Migrating Data to the Advanced Agency Portal (HirePort)

Last updated: May 14, 2026

This article answers the most common questions about planning and completing your migration from the legacy agency portal to the Advanced Agency Portal (HirePort), including a step-by-step overview of the migration process.

What Data Gets Migrated?

The migration moves all active, in-progress recruitment activity into the Advanced Agency Portal so your work is not disrupted.

Included by default:

All active job assignments
Candidates who are currently in progress (e.g. New, In Progress, Interview, Offer, Lead)

Not included by default:

Deleted, filled, or cancelled jobs
Candidates with a final or negative outcome (e.g. Refused by Company, Withdrawn by Applicant, Hired)

Historical and closed data can either remain in the legacy portal for reference or be migrated in a lightweight way, depending on what you agree with your SmartRecruiters team during scoping.

Can I Choose What Gets Migrated?

Yes, within a standard framework. The core migration rules above apply to all customers, but you have flexibility in two key areas:

Which agencies and users are included — for example, you can start with a smaller group of agencies for an initial migration, then expand to the full list for the full production run.
Which environments or migration runs — the standard approach is a single, well-planned production migration. A sandbox "practice migration" using a small subset of agencies is available as an optional, paid add-on via a Statement of Work (SOW).

What Does the Migration Process Look Like?

Migration follows four phases, each with clearly defined responsibilities.

Phase A – Customer Preparation in SmartRecruiters

Before migration can begin, you need to prepare your SmartRecruiters environment.

Create your test agencies — If you want to test with multiple agencies, create them in your SmartRecruiters sandbox before the HirePort module is added. Once the module is added, no further test agencies can be created. When ready, submit a support ticket to request that HirePort is added as a module to your environment.
SmartRecruiters enables your HirePort subscription — The SmartRecruiters Partner & API team adds the HirePort subscription in the admin area and notifies your Customer Success Manager (CSM) once complete.

⚠ Once you complete step 3, you will not be able to access the old agency portal anymore.

Access the HirePort app — In SmartRecruiters, go to Apps & Integrations, search for HirePort, open the app, and copy your Company ID.
Activate the Advanced Agency Portal — In Apps & Integrations, search for Advanced Agency Portal, open it, paste your Company ID, and activate the portal. This connects your SmartRecruiters environment to HirePort's agency portal.
Open at least one published job — Visit at least one published job in SmartRecruiters to ensure the integration recognises active roles in your environment.
Configure Agency Portal settings — In Agency Portal Settings, configure the Default Stage Mapping so that migrated agency candidates land in the correct stages of your recruitment process. Set any other portal settings relevant to how you want agencies to work in SmartRecruiters.

Phase B – SmartRecruiters Partner Success Team Preparation

Once you have completed Phase A, create a support ticket to confirm this. The SmartRecruiters Partner Success team will then gather the data to be migrated and open an internal request to track and execute the migration work. This phase is handled fully by SmartRecruiters.

Phase C – HirePort Migration Execution

Once Phase A and Phase B are complete, the HirePort technical team is notified and receives the migration files securely. They then run the migration, loading your agency candidates into the Advanced Agency Portal so they appear in SmartRecruiters according to your configured stage mappings.

Phase D – Post-Migration Onboarding & Agency Enablement

Confirm migration completion — The Partner & API team informs your CSM, who will confirm with you that migration has been successfully completed.
Set up agency contracts — You can create agency contracts in SmartRecruiters immediately after migration or later, depending on your internal timeline.
Invite agencies into the portal — In the agency management screen, select the relevant agencies (you can select all at once) and click (Re)send invites to ensure all agencies receive access.
Bundle agency users into groups (optional but recommended) — The HirePort support team can group agency users by agency, geography, functional department, or other logical groupings. Users in the same group can see each other's candidates where appropriate, keeping visibility aligned with your operating model.
Validate migrated candidates — After migration, agency user accounts will contain their corresponding candidates. This allows your HRIT and TA teams to confirm that data has transferred correctly and candidates appear in the right stages.
Ongoing agency support — Agencies can reach out to HirePort support at any time via the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of their page to add users or get help with any migration or usage questions.

Agency Consolidation and Merging

The Advanced Agency Portal allows you to assign multiple contacts within an agency to the same company. You may therefore want to consolidate agency records that were previously separate in the legacy portal.

This is not done automatically during migration. The migration moves your existing agency data in a like-for-like way to avoid disruption to live activity.

Consolidating agencies is a post-migration activity that your organisation owns as a business decision. SmartRecruiters can provide guidance.

Before merging agencies, we recommend:

Agreeing on a governance approach: who can merge agencies, under what criteria, and how changes will be communicated.
Deciding which agencies to consolidate and when.

Testing the Advanced Agency Portal Before Go-Live

Accessing the Portal in Your Sandbox Environment

The Advanced Agency Portal is not enabled by default in sandbox or test environments — it must be activated manually. Follow the steps in Phase A above to set this up.

Important limitations in sandbox:

Access is limited to internal test users or a small set of test agency accounts.
No real-world placements or invoicing can be processed.
Data in the sandbox does not fully mirror your production environment.

The sandbox is intended for internal testing and training only, not for live agency work.

Why Is a Full Test Migration Not Included by Default?

A full test migration — running a complete copy of your production data into a test environment — is not part of the standard offering because it significantly increases effort on both sides: duplicating extraction, transformation, and validation work. It is not required for most customers.

The default validation approach uses a configured environment with sample or limited data, followed by a single, well-planned production migration.

How other customers prepare without a full test migration:

Q&A session with the HirePort team
Demo environments with sample jobs to validate configuration
Pilot rollouts with a small group of agencies before broader enablement

If your organisation has complex training or compliance needs, a test migration can be scoped as an additional paid activity via SOW. Please speak with your SmartRecruiters contact for details.

When Will the Legacy Portal Be Shut Down?

A universal sunset date has not been communicated to all customers. For each customer, the legacy agency portal remains supported until the point of their next renewal, whichever comes first.

We recommend planning your migration well in advance of your renewal date to avoid any disruption.

If you've made the ticket for migration and HirePort is executing this, there will be downtime of one working day (a Friday, in accordance).

Need help?

Contact SmartRecruiters support or support@hireport.io