Leaving FluentStream / RingCentral: A Migration Checklist

A phone system migration checklist is mostly an export list. Most of your configuration is not portable — greetings, attendant scripts, call flows, and call history live in a portal that closes when your account does. Capture all of it while you still have a login, then rebuild from your own copy rather than from memory.

Your numbers are the exception. Those you own, and no provider can withhold them.

What you can take with you, and what you cannot

Two categories, and confusing them is what makes a migration painful.

The rule underneath the table: audio files and data you download are yours; anything that exists only as a setting in someone else's portal disappears with the account.

The export checklist

Work this list before you give notice, not after. Access is what you are protecting.

1. Every phone number on the account. Read the invoice line by line, not the portal's summary. Include fax lines, dormant direct-dials, and the second location's old main number. Numbers you leave behind get disconnected when the account closes.
2. The extension list. Extension number, user name, email, voicemail box, direct-dial number if any, and the device it uses. A spreadsheet is fine and speeds up bulk extension creation on the new system.
3. Device inventory with MAC addresses. Model, MAC, and which desk it sits on. Photograph the label if the portal does not list it.
4. Voicemail greeting audio. Download every box's greeting. Personal greetings in a staff member's own voice are the ones people miss most.
5. Auto attendant prompt audio. Download the recorded prompts. If you cannot download them, you will be paying for new recordings or re-recording internally.
6. Auto attendant scripts, written out. Every menu, every key, every destination, every level. Transcribe them as text even if you have the audio — the text is what you rebuild from.
7. Call flows and routing rules. Business hours, after-hours behavior, holiday schedules, ring groups, queue membership, overflow destinations, voicemail fallbacks. Screenshots are acceptable; a written description is better.
8. Time conditions and holiday calendars. Including the closures you set up last December and forgot.
9. Call history you are required to retain. Export CDR for the retention period your industry or insurer requires.
10. Call recordings you must keep. Recordings are usually the largest download and the easiest to lose. Do this early.
11. E911 addresses currently on file. Not to import — the new provider registers its own — but so you can verify nothing is missed for any location or number.
12. Billing contacts and account credentials, including the admin password on any handsets you plan to reuse.

Check the contract before you check anything else

Read the agreement first, because two clauses in it can change your timeline by a month.

Notice window. Many agreements require written notice, often 30 days, delivered in a specified way. Notice given by phone call to a support rep frequently does not count.

Auto-renewal date. Term contracts renew silently. Find the anniversary and work backwards from it.

Early termination. If there is a fee, compare it against the cost of serving out the remaining months. Sometimes the cheapest exit is a slow one — build the new system now, port on a date that lands after the term ends.

Equipment return. Rented handsets have a return deadline and, often, a non-return charge that exceeds the phone's value.

Our guide to getting out of a VoIP contract covers the negotiation side. The porting-rights side is settled law and worth knowing: who owns your phone number explains why a provider cannot hold your numbers hostage over a billing dispute, and what to do if one tries.

The order of operations

Sequence matters more than speed. Cancel last, always.

1. Read the contract. Note the notice window and renewal date.
2. Export everything on the checklist. While your account is fully active.
3. Build the new system in parallel. Extensions, routing, menus, voicemail, permissions.
4. Test on temporary numbers. With the people who actually answer phones.
5. Submit the port. Two to four weeks is typical; the paperwork must match the losing carrier's billing record exactly.
6. Install and register handsets several days before the port date.
7. Cutover. Verify every ported number rings its intended destination.
8. Then give notice and cancel, in writing, keeping the confirmation.

Switching without downtime covers the phased cutover in detail, including what to test and when. Number porting requirements and timelines covers the document set.

Rebuilding on the other side

The rebuild is transcription, which is why the export list matters. With the scripts in hand, an auto attendant tree is an afternoon of work rather than an archaeology project.

Where your exports land:

• Greeting and prompt audio uploads into the recordings library and attaches to voicemail boxes and menus.
• Extension spreadsheets feed bulk creation.
• Attendant scripts become menus and time conditions.
• MAC addresses become devices, provisioned before they are plugged in.

If you are coming from a specific platform, the concept mapping is usually one-to-one: our FluentStream migration guide maps terms directly, and the same mapping exercise applies to most hosted platforms. What one portal calls a hunt group, another calls a ring group. The design is the part you are moving; only the vocabulary changes.

Then run the go-live checklist with your staff before you consider the migration finished.

Frequently asked questions

What should I export before canceling my VoIP provider? Phone numbers listed on the invoice, the extension list, device MAC addresses, voicemail greeting audio, auto attendant prompt audio and written scripts, all routing and time-condition logic, call history for your retention period, and any call recordings you must keep. Do this while the account is fully active, before giving notice.

Can I download my voicemail greetings and auto attendant prompts? Usually yes, from the recordings or media section of your current portal, though export capability varies by provider. If audio cannot be downloaded, budget for re-recording. Written scripts are the essential part regardless — with the text, new audio takes an hour; without it, you are reconstructing menus from memory.

Does my call history transfer to a new phone provider? No. Call detail records stay with the provider that generated them, so export CDR to CSV before you cancel — especially if your industry, insurer, or an active matter requires retention. Your new system starts its own call history from day one.

What is the right order to cancel and port? Export, build, test, port, verify, then cancel. Canceling before a port completes can cause a number to be disconnected and lost permanently, since a disconnected number cannot be ported. Check your notice window before starting, so the written notice lands after your port date rather than before it.

If you are leaving a hosted provider and want a second set of eyes on what to pull before the login stops working, send us your current invoice and portal screenshots. We will tell you what is missing from your export list, whether or not you end up switching to us.