Migrate from Notebird to FlockConnect, step by step

Before you begin: export in the right order

You will pull two files out of Notebird: your people and your care notes. Notebird calls its pastoral notes Updates. Export both before you cancel anything, because after a Notebird subscription ends your access is limited and the data is removed within a couple of months. Export first, cancel later.

If your church uses Planning Center, your people are already in FlockConnect, so the Updates file is the only one you need. The People file is optional: add it too if you want its birthdays, anniversaries, and addresses filled in where FlockConnect has none, or if you want each note to find its person by Notebird ID rather than by name.

The steps below are quick, but one of them has a trap that silently drops your older notes. It is called out in bold-clear language and listed first in the checklist so you cannot miss it.

• Important: on the Updates export, change the date range from Last 90 Days to All Time and press Apply, or older notes are silently dropped.
• Export from Notebird before you cancel; access and data go away after the subscription ends.
• On both reports, open Show/Hide Columns and tick Notebird ID. It is hidden by default, and it matches every note to the right person.
• Step 1: Reports, People, tick Notebird ID and Relationships, export as CSV.
• Step 2: Reports, Updates, choose All Time and press Apply, tick Notebird ID, run it as an Org Owner, Admin, or Care Admin, export as CSV.
• Restricted notes are excluded unless an Org Owner, Admin, or Care Admin runs the export, and attachments cannot be exported at all.
• Step 3: skip Milestones (birthdays and anniversaries come with the People file); a Tasks export is a reference file today.
• Step 4: in FlockConnect, open People and choose Import. Add your People file, check the plan and your groups, then add your Updates file. If your people came from Planning Center, the Updates file alone is enough. People already here are filled in, never doubled; families become households; you see who every note lands on before it is written; there is an All Time safety check and an Undo button. Prefer concierge? One tap emails your files to us.

Step 1: export your People from Notebird, with the Notebird ID

In Notebird, open Reports and choose People. Before you export, open Show/Hide Columns and tick Notebird ID. It is hidden by default, and it is the column that lets FlockConnect match every note to exactly the right person, even when two people in your church share a name. Tick Relationships too, so families come across together, Notes if you keep notes on people's profiles, and Gender and Membership Date if you keep them. Then export the report as a CSV.

Here is what comes across from that file: each person's name, one email and one phone number (their personal email and mobile phone first, the work ones when that is all Notebird has), their home address, birthday, anniversary, membership date, gender, and Notebird ID. Notebird writes the home address on two lines; the importer splits it into street, city, state, and ZIP when it ends in a US state and ZIP, and otherwise keeps every character on one line. A birthday Notebird stored with the year 1900 is one where the year was never entered, so FlockConnect keeps the month and day and shows it without a year. Each person's groups come across too: every Notebird group can join a group that is already in FlockConnect (Planning Center's included), become a new group, or stay behind, and you choose for each one. From Relationships, spouses and the children who live with them become households; anyone who is already in a household stays where they are. The Notes field on a person's profile comes across as a note on that person, seen by the account owner and admins with care access, never by care partners. Relationship status does not come across today, so keep this file.

Step 2: export your Updates, and set the range to All Time

In Notebird, open Reports and choose Updates. This is the crown jewel: the full text of your pastoral notes with their dates and types. Before you export, look at the date range picker. It defaults to Last 90 Days. You must change it from Last 90 Days to All Time and then press Apply, or every note older than 90 days is silently left out of the file. The picker shows a count beside each range, and the number beside All Time is how many notes your file should hold. This is the one step people get wrong, so do it first and confirm it before you export.

Then open Show/Hide Columns on this report too and tick Notebird ID, the same column you ticked on People. With it, each note finds its person by ID instead of by name. Tick Created By as well, and each note says which of your team wrote it.

Two more things to know. Run this export as an Org Owner, Admin, or Care Admin, because restricted or confidential notes are silently excluded when a lower-permission user runs it. Because those notes come along, the imported history is seen only by the account owner and admins with care access, and the importer shows you that before anything is written. Care partners never see notes brought over from Notebird. And attachments cannot be exported from Notebird at all, so any files attached to a note stay in Notebird and do not come across. Once the range says All Time and you are running it with the right role, export the report as a CSV.

Step 3: skip Milestones; export Tasks only as a reference

You do not need Notebird's Milestones report. The birthdays and anniversaries in it come across with your People file, onto each person's record in FlockConnect. Other milestone types do not have a home yet, since FlockConnect has no milestones feature today.

If you use Notebird Tasks, you can export those as well. Task history does not import cleanly today because of how assignments work, so treat the Tasks export as a reference file for now rather than something that comes across automatically.

Step 4: bring everything across with the Notebird importer

In FlockConnect, open People and choose Import. That opens the Notebird importer, which takes both files and recognizes which is which. Add your People file first, if you are bringing one. Before anything is written, the importer shows you the plan: how many people are new, and how many are already in FlockConnect, for example because they came over from Planning Center. Someone who is already here is never added twice. The importer only fills in what their record is missing, like a birthday, an anniversary, or an address when they have none, and a name, email, and phone stay exactly as Planning Center has them. It matches someone on its own when they are the only person here with that name and nothing on either record disagrees, and it lists every one of those matches for you to check and untick. When it cannot be sure, for example two people here with the same name, it asks you, one question per person. If your people came from Planning Center, it only brings your Notebird people onto the people already here: anyone in your file who is not in FlockConnect, usually someone archived in Notebird, is left out and listed, and you can choose to add them instead. The plan also lists every group from your file with a starting answer: join the group already here with the same name, create a new group, or leave it behind (Notebird's own Acquaintances, Family, Friends, Co-workers, and Neighbors lists start as leave behind). Change any of them before you add your people. Someone added to a Planning Center group is added in FlockConnect only; Planning Center's own list does not change.

Then add your Updates file. If you added a People file, your notes wait until those people are in, because every note attaches to a person. Before it writes a single note, the importer shows you who each one will land on: it matches by Notebird ID first, then by name. Every note placed by name alone is listed for you to check, and you can untick any that isn't the same person. A name that two different Notebird people share, such as someone archived long ago and someone still coming, is always asked about, never guessed. A name it cannot find is listed with likely people from FlockConnect, so you can pick the right person, or leave those notes out and download them as a file to bring over later. When there are many such names, which is common when many people were archived in Notebird, the list opens on the names with the most notes, shows when each one's latest note was written, and lets you type a name to find the rest. Every note keeps its original date and type and becomes backdated care history. An Update whose type is Note or Update, or has no type at all, lands as a Note: an entry that is written down rather than a visit or a call, so it never moves anyone's last-contacted date.

The importer also watches for the date-range trap: if your Updates file looks like it only covers a few weeks, it stops and asks whether you chose All Time before you commit, so you do not quietly lose older notes. It also shows who will see the imported notes: they are seen by the account owner and admins with care access, never by care partners. You can choose Only me instead, so only you and the church's account owners see them. Either choice can be changed later under Imports you've made, on the same page. The file doesn't mark which notes were restricted or confidential, so every note gets the same setting. Nothing is written until you confirm, and every import you make stays listed with an Undo button, even after you leave the page and come back. Undo your notes before your people, since the notes are attached to them. Bringing the same Updates file in again is safe: a note that is already here is not added a second time.

Prefer we do it for you? The importer has a one-tap option to email us your two files and we'll bring your history over for you. Either way, keep both files safe until the migration is confirmed.