Switching to VircareOS: how to move your agency’s data (2026)

What moves across, and what deliberately does not

Most switching pages promise that everything comes across. We would rather tell you exactly what happens, because two different things should happen. Operational records import into live records so your agency keeps running. Clinical records are preserved for your review instead of being written live, because a medication record or a care plan should be set up by a person who is accountable for it, not conjured by an importer.

Imported into live records

• Clients / service users

  Imported into live client records, ready for scheduling and care planning from the moment you commit.

• Carers and staff

  Imported into live records, and each carer gets a real login account created as part of the commit, so your team can sign in without a separate set-up round.

• Visits and appointments, with their notes

  Visits import into live records. Care notes import when they belong to a visit; any note that does not match a visit is preserved for you to review, never lost.

• Incidents

  Imported into live incident records so your history does not start from zero.

Preserved for your review, not written live

• Medication rows

  Preserved exactly as supplied for you to review. The import does not write them into live medication records; setting those up stays a human step, because nothing clinical should ever be invented or made administrable by an import.

• Care plan rows

  Preserved exactly as supplied for you to review. The import does not write them into live care plans; a care plan should be re-made with the person, not copied blind into a new system.

From any system, honestly

The Migration Assistant is a general spreadsheet importer: it works from the CSV and Excel files your current system can export. When you start an import you can tell it which system the export came from, and the list covers the platforms UK agencies actually switch from, including OnCare, Birdie, Nourish, PASS (everyLIFE), CarePlanner, Access Care Planning and Person Centred Software, alongside “another system” and “not sure.” That context helps the mapping suggestions.

Here is the claim we deliberately do not make: we do not advertise a special adapter for any named system, and we will not until we have imported a real export from that system. What you get instead is the promise that holds for every file: every value is preserved for you to check before anything is imported.

How an import actually runs

Six steps, and the ones that matter are the ones where nothing happens without you.

• 1

  Export from your current system

  Ask your current provider for a full export while you still have access: clients, carers, visits, notes, incidents, medications and care plans. The Migration Assistant reads CSV and Excel (.xlsx) files, which is what care systems export. A file that is not really what its name says (for example a renamed archive) is refused with plain instructions to re-export, not a cryptic error.

• 2

  Upload your files

  Up to 10 files per import, 25 MB per file, 120 MB in total. Files go straight into private storage, where a cryptographic fingerprint is recorded so any later change to the file would be detected. Nothing is imported at this point.

• 3

  See the dry run before anything is written

  The assistant reads your files and shows a forecast: how many records will import now, and how many are waiting on a decision from you. Not a single live record is written until you choose to commit.

• 4

  Review what the assistant will not decide for you

  Anything ambiguous comes to you instead of being guessed. The clearest example is dates: a value like 01/02 that could be read two ways is held for your review with a suggested reading you can accept or correct. A date convention is only ever applied when your own data proves it.

• 5

  Commit, with a reconciliation report

  Records are written in batches, and the import ends with a reconciliation report that accounts for every row in your files: imported, or preserved for review, and why. Nothing is silently dropped. Duplicate rows are detected rather than imported twice.

• 6

  Roll it back if you change your mind

  One control removes every record the import created, including any carer login accounts it made. Your uploaded files stay in private storage as the record of what was received, so you never lose the evidence of what came across.

What the import will never do with your data

These are not policies we aspire to; they are how the assistant is built, and several of them are enforced by the database itself.

• Write a live record before you have seen the dry run and chosen to commit.

• Invent clinical data. Medication and care plan rows are never turned into live clinical records by an import.

• Guess an ambiguous value. A date that could be read two ways goes to your review screen, always.

• Let an import touch another agency. Your files, staging records and imported data are scoped to your agency by database row-level security.

• Learn from your data’s contents. The mapping memory that improves suggestions over time stores file structure only, never names, notes or medication details.

• Run silently. When an import job is created, VircareOS is notified by an email that carries metadata only: agency name, manager name, a job reference and file count. Never filenames, never file contents, never care data.

A practical switching checklist

The import is the easy half of a switch. The other half is contract timing, communication and nerve. This is the order that keeps you in control.

• 1

  Check your current contract before giving notice

  Look up the notice period and what the contract says about data export. You want your export in hand before your access ends, not after.

• 2

  Export everything, not just what imports

  Take clients, carers, visits, notes, incidents, medications and care plans, even though medication and care plan rows are preserved for review rather than written live. A complete export is your record of the care you delivered, whatever you do with it next.

• 3

  Rehearse on the free trial before you decide anything

  Start the free 3-month trial, upload your real export and read the dry run. It writes nothing into live records, so you can see exactly how your data lands before you commit to switching at all.

• 4

  Pick a natural switch-over boundary

  The start of a rota week or a month makes the before-and-after clean, for your team and for your records.

• 5

  Run a short parallel period if you can

  Keeping the old system readable for a few weeks while the team settles into the new one takes the pressure off day one.

• 6

  Tell your carers what changes for them, and when

  Imported carers get real VircareOS login accounts at commit, so the practical message is short: here is the app, here is your login, here is the date it becomes the system of record.

• 7

  Keep your export files

  VircareOS keeps the uploaded copies in private storage as the record of what was received, and you should keep your own copies too.