Case Study · CRM Consolidation

One platform, every fan, zero downtime during the season.

A six-person revenue team was juggling two disconnected platforms and exporting data by hand. DataSkate replaced the legacy stack, live-synced the ticketing system, and went live without interrupting a single game day.
Industry
Professional Sports
Systems
AXS → Salesforce
Engagement
CRM Replacement + Integration
Team
6 revenue staff
Integration at a glance
AXS
AXS Ticketing
Fan purchases · Season holders
Live API sync
DataSkate · MuleSoft
MuleSoft Anypoint
Transform · Map · Sync
Write-back to native objects
Salesforce
Salesforce CRM
Contacts · Campaigns · Reports

A lean sports organization built to win

A professional sports franchise operating in a fast-moving, season-driven environment. Six revenue-generating staff drive all ticket sales, account management, and fan engagement — with no dedicated technical or operations resource in-house. Box office operations are outsourced. When it comes to data and systems, there's no one to assign it to.

Industry
Professional Sports
Live entertainment & ticketing
Revenue Team
6 people
No dedicated ops or tech staff
Before DataSkate
KORE + AXS (manual)
Manual exports, 560+ duplicate records

Two systems telling two different stories

The team managed fan relationships through a CRM layered with a third-party ISV package — a wrapper that buried native CRM objects behind a proprietary UI and limited what the team could customize or report on. Ticketing data lived in a completely separate platform. Getting the two to talk meant someone manually exporting files, then re-entering records.

Over time, the gaps compounded: 560+ duplicate fan records had built up with no automated way to clean them. Campaign creation required jumping between systems. Leadership had no unified view of season ticket holders without reconciling data by hand. The CRM subscription was being paid in full — and used at a fraction of its capacity.

With both platform contracts coming up for renewal at the same time, the window to modernize was open — and closing fast. The team needed a clean, all-or-nothing decision: keep the status quo, or go full CRM with a live ticketing integration and no legacy dependencies left behind.

Six deliverables. Full replacement.

AXS ↔ Salesforce Live Sync
AXS API → MuleSoft → Salesforce
Live connection pulls fan purchases, contact updates, and segment data directly into the CRM. Manual exports eliminated on day one.
Campaign Creation Capability
Salesforce native campaigns
Revenue team builds and launches targeted fan campaigns from within the CRM, using always-current ticketing data — no external tools required.
Full Contact Sync
AXS → Salesforce fan records
All fan and contact records migrated to native CRM objects, then kept continuously current with every ticketing transaction.
KORE Decommission & Cutover
KORE ISV → native Salesforce objects
Third-party wrapper fully retired. All data migrated to standard native CRM objects — more flexible, more reportable, one fewer contract to manage.
Core Automations & Reporting
CRM workflows + dashboards
All existing workflows replicated and enhanced with baseline automations, plus reporting dashboards the team can use without a data analyst.
UAT, Training & Go-Live
Parallel deploy
Full user acceptance testing, team training, and a phased cutover with rollback window. System went live mid-season with zero disruption to game-day operations.

Ticketing in, CRM out — live, all the time

AXS · Ticketing
Fan Data
Live Events
Fan Purchases
Season Ticket Holders
Price Code Segments
Contact Information
API
polling
MuleSoft Anypoint
Transform
Map
Sync
API Listener / Polling
Data Transform & Field Mapping
Error Handling / Retry
Run-log / Monitoring
Native
write-back
Salesforce
Sales Cloud
Native Objects
Fan / Contact Records
Campaign Management
Reporting Dashboards
Activity Logging
Discovery
Design
Build
Testing
UAT & Go-Live
DataSkate delivery pipeline · AXS → MuleSoft Anypoint → Salesforce

Parallel build. Five steps. Zero downtime.

1
2
3
4
5
Step 1
Discovery & Audit
Review current CRM configuration, map legacy ISV objects to native equivalents, confirm ticketing API access and field schemas.
Kickoff doc + field mapping matrix
Step 2
Architecture & Design
Define integration architecture, establish error handling and retry strategy, finalize data migration and decommission plan.
Design doc + Architecture Review session
Step 3
Build & Migration
Live integration flows built and tested in sandbox. Fan and contact records migrated to native CRM objects. Core automations configured.
Working build in sandbox + migration runbook
Step 4
Testing
End-to-end testing across all sync flows. Parallel system run verifies data parity. Defects resolved before cutover.
Test results + defect log + parity checklist
Step 5
UAT & Go-Live
Client UAT hand-off, team training, legacy system decommission, production deployment with rollback window and post-launch monitoring.
UAT sign-off + handover docs

What shipped in Step 1

6
Integration deliverables shipped
2
Platforms consolidated into one CRM
560+
Duplicate fan records flagged for Step 2
0
Downtime during active season

What the team got back

~4 hrs / wk recovered
Manual export, reformatting, and re-entry into CRM eliminated. Fan data flows automatically on every ticket transaction — no one touches it.
Campaigns in minutes
Revenue team now builds and launches targeted campaigns to season ticket holders directly from the CRM — no tool-switching, no list exports, no waiting on a data pull.
2 platforms → 1
Legacy ISV package fully decommissioned. One CRM instance, one contract, one renewal. The entire fan data operation runs from a single system the team already knows.

Built for teams that can't slow down

Delivery without a technical hire
We own the full build end-to-end — architecture, integration, migration, and go-live. No in-house developer or ops resource required from your team.
Built to fit your season
Parallel delivery with rollback window. Your team never lost access to their working system during the switch — built around your game schedule, not around ours.
Scoped for what matters now
Step 1 delivers the core: live sync, campaign capability, full decommission. Step 2 — fan record deduplication, unified profiles, advanced automation — is already scoped and waiting.