8 Critical Success Factors When Planning a CMS Data Migration

8 Critical Success Factors When Planning a CMS Data Migration

Executive Summary The first step to success. This paper is loaded with critical information that will promote the likelihood of your success in your CMS platform or content migration project. However, the surest way to ensure a successful migration is to engage icidigital migration consultants for an initial Migration Assessment. A Migration Assessment is a low-cost, high-reward strategy phase engagement for clients that precedes the actual migration. As part of a Migration Assessment, the client receives hard deliverables related to content inventory, content modeling for target system, platform architecture recommendations, and a risk-mitigated migration plan. icidigital migration consultants are trusted by the largest, most complex organization in the world. Organizations implement content management systems (CMS) with several goals in mind: to better manage digital assets, provide personalized experiences, and deliver content through multiple channels. Content migration is an essential element of any CMS implementation. A successful migration enables companies to increase their productivity by providing better access to and control of their existing content. The CMS data migration portion of an implementation project represents one of the highest reward yet highest risk activities of a CMS implementation. During this process, it is critical to maintain accuracy and accessibility of legacy data; however, organizations may lack the proper planning necessary or utilize resources with inadequate domain expertise to handle this complex task. Consequently, poorly planned and executed data migrations lead to cost overruns, project delays, and potential data corruption, among other issues. Fortunately, much of this risk can be mitigated with a thorough and properly formed migration assessment. With adequate analysis and planning with an assessment, organizations not only reap the benefits of reduced project risks, they can also cut costs, avoid project delays, as well as minimize business disruptions. While strategies for approaching this process may differ from one company to the next, common factors exist that affect the success of all migration projects. With decades of experience in performing complex system migrations for multiple types of software systems, icidigital has identified eight critical success factors common to successful migration projects using proper analysis and planning procedures. With decades of experience in platform and data migrations, icidigital has identified eight critical success factors that when addressed through an assessment phase, promote the likelihood of a migration project finishing on time and on budget. Introduction: Preparation is the Key To learn more about a Migration Assessment, contact Mark Kelley at 919.755.5348, mark.kelley@icidigital.com. One thing is certain in a CMS platform and data migration: something will go wrong. When an organization is not thoroughly prepared to undertake a migration, unforeseen pitfalls will emerge when migrating legacy data from one system to another. Quickly, these problems can lead to projects that overrun budgets, time, and in some cases, lead to abandoning the effort altogether. To better anticipate, navigate and minimize the impact of the traps that wait in a migration, organizations should initially conduct an assessment phase. The assessment phase is the most often overlooked stage of a migration, yet it is the most critical to project success. Here are eight factors critical to the success of a CMS migration: 1. Dedicate the appropriate personnel 5. Create a comprehensive migration plan 2. Understand CMS Data migration complexity 6. Identify and assess risks 3. Assess the value of historical data 7. Utilize the appropriate migration tools 4. Understand target system requirements 8. Obtain expert guidance 1

The Top Success Factors of CMS Data Migration Success Factor #1 Dedicate the Appropriate Personnel To ensure CMS data accuracy and usability after migration, organizations must identify project personnel who have complete ownership and responsibility for the data prior to, during, and following deployment. This normally requires involvement from the following personnel: Help where you need it most. Participant Role Does your team lack the needed personnel to ensure success? icidigital can augment your internal team with the most experienced platform and data migration consultants in the world. To learn more about staff augmentation, contact Mark Kelley at 919.755.5348, mark. kelley@icidigital. com. Project Manager CMS Administrator Data Migrator IT Operations Specialist The person(s) with complete project ownership from start to finish. The person with in-depth knowledge of the existing system and the ways in which the company plans to use the new system after migration. The person responsible for executing the whole migration, including extraction, transformation, migration and validation of the data. The person responsible for providing access to the network environment, performing backups, and installing and maintaining necessary hardware and software updates. In addition to identifying appropriate personnel for a migration project, project managers should not ignore the importance of educating upper management regarding content migration procedures. Management buy-in makes it easier to obtain organizational support, allowing for the migration to proceed in a credible and expedient manner. Success Factor #2 Understand CMS Data Migration Complexity In order to successfully migrate legacy content, the migration team must maintain the integrity of relationships between digital assets. These relationships frequently become complex, as in the following examples: 1. Content restructuring complicates metadata and link reassignment 2. Dynamic pages require specialized migration methods 3. Digital assets that live outside of the source CMS take time to retrieve Each of these examples adds complexity to a content migration. Even though CMS systems have a multifaceted data model designed to handle heterogeneous relationships, a content migration must catalog all of the legacy systems for effective use with CMS systems. Many organizations initially oversimplify their view of data migration, assuming they can merely extract data from source 2

