Migrating from Optios yourself

Updated on 2026-08-27

You can move your entire Optios file yourself, without outside help. You do this with the wizard under Migratie → Overstappen uit Optios (Migration → Switch from Optios). Allow about an hour, most of which is waiting — you can keep cutting hair in the meantime.

What you need

• The owner's Optios login: the e-mail address and password you use on client.optios.net. A staff member's login is not enough.
• A computer or tablet on which this screen can stay open for half an hour to an hour while the data is being fetched.

What comes along, and what does not

Carried over: customers (including e-mail and mobile), colour formulas across all years, appointments (future ones too!), services with their processing time, staff members (including those who left), products, brands and stock levels, work schedules and absences, and your booking settings. Via an extra step, also your suppliers and deliveries — more on that below.

Not carried over automatically — each of these is a deliberate choice:

• Register receipts and revenue. Your register journal in HairConnect is a fiscal document that only writes forward; old revenue from another package does not belong in it. Your Optios reports remain available for as long as you keep Optios running.
• Gift cards. That is money. You transfer open balances by hand and check them against the Optios overview — verified twice, by you, not by a machine.
• The punch clock. Optios offers no workable self-service route for it. If you do want your punched hours (three-year retention duty), contact us — we do that guided.
• Your salon address, VAT number, phone number and e-mail address. Optios does not hand those over. They arrive empty, on purpose: better empty than invented. Fill them in under Instellingen → Het salon (Settings → The salon).

Step 1 — Consent and connecting

The wizard asks for your Optios login. Two things you should know for certain:

• Your credentials are not stored. Not in our database, not in a log file. They are used once to make the connection and then forgotten.
• We fetch read-only. Nothing at Optios is changed, deleted or cancelled. Your Optios keeps working as before.

You tick an explicit consent for this. The moment of that consent is recorded — who, when and which text — because that is your proof and ours that this happened with your agreement.

Step 2 — Fetching the data

The wizard now fetches everything, type by type, with a counter per list: so many customers in, so many appointments, so many customer files. Keep this screen open — the work happens in small chunks for as long as the tab is open.

• Closed the laptop or lost internet for a moment? No disaster. Everything already fetched stays in; the wizard continues where it left off.
• "Your Optios session has expired"? That happens by itself after a while. Just log in again via the form that appears — nothing is lost.
• If a customer file or a month fails, you see it immediately on screen and again in your final report. Nothing is ever skipped silently.

Step 3 — Suppliers and deliveries (optional)

For deliveries, Optios offers no automatic route. If you want them anyway, you use saved pages:

1. Open the Products → Suppliers page in Optios. In your browser, choose File → Save page as… and then "HTML only". The file usually ends up in your Downloads folder.
2. Do the same on Products → Brands and Products → Deliveries.
3. Drag the saved files into the box in the wizard. You do not need to know which file is which — the wizard works that out itself.

Want the lines of a delivery too (which products, how many, at what price)? Open that delivery in Optios and save that page as well. Feel free to do this only for recent deliveries; the rest is history.

No stock module, or no interest? Skip this step — you can always book deliveries by hand later.

Step 4 — Importing

One press on Start de import (Start the import) and everything is placed in your salon. This continues in the background, even if you close the screen. You see a progress bar per type.

If something goes wrong, the screen tells you what, and there is a single button: Try again. That is always safe — everything is recognised by the number it had at Optios, so a second run never creates duplicates.

Step 5 — Reviewing

Afterwards you get a final report: what came in per type, what is waiting in the Opkuisvoorstellen (Clean-up proposals) list and why, and what could not be fetched, if anything. The temporary copy of your Optios data is deleted automatically after the import.

Then walk through this list:

1. Migratie → Opkuisvoorstellen — work the list down to zero. Eight years of records always contain clutter: duplicate customers, swapped names, a "dryer delivery" as a customer file. The import never corrects silently; you decide.
2. Instellingen → Het salon — fill in your address, VAT number, phone number and e-mail address.
3. Salon → Diensten (Services) — check the processing time in particular. That field is what fills your calendar.
4. Salon → Medewerkers (Staff) — set the right order and tick Must clock in for those who do. Seeing files like "Oud-medewerker #1234"? Those are people Optios itself no longer knows by name but who are still attached to old appointments. Give them their real name, or leave them be.
5. Salon → Afwezigheden (Absences) — review long leave periods.
6. Gift cards with an open balance: transfer by hand and check against the Optios overview.

Trial runs are allowed — in fact, they are the idea

You can run the whole migration several times: a trial today, another next week, and the definitive one on switchover day. Nothing is ever duplicated. Each new round brings in only the difference:

• New at Optios (an extra customer, an extra appointment) → gets added.
• Changed at Optios → gets updated.
• Unchanged → is left alone. Also — and especially — if you improved something yourself in HairConnect in the meantime: your improvement simply stays.
• Changed on both sides (you adjusted something in HairConnect AND it also changed at Optios) → the import does not choose. Your version stays, and the case appears in Opkuisvoorstellen (Clean-up proposals) with both values side by side, so you decide.

After every round, the final report says exactly what happened: so many new, so many updated, so many unchanged, so many clashes.

Switchover day

Preferably do the actual switch on a closing day:

1. Run one more fetch round in the wizard ("Fetch once more") so the last days come in too. This does not create duplicates either.
2. Redirect your booking link to your own address. A good share of your appointments arrives via the old Optios link in mails and QR codes — it must point to you from day one. See Sharing the booking link.
3. Keep Optios running for one more month, read-only.
4. Only then cancel your subscription, and check your notice period — it is usually a yearly contract.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run the wizard twice? Yes — see Trial runs are allowed above. Everything is recognised by its Optios number; a second round brings in only the difference and never duplicates anything. Whatever you improved in HairConnect in the meantime stays put.

Can a staff member do this? No. The wizard is open to the owner only: the complete customer file comes across, and the login of another package is requested.

I see "This Optios account is already linked to another salon". Then your establishment number has already been claimed by another HairConnect salon — usually a mistake or an earlier trial. Contact us; we will sort it out together.

Where are my product photos and staff photos? They are not fetched automatically in the self-service flow. Just ask us — it is a small finishing touch.