Chapter 0

Preparing to onboard

How a move to Pilot works, what data to bring and why, how your team learns Pilot, and how to keep the change on track.

All plansEvery lab, before anything else

Contents

0.1

Big picture: how onboarding works

Switching to Pilot from another LMS means moving your case volume from one pipeline to another. The cutover date is the gate between them: from that day on, new cases go into Pilot instead of your old system. Until then, you set Pilot up alongside your old system, and nothing changes for your doctors.

Before cutover
New cases still go into your old system. You set up Pilot and load your data next to it.
Cutover date
You stop entering new cases in your old system. Every new case goes into Pilot.
After cutover
Pilot takes all new cases. Your old system only holds what was already in it.

Cases still open on cutover day

Bring them over as they are: Import the open cases with their current status and finish them in Pilot. Reprint their work tickets from Pilot, so the paperwork on the bench matches. → Import historical cases
Finish them in your old system: Ship and invoice them where they started. Once they’re closed, bring them into Pilot with a second, smaller migration.

Start at the beginning of a billing cycle

Your old system’s last statement and Pilot’s first one then split cleanly, and balances carry over without overlap. → Import historical financial data

You're done when: You’ve picked a cutover date, and decided what happens to the cases still open that day.

Have our team run the move with you

0.2

Data migration

You don’t have to bring everything over. Import what you need Pilot to do from day one: each kind of data unlocks something specific.

0.2.1

What each kind of data is for

Products and customers: required: The baseline for processing cases. Every case is for a customer and uses products priced on that customer’s price list, so these come first. → Import products and price lists
Historical cases: optional: Lets Pilot spot remakes against the original case, and pick up treatments that run in stages, like dentures, where they left off. Search and customer reports work from day one too. → Import historical cases
Historical financial data: optional: Carries customer balances over, so Pilot’s first statement opens where your old system’s last one closed. You need it if you’ll bill out of Pilot. → Import historical financial data

Load it in this order

1Products, with their price lists. → Import products and price lists
2Customers, with their billing accounts and shipping routes. → Import customers
3Historical cases, if you’re bringing them. → Import historical cases
4Financial transactions, if you’ll bill from Pilot. → Import historical financial data

Keep your identifiers

Keep case numbers, invoice numbers and doctor codes exactly as they are in your old system, leading zeros included. Your customers know them, and each import uses them to find the records an earlier one created.

You're done when: You know what you’re bringing over, and you have an export of each from your old system.

Every import template, grouped

0.2.2

Import Studio

Import Studio is where your data goes into Pilot. Think of it as a small Google Sheet with Pilot’s rules built in: paste or upload your rows, and every cell is checked before anything is saved.

What it does for you

Checks as you type: A missing value, a wrong format, a duplicate, or a price list or shipping route that doesn’t exist is flagged right on the cell, with the reason.
Fills in the repetitive parts: Fill blank cells with a default, like a payment term or a quantity type, across the rows you pick. Copy every office’s shipping address into its billing address in one go.
Creates what’s missing: Add dropdown values, price lists, shipping routes and other settings right from the sheet, without leaving to set them up first.
Handles big files: Your rows stay as a draft until you import them. Case and financial files can run to hundreds of thousands of rows: Pilot checks them on its side, and imports nothing until you confirm.

You're done when: You’ve opened the sheets you need and imported a small first batch to see how the checks work.

0.3

Training

Your team learns Pilot in Pilot Academy, right inside Pilot. Lessons are short and grouped into tracks by role, so each person learns the parts of Pilot their job touches, not all of it.

The tracks

Case Entry: For the people who turn incoming orders into complete, correctly priced cases.
Case Closeout: For the people who ship, invoice and close cases.
Case Administration: For whoever owns cases from entry to closeout.
Customer Support: For the team that answers doctors about cases, shipping and balances.
Billing and Collections: For the people who run statements, payments and collections.
System Administrator: For whoever sets Pilot up: every module, settings and access.
Technician: For people at the bench: My Work, the kiosk and scanning.
Technician Manager: For the people who run production: workstations and templates.
Analytics: For whoever digs into the numbers: insights, dashboards and cohorts.

How to run it

1Enroll each person in the tracks for their job. Someone who enters cases and answers doctors takes both Case Entry and Customer Support.
2Add single lessons or whole modules when someone needs one more topic.
3Each person works through their tracks in My Academy, which shows their progress and the next lesson.
4Follow everyone on the team academy page: who’s learning, who’s finished, and how far along each person is. Open a person to change their tracks or tick lessons off.
5Set a date before cutover for finishing the core tracks, and have everyone enter a few test cases.

You're done when: Everyone has the tracks for their role, and the team academy page shows them finished before cutover.

0.4

Handling change management

The software is the easy part. A switch sticks when your team knows how today’s work gets done in Pilot, every piece of the setup has an owner, and people know where to go when they’re stuck.

0.4.1

Map your processes onto Pilot

Your lab already has a way of working: how cases come in, how they move across the bench, how invoices get checked, how doctors get answered. Write it down, and decide where each part lives in Pilot before you set anything up.

Do this

1List what you do every day and every month: case intake, production, shipping, invoicing, statements and collections, and talking to doctors.
2For each one, write down who does it today, in which tool, and what “done” looks like.
3Match each one to the part of Pilot that covers it. The chapters of this guide follow the same split: cases and shipping, billing, customer support and work tracking.
4Mark the gaps. Steps that only exist because of your old system’s limits can usually go. Rules that are specific to your lab can become custom fields and workflows. → Custom fields

You're done when: Every process on your list has a home in Pilot, or a decision to drop it.

0.4.2

Delegate responsibilities

An onboarding where nobody owns each piece drifts. Give every setup task one assignee and a deadline, so it’s always clear who’s on it and what’s late.

Do this

1Name one person who owns the whole move and can make the call on pricing, customers and billing.
2Break the setup into tasks: each chapter of this guide, each import, each round of training.
3Give every task one assignee, even when several people help, and a deadline that works back from your cutover date.
4Go through the list together once a week. Move dates in the open instead of letting them slip.

Run the onboarding in Pilot

Track each setup task as a lab task, with an assignee, a due date and a state. Your team gets used to My Work before cutover. → Non-production tasks

You're done when: Every setup task has an assignee and a deadline, and the owner can see what’s late.

0.4.3

Ask for help

You don’t have to figure anything out alone. The Pilot team is around during business hours for anything: a setup question, an import that won’t go through, or something that looks off. Message us by chat or email from inside Pilot.

Ways to get help

Chat and email: Included in every plan. Ask at any stage, as often as you need.
Onboarding service: Rather hand the setup off? Our team runs the move with you.

Onboarding service

0.5

Use AI to speed this up

Pilot AI knows Pilot’s documentation, so it can answer how-to questions while you set up and train your team. It works on your own data too, and proposes changes for you to approve.

Pilot AI: Lives inside Pilot, on every page. Ask how something works, what a setting does, or what to set up next. When it proposes a change, nothing happens until you approve it.
Pilot MCP: Connects the AI assistant you already use, like Claude or ChatGPT, to Pilot. It signs in as you, gets only the access you approve, and can help with setup and imports. Imports wait for your OK before they run.

Pilot AI Pilot MCP

Stuck on a step?

Message the Pilot team from inside Pilot during business hours, on every plan. Or let us run the setup with you.

Onboarding service Talk to us

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