Switching Dental Practice Management Software: The IT Migration Checklist (Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Ascend)

The demo went well, the contract is on your desk, and the new vendor says the data conversion "usually goes fine." What nobody has told you is what happens to the X-rays, whether the balances come across, which computers can run the new software, and who reconnects the clearinghouse on Monday morning.

This is the overview of a dental software migration from the IT side. It shows the four common routes, what converts and what doesn't according to the vendors' own documents, who owns each piece, and a phase-by-phase checklist you can print. The budget, the weekend runbook and the backup steps each have their own guide, linked where they come up. If you are still choosing the software, start with choosing dental practice management software and come back once the decision is made.

Which switch are you making? Four common routes

Most dental software migrations follow one of four routes, and each one changes a different part of your IT. The new vendor converts the data in every case, but whether your server stays, whether your imaging bridge survives and how much internet you need depend on the route. Find your row first, then use the checklist below.

Two routes do not belong on this page. Moving the same Dentrix database to a new server is a hardware project, covered in the Dentrix server migration checklist. Changing IT providers, not software, is its own topic too.

Moving to Open Dental? Our Open Dental IT support page explains the server, workstation and backup side of running it.

Start with the migration outcome, not the software demo

A migration succeeds when Monday's schedule runs normally in the new system, not when the database opens. Before the first export, write down four answers: why you are changing, what has to move, what stays local, and which systems the clinical day cannot run without. Those four answers decide the scope of every vendor's work.

The most common planning error is treating a PMS conversion as a single vendor project. The incoming vendor owns the database conversion, but the practice still has workstations, sensors, imaging repositories, printers, payment devices, network paths, user accounts, cloud services and security controls that must survive the transition.

What converts, what doesn't, and what to get in writing

Patient demographics, appointments, completed procedures, payments and insurance plans usually convert. Outstanding claims, preauthorizations, forms, templates, custom reports and many X-ray archives often do not, and balances may be converted, zeroed or partly rebuilt. The only reliable answer is the new vendor's conversion document for your old software, read before you sign.

Open Dental publishes these documents, which makes it a useful worked example. Its Dentrix and Eaglesoft conversion sheets (updated 11 March 2026 and 17 June 2026) list exactly what comes across. Other vendors have their own lists; ask for yours.

Source: Open Dental, Dentrix / EZ Dental Conversion and Eaglesoft Conversion documents, read 1 November 2026. Vendor documents change; get the current one for your conversion.

Balances and the A/R total

Open Dental's Pre-Data Conversion Checklist (updated 18 August 2026) asks the owner to choose whether family balances convert or whether "all patient balances" are set to zero, including when the buyer of a practice does not own the old receivables. It also warns that aging buckets will not match the old software and that individual family member balances may differ even when the family total is right. Decide this with your accountant before the final conversion, not on the day.

Three questions that prevent most surprises

1. 1. Can we see a written list of what will not convert from our exact software and version?
2. 1. Will the final conversion differ from the test? Open Dental's checklist states that the final "will not be materially different from the test conversion."
3. 1. How long do you keep our conversion data? Open Dental says it keeps test and final conversion data "for approximately two months," then deletes it.

Decide who owns each part of the migration

The new PMS vendor owns the data conversion, setup and training. The old vendor owns export access and the end of the licence. The imaging vendor owns image conversion or re-bridging. The IT provider owns workstations, servers, network, backups and device testing. The practice owns sign-off, staff training and notifying third parties.

Open Dental's checklist puts the third-party notices on the practice: "I am responsible for contacting third-party companies to notify them of our conversion to Open Dental (e.g., clearinghouses, electronic eligibility)." It also says Open Dental "does not backup or maintain my database." Both are jobs that land on your IT the week you go live.

If you want one team holding the IT side of that table, see how we help with PMS migrations and imaging. For where the software vendor's job ends and IT's begins, read dental software support vs IT support.

The dental software migration checklist, phase by phase

A dental software migration runs in four phases: inventory and decisions 8–12 weeks out, the test conversion and acceptance 4–6 weeks out, protection and freeze in the final week, and go-live with 30 days of follow-up. Each phase has IT tasks that the conversion team will not do for you. Print this section and tick it off.

