Playbook

Leaving a legacy recorder without losing a call

The six checks behind a zero-miss call recording migration, from the first inventory to the auditor's sign-off.

31 October 2026 · 6 min read · CoreCx AI

Why recording migrations go wrong

Legacy call recorders hold years of regulated conversations, often in proprietary formats, spread across sites and storage tiers. The common failure is not a crash. It is a quiet gap: calls that were never copied, files that copied but will not play, or recordings that lost the agent, direction or legal hold that made them useful.

Nobody notices until a complaint or an investigation asks for a call that is no longer there.

Check 1: Inventory the source

Count what you have before you move anything: recordings by year, site, channel and storage tier, plus the retention rule and any legal holds that apply to each. This count is the number the migration will be measured against.

Check 2: Read only, never write

Connect to the legacy recorder and its database with read-only access. The source must stay untouched until the migration is signed off, so it remains the evidence that the copy is complete.

Check 3: Reconcile call by call

Compare source and destination for every recording, not just totals. Track extracted, converted, encrypted, stored and verified separately, so a gap shows exactly where it happened.

Check 4: Prove every file plays

A file that exists is not a file that plays. Decode each migrated recording, check its duration against the source and flag any that fail for a second attempt.

Check 5: Keep the context and the holds

Carry over the metadata that makes a call findable and defensible: date, agent, extension, direction, customer number, and any legal hold or retention rule. Encrypt each recording on arrival and keep its key separate from the media.

Check 6: Sign off with evidence

Close with a source-versus-destination study, an itemised list of exceptions and how each was resolved, and a decommission checklist the auditor can sign. Only then switch off the old recorder.

After the migration

The archive still has to serve its purpose until retention ends. Investigators and quality teams need fast search, replay with agent and customer on separate channels, and an audit of every search, play and export. Retention and legal hold must keep working, and recordings must be deleted on time.

How CoreCx does it

iFlux Secure Search & Replay reads legacy recorders in read-only mode, reconciles every call with six counters, encrypts each recording on arrival through CoreSec KMS, and produces a signed source-versus-destination study and a decommission checklist. The migrated archive is then served from a secure replay portal for as long as your retention requires.

Frequently asked questions about this playbook

How do you migrate call recordings without losing any?

Inventory the source first, read it in read-only mode, reconcile source and destination call by call, decode every migrated file, carry over metadata and legal holds, and sign off with a source-versus-destination study before switching the old recorder off.

Do we have to keep the old call recorder running after migration?

No. Once the migration is reconciled and signed off, the archive is searched and replayed from the new platform for the rest of its retention period, and the legacy recorder can be decommissioned.

What happens to legal holds during a recording migration?

They must move with the recordings. Each held recording keeps its hold in the new archive, so it cannot be purged until the case is closed.