How to prepare for migrating your practice data to the cloud?

While implementing a new practice management solution, firms often discuss factors such as software features, pricing, customer service, product reviews, ease of use, etc. However, the digital transformation of your firm is not complete without moving your data into the new system.

Data migration is the process of moving your existing data to the cloud. Many firms assume that data migration is a pretty straightforward process and tend to push it till the end, only to realize that their data does not work with the new system during user acceptance testing.

So, in this post, we will walk you through the migration process, highlight the challenges associated with data migration, and the various steps that you and your team must take to ensure a smooth migration of data to the cloud.

What is Data Migration?

Data migration  is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another. The migration process also involves the validation of the migrated data for accuracy and performance in the new system.

Gartner in their research report dated 2017  identified data migration as a mission-critical activity for the success of a business and stated that lack of planning and attention to risk will lead to a failure in the whole migration process.

Various types of Data Migrations 

Typical data migration projects are of four types, migration of storage, databases, applications, and business processes.

Migration of Storage

Storage migration is the process of transferring data from one storage system to another. Storage migrations are often carried out for upgrading the storage facility to more modern technology or for improving the performance and efficiency of existing systems.

Migration of Databases

Migrating the existing database from one database to another, or from one service provider to another, or from on-premise to the cloud is called database migration.

Application Migration

Application migration involves moving applications from on-premises to the cloud, or moving between clouds, or moving only application data to a new service provider.

Business Process Migration

Business process migration is the process of migrating your clients, processes, and business entities from one storage location to another, often the cloud.

Challenges associated with data migration

Underestimating migration efforts

Firms often tend to downplay the importance of migration in their digital transformation journey and do not allocate enough resources leading to severe delays in implementation, insufficient testing, and a whole lot of stress.

Lack of understanding of source data

Firms assume that they know their data well only to realize that their data falls flat in the new system. A lack of understanding of the existing data and its underlying databases leads to challenges during the export and reconciliation of data. An improper analysis also means that the migrated data does not align with your expectations and business processes.

Data compatibility issues

Every firm uses a wide variety of applications for their day to day activities. Each of these applications generates different formats of data that do not integrate easily. This variety in the data sources and the data formats leads to several challenges while moving data to the cloud. The variety in the formats also means that some files are hidden or are inaccessible and might result in inaccurate, faulty, or improper data after migration.

Incorrect scope and requirements

Data migration projects often start with assumptions rather than facts. Lack of a clear scope for migration projects leads to several challenges such as improper entity mapping, missing information, data cleansing, and duplication issues.

Lack of attention to detail

Details such as changes in attribute names, spelling mistakes, typos, changes in file nomenclature might seem too futile at the beginning of your digital transformation journey. However, the lack of attention to these details leads to a severe failure of your mission-critical activities.

Lack of acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria act as guidelines for your service provider during migration. Without proper analysis and planning, you will not be able to define a threshold limit for your migration activity. Lack of acceptance criteria also means that your data will be deficient and lacks character.

5-Tips for an efficient data migration process

Tip #1: Understanding your data

The data migration process starts with understanding your data as well as it's fit in the new practice management solution. During this phase, you will discover information that is no longer relevant to your business, or missing files, or details that you need most, but require you to connect to external sources or field names and attributes that have different notations now. To identify any discrepancies in data, audit your data thoroughly to decide which files to migrate, how to gather the missing details, and which ones to discard. Having a clear understanding of all these details helps you to save a lot of time and money and also makes the migration process more efficient.

Tip #2: Ensure data quality

Inaccurate and faulty data is not something that you would not like to see in your new practice management solution. Request your service provider for guidance on data formats and data types and clean up all your data sources to ensure that only relevant and quality data gets migrated.

Tip #3: Planning the migration activity

In most cases, your service provider will share a step by step migration plan after analyzing your data. However, you can collaborate proactively with your service provider to create a flexible migration plan.

Firstly, identify key stakeholders from your firm who will be an active part of the migration process. Designate a single point of contact from your firm.

Secondly, identify all the files and business entities that must be migrated to the new platform.

Thirdly, assign a business value for your data entities. Adding value to each entity will also help your service provider to plan the process effectively.

Fourthly, define a clear communication strategy. Having a clear communication strategy helps you and your service provider to collaborate effectively. Setting your expectations clearly and understanding the challenges highlighted by your service providers helps in a smoother migration process.

Finally, define the acceptance criteria. The acceptance criteria act as guidelines for your service provider. Not defining clear acceptance criteria will lead to wastage of time and resources after migration.

Tip #4: Take adequate backups

Never leave things to chance. Clear all the unwanted files from your data and ensure that you have a backup from all your data sources. Your service provider will have various data protection options in place. However, it is always advisable to take a backup from your end too.  

Step #5: Migration and user acceptance testing

Once migrated, your data is ready for testing in the new practice management system. Test the data in the new platform against the user acceptance criteria defined in the planning phase to ensure that the migrated data complies with the standards of your firm.

Final thoughts

Data migration is a complex process, but relax! We've done it before.

With your involvement and support, the migration process becomes faster and more efficient.

If you have any questions on data migration, drop us a message or schedule a quick call with us. Our team of experts will be happy to help.