databases and populate it into a target database. Once they delve into CMS system functionality, they recognize the effort required to maintain and manage content integrity in response to their unique business requirements. This leads to costly migrations over time and budget. Success Factor #3 Assess the Value of Historical Data Save time & money with automated data cleansing. Assessing the value of historical data does not have to be a tedious, costly, human-driven process. icidigital has developed CMS Profiler, software that saves potentially hundreds of man hours in a migration. CMS Profiler automatically inventories content across repositories, identifies duplicate content, historical content, broken links, and evaluates usage data to determine relevance. Our experts use CMS Profiler on every enterprise CMS migration assessment. If you d like to use CMS profiler in your migration, contact Mark Kelley at 919.755.5348, mark.kelley@ icidigital.com. To identify information that is worth migrating, the migration team must understand the data requirements of the business including the organization s business model and CMS use. Often times, the focus is placed on the function of the new application, rather than the risky migration required to use the technology. The success of the new application will be determined not only by its features, but also by how well it makes current and relevant legacy content available to users. The team must define what historical information it needs to retain and how it will be used in the course of business operations. This will enable them to differentiate between relevant content, and content that has lost its significance over time. Many organizations initially seek to migrate all their content even if much of it is obsolete and/or non-critical. This adds unnecessary complexity to an already complex process. Migrating only relevant content frees up storage space, and can improve performance. Following are several examples of data that may not warrant migration: Redundant web pages Obsolete content Historical revisions that can be accessed via an archive system (a complete migration of all legacy/archived data can often take up to 10-100 times longer than a migration of non-obsolete content). Success Factor #4 Understand Target System Requirements Any CMS controlling all content as well as other digital assets has certain requirements for the data. These include content cleanliness, completeness, and compatibility. Not meeting these critical data preparation requirements can quickly add onto the cost and time of large migration projects. The cleansing process includes locating and eliminating obsolete or redundant data, or locating incompatible data that needs reformatting. The goal of cleansing is to increase consistency and completeness in data that is merged from separate databases. In effect, this requires applying new processes to the legacy data being migrated, as the data must be compatible with the tools that use it. Cleansing will save storage space and optimize speed performance. Success Factor #5 Create a Comprehensive Migration Plan Web content both internal and external are vital to a company s communication and marketing, affecting a company s productivity and sales. This is why migration teams must undertake meticulous 3

planning and develop a comprehensive migration plan to avoid potential data loss, ensure reduced downtime, and minimize user disruption. Any data migration will impact a portion of users; the key is to plan a migration that impacts as few as possible. Faster project rampup with expert consultation. Migration plans do not need to be drafted from scratch. With decades of experience in platform and data migrations for some of the largest, most complex organizations in the world, it is highly likely that icidigital CMS migration consultants have grappled and successfully completed a migration project just like yours. To schedule an initial consultation with an icidigital CMS platform architect and migration consultant, call Mark Kelley at 919.755.5348, mark.kelley@icidigital.com. A comprehensive migration plan should include the following items: Scoping of the project Description of data migration process (tools, procedures and resources) Identification of risks associated with data migration Testing Time estimates of project phases Validation process Contingency procedures Success Factor #6 Identify and Assess Risks Data migration is a substantial process that can take several months to complete. Even with scrupulous planning, unforeseen issues can arise. The key to successful data migration is to anticipate and plan for risks. This will help to avoid major delays in the migration schedule that can impact critical business processes. Areas that frequently introduce risk include the following: Management of corrupt data Variations in CMS data relationships Legacy information requirements The more potential risks that are identified at the outset, the better the odds of minimizing their impact on the process. Additional tip: Identifying and assessing risks is a critical success factor. However, in any migration, problems will arise, so it is critical to also have an escalation process in place to address and solve problems in a timely manner. With decades in platform and content migrations, icidigital has developed a proven methodology for managing risks and overcoming the inevitable challenges that arise during a migration. Success Factor #7 Utilize the Appropriate Migration Tools There are several ways to migrate data into a new CMS. They include manual loading, custom scripting, and bulk loading via software. Migration teams will need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each approach based upon their organization s specific needs. Manual loading enables a fast migration only for projects with a small amount of data stored in homogeneous databases. Migrations that require management of thousands of interrelated files make manual loading ineffective, time-consuming, and expensive. It also introduces considerable risk associated with misread data, incorrect data entry, misplaced data, and data omission. Each error can present itself at a different time, and the rectification process is manual and slow. The second option, custom scripting attempts to extract all assets (metadata and links included), then 4