MIGRATION CONTROL BOARD

Build a dependency inventory before the first export

Inventory the software and everything around it. If a clinical workflow depends on an imaging bridge, a driver version, a card terminal or a backup job, it belongs on the migration plan.

MIGRATION ENVIRONMENT BLUEPRINT

Version numbers and bridges are where a migration plan usually breaks first; our guide to dental software system requirements shows how to record both. If any workstation still runs Windows 10, plan the upgrade before the migration, not during it: Microsoft ended Windows 10 support on 14 October 2025, and Open Dental lists Windows 11 and Windows Server 2016 to 2025 as supported. Our Windows 10 end of life guide for dental practices covers the upgrade.

Build an acceptance plan before the first test conversion

A test conversion is useful only when the practice knows what it will inspect. Open Dental's checklist recommends comparing at least ten patients who have a balance and insurance, including at least two with negative balances, against the old system, and recording the total A/R before and after.

Train during this window, not after it. Open Dental asks the practice to confirm staff have been, or will be, trained on daily processes before the final.

Protect the source system before anything destructive happens

A migration should not start with "the backup ran last night." It starts with evidence that the old database, documents and images can be restored if the conversion window goes wrong.

ROLLBACK VERIFICATION PROCESS

What to capture in those recovery points is set out in what to back up before you migrate. The hour-by-hour weekend, with device smoke tests and the rollback decision, is in the Friday-to-Monday cutover plan.

Test the new environment before the final cutover

Do not assume the migration worked because the main screen opens. On the first morning, test every device that touches the clinical day, from operatory sensors to the front-desk card terminal.

On conversion day, Open Dental asks the office to run an accounts receivable report including credit balances and an outstanding insurance claims report from the old software, close the old software, and from then on "Do not enter new data in your old software; only use it for historical records." Its post-conversion checklist then has the office verify bridges on each workstation, set printers and scanner defaults per workstation, enable the clearinghouse, send test claims and re-create outstanding claims that did not convert.

MONDAY MORNING WORKFLOW TESTS

Plan cutover as a production event

Plan the cutover as a production event. Set a write-freeze time, the final export, the order of checks and a rollback decision time, and staff the first days accordingly: Open Dental's checklist tells offices to schedule fewer patients or staff more heavily for one to two weeks after the final conversion.

CLINICAL MIGRATION RUNBOOK SEQUENCE

Create a Retirement Plan for the Old System

Do not shut the old server down once the new PMS is live. Keep a read-only way to view history, keep its backups, and retire the hardware only after the owner signs off.

MIGRATION DEFINITION OF DONE

The final migration checklist

Multi Location Migrations Need Waves

Multi-location groups should convert in waves, not all at once. Use the first office as a pilot, write down every integration problem it finds, and turn the workstation, network and bridge settings that worked into a template before the next wave. Each additional location adds its own fee line too: Open Dental charges $400 for each extra clinic in the same database. For groups standardising after acquisitions, see DSO IT support.

Treat imaging as its own migration workstream

Imaging is the workstream that most often breaks a clean migration, because images live in a separate program and database from the PMS. You have three choices: keep the imaging software and re-bridge it, convert the images into the new system, or start new imaging and keep the old viewer for history. Decide before the final conversion.

Open Dental's Eaglesoft sheet lists these options itself, including buying new imaging software and having that vendor convert the Eaglesoft images so they can be bridged. The patient-ID match is the step to test: an image that opens under the wrong chart is a clinical risk, not just a nuisance.

Cloud PMS routes add a local piece. Dentrix Ascend's imaging relies on an acquisition agent, and its help pages note that offline images are not detected if the agent is closed. Large CBCT archives deserve their own storage plan. If images stop opening from the chart after go-live, work through dental imaging integration troubleshooting before calling three vendors.

IMAGING PIPELINE ARCHITECTURE

Are your computers and internet ready for the new software?

