Migration
Change software without losing anything.
« We have twenty years of history, and nobody knows what is in it any more. »
What happens
The risk in a migration rarely lies in the technology.
Free-text fields became official ones
Someone put the job number in the comment box eight years ago. Everyone has done it since. No export knows that.
The history everyone assumed was exportable
The vendor offers an export. It brings out customers and invoices, rarely attachments, almost never the links between them.
The habits the new tool does not reproduce
What stops a team is the daily gesture they have to relearn at the worst possible moment.
Who turns up
One person learns your trade before touching your data.
The same person follows your migration from the first day to the last. They spend time with the people doing the data entry as much as with management: they know what each field holds.
They tell you what they do not know yet, and what they have found that looks awkward. A transfer is won on bad news delivered early.
How it goes
What happens, and in what order.
Week 1
Inventory
We list what exists, what is used and what has to follow. We open the old tool with your teams rather than read its documentation.
Week 2
Mapping
Each field of the old tool gets its equivalent in the new one. Anything without an equivalent is flagged before the transfer, never after.
Week 3
Dry run
We run a first switch with nothing at stake. Your teams open the new tool with their own data and say what feels wrong.
Week 4
Checks
We compare the totals for revenue, outstanding balances, stock and headcount, and every gap is explained.
Switch day
Go live
We stay with you on switch day, with a way back planned. The old tool stays readable for as long as you need it.
What you are spared
What your teams will not have to do.
- Retype a customer, an invoice or a contract by hand.
- Decide on their own what deserves to be carried over.
- Discover a missing field on switch day.
- Work in two systems side by side for months.
What we do not do.
- We do not recover data the previous vendor refuses to export, and we say so before we start.
- We do not migrate a company in the middle of its year-end: the date is set with your accountant.
Let us talk about your history.
Tell us which tool you are leaving. We will tell you what carries over, what does not, and what it takes.
Contact us