More threads by Tim Colling

Tim Colling

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Here's what I experienced. You may have a similar experience. I hope that some find this helpful because it doesn't happen quickly. It uses Google time, apparently.

It was not an instant process.

It was a five-day journey:
  • Day 1 - I created the agency dashboard. The migration option was not visible in the agency dashboard at that point.
  • Day 3 - The migration option appeared in the agency dashboard. I used it to migrate the locations in my old "personal" dashboard. I received an on-screen confirmation of my migration request, which said that it would take approximately 48 hours for the locations to be reviewed and then migrated.
  • Day 5 - The locations appeared in the new agency dashboard.
Your journey may be different.
 
Would you recommend other people do this, or is it not worth the pain?
 
I think that it will turn out to be worth it. It's not really all that bad, if you know, going into it, that it's going to be a multi-day process.
 
I've been afraid to start this process myself after reading about the initial chaos, though the migration tool does seem promising. What additional benefits does the agency dashboard give you?
 
The 2 I like is the organization aspect - super easy to add new employees in bulk to specific sets of clients and the fact that you can request access to listings (vs businesses adding you).
 
Here's an update: one of my locations did not migrate. The owner has re-invited my gmail account used-only-temporarily-for-the-migration several times, but google refuses to allow me to accept the invitation with that account.

Equally frustrating: my original gmb account appears to be empty but when I try to add the email address for that original account to my new agency dashboard, google wont allow me to do so, saying that I can't do so because I still have an account with it.

I reported all this to Google GMB tech support on Monday and I'm waiting to hear back from them now.

Google. Sheesh.
 
@Tim Colling check Google My Business while logged into that email. It's likely you are still connected to a brand account somehow.

If you're dealing w/ Google support, use this link to get the team responsible for the agency dashboard specifically.
 
Thank you, @JoyHawkins and @Colan Nielsen, for all your help.

This afternoon I decided not to wait any longer for Google to get back to me (48 hours had passed) so I just waded in and figured out the solution on my own. I had created a gmail account to "own" the agency dashboard, and somehow I had gotten that same gmail account associated with the old GMB dashboard as well, as a "business". I removed it and that took care of the main issue.

One other thing that I had to learn on my own after that: for any new clients, we have to ask them to invite us by using our organization ID, not an email address. The organization id is a ten-digit number that is assigned to your agency, or to a "location group" within your agency account.
 
@Tim Colling check out the section on the agency dashboard in my guide. It covers that scenario and a couple other things that are different between the normal vs agency dashboard.
 
Will do. I meant to do that after the migration was complete, and then I forgot after the migration was such a chaotic experience. Thanks, @JoyHawkins!
 

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