Check every workstation and the internet connection against the new vendor's published requirements before you buy anything. Office-hosted software leans on your server and Windows versions; cloud software leans on bandwidth, latency and a second line. Published numbers as of 1 November 2026:

Sources: Dentrix Ascend system requirements, Open Dental Cloud and Open Dental Computer Requirements pages, read 1 November 2026.

Two cautions. First, replace only what misses the sheet: changing computers, phones and software in the same weekend makes problems harder to trace. Second, for any cloud PMS, plan what happens when the internet drops in the middle of a clinic day; the dental office internet down guide covers failover.

Treat training and workflow redesign as part of migration risk

A clean data conversion still disrupts production if staff cannot check patients in, post payments or trigger a sensor under time pressure. Rehearse the daily workflows by role before go-live and keep the schedule lighter for the first one to two weeks.

New software feels slow to a team that has not rehearsed it, even when every record converted correctly. Practices that rehearse check-in, checkout, claims and imaging on the test database find those gaps while the old system is still the system of record. Give each role a short script of its five most common tasks and run it on the test conversion.

Who owns your data, and can you get it out?

Your patient data should be exportable in a usable form when you leave a vendor, but the terms are set by contracts and integrations, not by assumption. Read the export, decryption and read-only access clauses before you sign the new contract, and again before you give notice on the old one.

The question is live in the industry. DentistryIQ reported on 22 April 2026 that a dispute between Henry Schein One and Vyne Dental has put the question of who controls patient data in front of a court, with Vyne's position summarised as the dental record "belongs to the dental practice" and Henry Schein One saying every integration "has to meet our security and performance standards." No ruling had been issued at the time of that report. For a practice, the practical point is narrower: integrations can be switched off, and a migration plan should not depend on one.

Questions to put to both vendors in writing:

• • In what format do we receive our data at the end of the contract, and is it decrypted?
• • Do scanned documents and images come with it, or separately?
• • How long can we keep read-only access to the old system, and at what cost?
• • Which third-party integrations will stop working on the day we leave?

How long and how much does switching dental software take?

Plan in phases, not a weekend: this checklist starts 8–12 weeks before go-live and runs up to 30 days after it. Vendor fees are only part of the budget. Open Dental, for example, publishes $1,450 per database for a US data conversion, $850 for a typical scanned-document conversion and $900 for a typical X-ray conversion, with the test conversion free.

Those are one vendor's published fees, read on 1 November 2026, and they exclude IT time, hardware, extra staff hours and the lighter schedule. For every budget line and the week-by-week calendar, read what a migration costs and how long it takes.

Buying a practice and switching software in the same year

If you have just bought a practice, close first, stabilise the IT second, and switch software third. Changing ownership, bank and merchant accounts, the network and the PMS at once multiplies the things that can fail on the same Monday, and makes every problem harder to trace to its cause.

One owner posting on Reddit in December 2025, who had switched from Dentrix to Open Dental three months after buying a practice, found the new system "so clunky" while still sorting out imaging integration. Use the first months to inventory what you bought, fix backups and replace computers that miss the new vendor's sheet. Settle who owns the old receivables before the conversion: Open Dental's checklist has a separate box for a buyer who does not own the outstanding balances. Our guide to IT due diligence when buying a practice covers what to check before and after the purchase.

What to ask your IT provider about a software migration

Ask before the contract is signed, so the IT work is in the plan and not discovered on go-live morning.

Your Practice Needs Clear Technology Ownership

A software switch goes best when one team owns the IT side end to end, from the inventory to the day the old server is retired.

Legend Networking has served over 3,500 practices since 2004 and supports the IT environment around Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental and Archy, and imaging systems including DEXIS, Vatech, Carestream, Planmeca/Romexis and Dolphin Imaging. Ian Lynch, the author of this guide, has 22 years in dental IT and oversees the NOC, onsite dispatch and client technology roadmaps. Legend holds a 4.8 rating from 173 Google reviews. Hardware procurement, major cabling projects and software licensing are quoted separately. See how we support practice management and imaging software.

Related Guides

The migration guides that go deeper on each phase: