This timeline is part of the first-visit failure recovery guide. The guide explains which records show how a missed fix was put right; this page does one job, showing how long each of those records tends to last around a migration and who must approve keeping any of them.
The retention timeline: what disappears first
Read from left to right, from today to the day the old platform goes read-only or is switched off.
- Images on personal devices: often gone already. Pictures of a burnt contact or an iced coil that never reached the job record lived on handsets that have since been swapped or wiped. Treat them as unknown rather than chasing them.
- Recorded callback calls: gone at the contact center's retention setting. The call that set up the second visit is often the only record of what the customer said went wrong. Ask the customer service manager how long recordings are kept.
- Field change history: gone on a rolling limit. Salesforce, for example, retains field history for up to 18 months, and up to 24 months via the API, when Field Audit Trail is turned off. A supervisor's recode of a first job from "complete" to "failed first visit" may already have aged out of that history, even though the current value remains.
- Closed work orders and notes attachments: at risk at cutover. Migrations commonly carry open work orders and active assets, because the new platform needs them on day one. Years of closed jobs, with their notes and attachments, are the classic thing left behind.
- Part issues and inventory ledgers: at risk at cutover or an ERP change. The ledger lines that record a part leaving a warehouse against a job are what prove the right part was on hand at the first visit. They usually belong to a separate migration workstream, run by finance or operations, whose priority is opening balances, not years of issue history.
- Open work orders, active assets and current stock: carried across. These survive because operations depend on them.
SalesforceRecord by record: lifespan, end point and approver
| Record class | Where it lives | What ends it | Tends to last | Who approves keeping it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site images | Personal devices or job attachments | Device replacement, attachment cleanup | Shortest; often already lost | Service director with counsel |
| Callback call recordings | Contact center platform | Recording retention setting | Plan- and policy-dependent | Customer service owner with counsel |
| Field change history | Field service platform | Rolling history limit | Up to 18 months in the Salesforce example without Field Audit Trail | Platform owner's executive |
| Closed work orders and notes | Old field service platform | Migration scope and contract end | Until cutover, unless preserved | COO and CFO, with counsel |
| Part issues and ledger lines | Field service inventory or ERP | Migration scope, ERP change | Until cutover, unless preserved | Operations or finance executive |
| Open jobs and active assets | Both platforms | Not ended by migration | Carried across | No decision needed |
The pattern matters more than any one number. The records that show why a first visit failed (the image, the call, the recode) are the shortest-lived, and the ledger lines that prove what was on hand are the ones most often treated as someone else's workstream.
The link test: will callbacks still point home?
Before cutover, ask the service director to pick ten known callbacks and check, in a test export or the migration mapping, whether each still points to its original job. Configuration history matters here: in Dynamics 365 Field Service, a work order is set to Completed by default when its booking completes unless "Status completes work order" is turned off, so some years may hold callbacks on the original job and others as new jobs. Report counts only. The first-visit failure system map lists the keys to check.
Four facts to collect before cutover
Ask for four facts, all at metadata level:
- Record classes: work orders, technician notes and attachments, incident and resolution codes, part issues, inventory ledgers, callback records, customer sign-offs.
- Coverage: first and last year in each system, and any earlier platform already retired.
- Owners: who administers the field service platform, who owns inventory, who holds each vendor contract.
- The real deadline: a contract end date, read-only date or decommission plan in writing. "Sometime next quarter" is not a deadline.
That date is the only urgency worth naming. The partner's job is to make sure the question is asked before cutover, not to recommend keeping anything the company has no authority to keep. The CMMS migration guide covers a close cousin of this problem for maintenance systems, and the email platform migration guide covers the same decision for mailboxes.
Who approves keeping it, and the qualification check
Keeping closed history after cutover is a company decision. The service director can say what matters, the COO weighs the operational cost, counsel checks customer contracts and vendor terms, and the CFO or CEO approves. The licensing authority decision tree maps the licensing side, where the CEO authorizes a discussion and signs. When a migration follows an acquisition, site visit preparation and the portfolio company site visit checklist help frame the conversation.
The introduced company needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors and subcontracted technicians excluded), a documented operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. Unknown until SourceX reviews it: buyer interest, what customer and site details must be removed, the rights review result and any offer.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
If a client's service platform has a written cutover date and years of closed callbacks behind it, register as a partner, check the company against who qualifies, and read the program terms before that date.