Case Study: Data Import Service for a Healthcare SaaS

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For most B2B SaaS products, the real challenge does not start at feature comparison. It starts when a prospective customer asks what sounds like a very practical question: how do we move our existing data into your system? That question carries weight, especially for mid-sized and large organizations. These companies are not experimenting. They already run live operations, rely on historical data, and cannot afford disruption. If migrating data feels risky or unclear, even a strong product can lose momentum in the sales process. This was the situation one of our clients found themselves in.

Our client is a software company building a B2B SaaS platform for healthcare organizations. Their customers are established companies with real operational history, not greenfield startups. Most of them already had years of data stored across internal systems, spreadsheets, or older tools. When these companies evaluated a new vendor, interest in the product was there. The hesitation came later. Onboarding raised concerns. How long would it take? How much manual effort would be involved? What happens if something goes wrong during migration? Without a clear answer, deals slowed down. Some prospects paused entirely, not because they disliked the software, but because moving data felt like stepping into unknown territory.

In B2B SaaS, data migration is rarely framed as a selling point. Yet in practice, it often decides whether a deal moves forward. Decision-makers worry about more than technical correctness. They worry about internal adoption, trust from their teams, and the risk of losing information that people rely on every day. If onboarding requires weeks of manual work or custom scripts, it creates friction before the product is even live. Our client realized that if they wanted to sell confidently to larger healthcare organizations, they needed to remove that friction entirely.

The goal was not just to “support imports.” It was to make data onboarding feel routine and safe. Customers needed a way to provide their data in formats they already used. At the same time, the system had to protect itself from bad data and heavy processing loads. We also had to assume that some files would be large enough to cause performance issues if handled carelessly. That meant thinking beyond a simple upload button.

On the front end, we used a tool called Flatfile. The decision was practical. Flatfile is designed specifically for spreadsheet-based imports and handles many edge cases that teams often underestimate. From the user’s perspective, the process felt familiar. They uploaded an Excel or CSV file, reviewed how columns mapped to fields in the system, and immediately saw if something was off. Missing required values, invalid email formats, or text fields that exceeded limits were flagged early.

This mattered more than it might sound. Catching problems at this stage prevented broken imports later and reduced support involvement. Users could fix issues themselves, which kept onboarding moving instead of turning into a back-and-forth process.

The visible part of the import flow was only half the solution. The more critical work happened in the back end. We built the processing layer using an Azure Function App with its own database. When data was submitted, it was stored in an initial, unprocessed state rather than being pushed directly into the core SaaS system. This separation gave us control. It meant imports could be handled deliberately instead of immediately, which became essential once customers started uploading large datasets.

Some customers uploaded files with thousands of records. Processing all of them at once would have been tempting, but also dangerous. In a multi-tenant SaaS environment, one heavy import can affect everyone if it is not handled carefully. To prevent that, the Function App processed records in small batches. Imports were queued and handled gradually, keeping system load within safe limits. This approach protected overall performance while still allowing large migrations to complete reliably. From the customer’s point of view, the system simply worked. From an engineering perspective, it meant no unexpected spikes, no degraded experience for other tenants, and no need for manual intervention.

Once the import feature was live, onboarding changed noticeably. Customers could upload their data before go-live and start using the platform with real information already in place. Internal teams felt more comfortable adopting the system because it reflected their existing reality, not a blank slate. Sales conversations improved as well. When prospects asked about migration, there was a clear, confident answer. What had previously been a risk became a strength. 

This project highlighted a reality that many SaaS teams only recognize after losing a few deals. When customers already have data, importing it is not a secondary feature, it is part of the buying decision. No matter how strong the product is, hesitation sets in if teams cannot clearly see how their existing information will move safely into a new system. Treating data import as an afterthought often creates unnecessary friction. Buyers worry about disruption, data loss, and the effort required from their internal teams. Those concerns slow down onboarding and, in some cases, stop adoption before it even begins.

A well-designed import process sends an important signal. It shows that the product is built for real-world businesses with real operational history. By reducing uncertainty and effort at the start, customers reach value sooner, trust the platform faster, and feel more confident committing to it. For many SaaS companies, that confidence is what ultimately helps close the deal 

Data migration is often viewed as a technical hurdle. In reality, it is a business decision point. By investing in a thoughtful, scalable import system, our client removed one of the biggest barriers to adoption. The result was smoother onboarding, stronger sales conversations, and a platform that felt ready for enterprise use. For B2B SaaS companies targeting serious customers, that kind of readiness is hard to overstate.