. Do not also import a slightly different company name in the same file unless you mean two records. If you need a quiet load without enrichment, use a record type that skips those side effects, then convert. Most wealth books should just import clean emails and let the link happen.

Deals and tickets need a company and people that already exist, or that you create in the same pass. Import companies first, then people, then deals. Relations are IDs or names Frontline can resolve, not a hope that “Harrington” matches.

One file per object, columns that match fields, emails lowercase and unique, phones in a consistent format. A test of ten rows before the full book. James appears once. The family office appears once. The mandate points at both. Max can find them. Sync will attach the next email instead of opening a duplicate.

If the file is really a fee schedule or a list of model portfolios, that is a table. The next lesson is that path.