transform them into a new CMS format to be loaded into the new system and links reassigned. This usually appears attractive for development, testing, and validation during the planning stage. However, once implemented, the nature of custom programming (e.g. try, fail, and try again) can cause delays, divert resources, and hinder the overall CMS implementation. Additionally, when scripts malfunction or require modification, migration teams quickly incur unanticipated consulting costs and schedule delays. Overall, custom scripts lower the odds of achieving data compatibility in a reasonable timeframe, while data integrity issues remain undetected. Low-cost. Low risk. High reward. With more than 20 years of experience in data migration, the largest, most complex organizations in the world trust icidigital migration consultants with their migration projects. Through a low-cost, high-reward initial engagement for our clients, icidigital provides a standalone migration assessment consulting engagement, which comes before implementation. At the conclusion of the migration assessment, a client receives concrete deliverables detailing: content inventory, content modeling, platform architecture, risk mitigation plans, migration project roadmap. Working with icidigital CMS migration consultants is the best approach to a successful platform or content migration. Mark Kelley at 919.755.5348, mark.kelley@icidigital.com. CMS migration bulk loading software offers the best support for heterogeneous content storage environments. This option eliminates the risks associated with data compatibility, cost and scheduling. In addition, bulk loading software enables teams to maintain system availability and full data integrity without impacting application performance or disrupting users. Success Factor #8 Obtain Expert Guidance The most expeditious and practical way for any team to undertake a data migration project is to include a professional migration consultant. Such collaboration ensures project success while avoiding the costly delays attributed to an insufficient migration strategy. A migration consultant will conduct a migration assessment and provide documented recommendations for the most complex areas of a migration, including the following: Data Preparation/Cleansing Load Sequencing and Scheduling Configuration Customization Points Training Requirements Highly qualified migration consultants provide a deliberate planning approach that helps teams to set the appropriate expectations for deliverables. Consultants will also enhance execution by establishing roles and responsibilities in the services process. Their involvement from the outset can help mitigate much of the frustration that teams experience when attempting to overcome the inherent complexities of the data migration process. A migration on-time and budget. A client s team enabled. The training that icidigital provided right before the Go-Live was key to having Engineering come in the morning of Go-Live and start working instead of learning. icidigital s expertise in migrations helped make this a seamless (I do not use this word often) migration/upgrade. Communication was also key for the success of the project and icidigital exceeded my expectations. Senior Principal IT Business Analyst Engineering Aerospace Industry 5

Summary While much of the attention of a CMS implementation is focused on the performance of new software, the vital step of content migration often comes as an afterthought. Critical to the success of an implementation project, a migration needs careful planning and analysis. There are eight critical success factors to CMS data migration that all organizations should consider prior to launching their migration process. Those factors, summarized below, will help an organization save time, cost and resources while increasing the ROI of their CMS implementation. Success Factor #1 Dedicate the Appropriate Personnel Assign the appropriate personnel to a data migration project to minimize downtime and avoid large-scale user disruption. Success Factor #2 Understand CMS Data Migration Complexity Perform a complete assessment of the complexity of a CMS migration to help set expectations for upper management and ensure their buy-in throughout the process. Success Factor #3 Assess the Value of Historical Data Identify data that provides high value and those that have lost their significance. Migrate only the essential data to reduce complexity and streamline the migration process. Success Factor #4 Understand Target System Requirements With any CMS, controlling all assets has certain preparation requirements including data cleanliness, completeness, and compatibility. Not addressing these critical data requirements can cause a CMS project to fail, resulting in cost and time overruns. Success Factor #5 Create a Comprehensive Migration Plan Meticulous planning for and deployment of a comprehensive migration plan will ensure the corporation s data is properly migrated. Success Factor #6 Identify and Assess Risks The key to successful data migration is to anticipate and plan for risks. This will help to avoid major delays in the migration schedule that can impact critical business processes. Success Factor #7 Utilize the Appropriate Migration Tools Bulk loading migration software enables organizations to maintain system availability and complete data integrity while minimizing the effects on application and user performance. It provides the most benefit to organizations with heterogeneous storage environments. Success Factor #8 Obtain Expert Guidance Highly qualified migration consultants have performed hundreds of data migrations. Organizations should leverage that expertise to navigate the complexities of the migration process and ensure project success on the first attempt. 6