Migrate to FigJam
It can be intimidating to move from one tool to another, so we’ve built this migration guide to help you understand what to expect and plan for when you migrate to FigJam from another tool.
We usually recommend having a migration lead to manage the transition along with the support of Leadership, Team Leads, IT, Design, and L&D.
Typically, you can expect this process to take 2-4 weeks. This will vary depending on the size of your organization and the current use of your whiteboarding tool. Read more below about how to plan for your migration and what to expect along the way.
If you are planning for a large Enterprise Figma deployment, please consult with your Account Manager or Onboarding Manager for a more custom deployment plan.
As part of the transition, we recommend focusing on the following goals:
- Ensure all users at your organization are aware of the transition and feel confident in managing their whiteboarding workflows in FigJam
- Enable users to prioritize which content needs to be migrated and support them in migrating their essential boards
- Utilize FigJam as a tool to improve meeting facilitation, foster a culture of collaboration, and support your employee engagement priorities
Below are the phases we recommend preparing as part of the migration process. Each phase will vary depending on the size and complexity of your team’s whiteboarding needs. Time spent planning for each phase will help ensure a smoother transition.
Phase 1: Discover and plan
The goal of the first phase is to understand the current state of your whiteboarding tool usage, get stakeholders on board, and align on key priorities and content to migrate.
Estimated time: 1-2 days
Who’s involved:
- Migration lead
- Board owners
- Leadership
Activities to complete:
- Put together your migration plan with a timeline
- Assemble and confirm the migration team
- Hold a kickoff meeting with the team to discuss the plan
- Review file structure of your current whiteboarding tool
- Complete a discovery and start an index of the existing whiteboards
- Communicate with board owners (see sample email below)
Sample email
Hi team!
I hope this email finds you well. You are receiving this email as the owner of one or more boards in [CURRENT TOOL]. We are switching from [TOOL] to FigJam
To ensure a smooth transition, we need your help. To start, please review all boards you currently have in [TOOL] and determine which need to be archived and which need to be migrated to FigJam.
For those that need to be archived, please export them and save them in our shared drives.
For those that need to be migrated, please export them and send them to [MIGRATION LEAD]. You can also import them yourself to FigJam. Our team is here to support the migration if needed, but we encourage you to migrate them yourself if you are able to.
Please review, export, archive, and share all of your boards by [DATE]. We will be deprecating access to [TOOL] on [DATE] and we want to leave extra time for any last minute migration needs.
Finally, we will be offering training sessions and workshops on how to effectively use FigJam. We want to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and confident with the new platform. You can also watch videos on getting started in FigJam and can view the Guide to FigJam.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this migration, and we appreciate your support in making this a smooth transition.
Thank you,
[NAME]
Phase 2: Prioritize and prepare
The goal of this phase is to design your Figma environment for company-wide use, prioritize boards, and export content.
Estimated time: 2-3 days
Who’s involved:
- Migration lead
- Board owners
- Team leads
Activities to complete:
Prioritize boards to migrate:
Just like physical whiteboards that regularly get erased, most digital whiteboard files are ephemeral. So while your organization may have thousands of boards in your existing whiteboarding tool, you will find that only a fraction of them are still being edited or duplicated and need to be migrated to FigJam.
We recommend saving and archiving the boards that need only to be referenced, which will be the majority of boards. This will leave a subset of boards that you need to migrate or recreate in FigJam. Below is a reference of the typical approach we see customers take to the migration:
Fully recreate:
- Template boards
- Boards for upcoming meetings
- Actively used boards
- ~5-10% of boards should fall in this category
Static transfer:
- Commonly referenced boards
- Boards from recent meetings
- ~20-30% of boards
Export & Archive:
- Commonly referenced boards
- Boards from recent meetings
- ~60-75% of boards
Export all boards: Once you’ve prioritized and indexed your boards, we recommend exporting the necessary boards and archiving reference boards in shared drives.
Admin review: Along with exporting and preparing your boards, we recommend establishing the admin plans and organization structure in Figma for your org. This includes:
Phase 3: Import and design
The goal of this phase is to import boards into FigJam, clean up content, and add custom templates, colors, and assets.
Estimated time: 1 week
Who’s involved:
- Migration lead
- Board owners
- Design
- IT
Activities to complete:
- Import Priority boards (see import guide)
- Import active and reference boards
- Board clean up / recreation
- Create and publish custom templates
- Set up custom colors
- Add custom libraries
Phase 4: Deploy and train
The goal of this phase is to launch FigJam, provide education and enablement for the team, and begin using FigJam to drive more engagement and collaboration.
Estimated time: 1-2 days and ongoing
Who’s involved:
- Migration lead
- Board owners
- Leadership
- Team leads
- L&D
Activities to complete:
- Roll out training & enablement (partner with L&D)
- Conduct FigJam training for managers, end users, and/or IT (all optional)
- Can also include facilitation workshops such as:
- Facilitating engaging meetings
- Design thinking
- Running retros & crits
- Interactive user research