Moving your business to Tern doesn't have to mean starting from scratch. This guide walks you through what you can bring over, how to do it, and where to get help if you'd rather have someone do it with you. TravelJoy is the most common starting point we see, so you'll find specific TravelJoy notes called out where they matter.
Before you start
You need an active Tern account.
Have your old platform open in Chrome. The Tern extension only runs in Chrome.
If you're moving a large number of contacts, export them from your old platform as CSV or Excel before you begin.
If you have clients mid-trip, we recommend finishing those trips in your old platform. Only migrate closed trips and future work so you're not managing active trips across two systems.
What you can bring over
You can migrate:
Contacts, including passport details, via CSV import
Email templates, using the Tern Chrome extension or copy-paste
Form templates, using the Chrome extension
Itinerary templates and activities, using the Chrome extension
Trip content on a per-trip basis, using the Chrome extension
Note: Images don't transfer with any import method. Plan to save your images from your old platform and re-add them to your templates and content in Tern manually. See Common Issues below for how to do that.
Workflows aren't importable. The workflow logic (triggers, timing, which emails send when) has to be rebuilt in Tern's workflow builder. The good news: once you've imported your email templates using the steps above, you can drop them straight into your rebuilt workflows.
A few tips for rebuilding:
Open your old platform side-by-side with Tern as a reference for the trigger points and timing you already have working.
Start with your most-used workflow first (usually a post-booking sequence). Test it on a demo trip before applying to real clients.
For step-by-step help on building workflows, see Mastering Workflows and Automations in Tern.
Use the Chrome extension for templates and trip content
Heads up: The Chrome extension is currently in beta. Itinerary and activity imports use AI, which counts against your monthly Tern Pro AI usage. You can check your remaining usage in your Tern account settings.
The Chrome extension is the fastest way to pull content out of another platform and into Tern. It works on any site, so you can point it at TravelJoy, another CRM, a supplier page, or anywhere else your source content lives. Install it first, then open your source page in Chrome and use the extension on any page you want to import.
Install the Tern Chrome extension and pin it to your toolbar.
Click the Tern bird icon in your toolbar, then click Authorize extension to sign in.
Open the page you want to import. This could be an itinerary, activity, email template, or form.
Click the Tern icon in your toolbar to open the extension.
Choose the import type from the dropdown: Itinerary Template, Activity Template, Email Template, or Form Template.
Click Import. The content lands in your Tern library.
For step-by-step instructions on each import type, see Using the Chrome Extension.
Move email templates manually if the extension doesn't work
If the Chrome extension doesn't pick up an email template cleanly, use this workaround to strip out any hidden formatting from your old platform:
Copy the email content from your old platform.
Paste it into a Google Doc first. Don't use Microsoft Word or Pages. They keep hidden formatting that breaks the email inside Tern.
Copy the content from the Google Doc.
Paste it into a new email template in Tern under Library > Email Templates.
Add your logo, header image, and any other images manually. Both the Chrome extension and this method drop images during import.
Import your contacts
Contacts move over via CSV import, not the Chrome extension. Before you upload, take a few minutes to clean up your file.
Prep your contacts file
Export your contacts from your old platform as a CSV or Excel file.
Clean the data:
Remove duplicates and obvious bad rows.
Split couples so each traveler is their own row. Tern uses one row per person.
Missing zip codes or partial addresses are fine. You can update them later.
Split combined columns using Excel's Text to Columns tool or a formula. The most common ones to split are:
Full name into first, middle, and last name columns
Full address into street, city, state, and zip columns
Note: There's no hard limit on how many contacts you can import at once, but larger files take longer to process and one bad row (like an email address in the phone field) can hold the whole import up. For files over about 2,000 contacts, we recommend splitting into batches of 1,000 to 2,000. Wait for one batch to finish before starting the next. Smaller batches are faster to process, easier to spot-check, and easier to re-run if a column mapping needs adjusting.
Check how your old platform stores passport names
Tern stores passport names in two separate fields:
passport_given_names for first and middle names
passport_surname for the last name
Some platforms store the full passport name in a single field. TravelJoy is the most common example. If yours does, split that column before importing, or the data will land in the wrong fields.
Run the import
Go to Contacts > Import Contacts in Tern.
Click Import basic details and upload your CSV or Excel file.
Review the column mapping. Tern smart-matches where it can. Confirm the mappings for name, email, and passport fields.
Start with a test import of 5 to 10 contacts to catch issues before running your full file.
Review the preview and click Finish > Submit.
Note: If you're migrating a large book of business, add an import_id column with a unique value per contact. Any unique ID from your old platform works well. A TravelJoy profile number is one common example. Import IDs let Tern update contacts later without creating duplicates.
You'll know it worked when
Your contacts appear in Contacts with the right names, emails, and passport details.
Your email, form, and itinerary templates appear in your Library, ready to use.
The trip content you imported shows up in the trips or library sections you selected during import.
Common issues
Email formatting looks off after paste
You skipped the Google Doc step. Copy the email again, paste into a blank Google Doc first, then paste from the Doc into Tern.
Images are missing after import
Images don't transfer with any import method. Right-click each image on the source page and save it to your computer, then upload it to your Tern media library and add it back into the template or content.
Contacts imported with the wrong name split
Your name column wasn't split before import. Re-export from your old platform, split first and last name into separate columns, and re-import using the same import_id values to update the existing contacts rather than duplicate them.
Trip imports land on a single day
Known limitation with the Chrome extension in beta. Move activities to the right days manually after import.
Want someone to migrate this for you?
If you'd rather have this done with you or done for you, our Lucia CoPilots offer paid data migration as a service. A CoPilot will clean your data from your old platform, map it to Tern, and run the imports so you don't have to. Visit www.letslucia.com for more information.