On January 31st we held a webinar about migration to GCDOCS for the Canadian Government. We had a lot of great questions, and because we didn’t have time to cover all of them, we’ve compiled the questions and have answers for all of them.
Q: Have you used your migration tool for GCDOCS Content Server 16 yet?
A: No, but Content Server 16 is supported by velocity.
Q: How are .DRF eDOCS references handled? Is there any way to redirect legacy references (in email) to the migrated content in Content Server?
A: DRF’s need to be handled by either replacing the DRF with a link to the object in GCDOCS or installing an application on the desktop that can intercept the DRF call and open the correct document in GCDOCS. Velocity does have a built-in link conversion process that handles embedded links in document content. The Link Converter allows administrators to run a post-migration process which will update embedded document hyperlinks in the GCDOCS to the new document location.
Q: Do you recommend a phased-out migration or a cut over? Is it realistic to expect to migrate over a weekend in a forced save environment with hundreds of users and over a million documents?
A: Without knowing the details of your migration, I would recommend a synchronized migration. In a synchronized migration, users continue to work in the source RDIMS or File System while the migration happens in the background. Then the migration tool synchronizes their changes to the target GCDOCS repository. In my experience, this provides the most flexibility and allows for the least disruption to the end user.
Q: What are the prerequisites for a department to successfully migrate using your tool (i.e. Mapping upfront?)
A: From a technical perspective, please reach out to us at info@SeeUnity.com for a copy of our system requirements for Velocity.
Prior to beginning the migration, we recommend conducting a detailed analysis of the environments and data contained in the source systems. This is a good time to clean up some of the data that shouldn’t be migrated as well. Develop a plan for bringing over the content and make sure it fits within the parameters of how GCDOCS is to be used.
Q: Roughly, how many resources and approximately what time frame should a mid-sized department factor in for a migration? (e.g. 5000 people, 15-20 years’ worth of documents on shared drives)
A: Typically, we are seeing a migration team of 2-5 people for 5000 person departments. The complexity of the migration dictates the number of resources required.
We would need more information to accurately provide any timeframe for this migration. Typically, the thing that is most important is the number of documents that will be migrated. Beyond that, there are a number of other factors (environmental specs, network speed, migration details, etc.) that will significantly affect the timeframe of the migration.
Q: Is a clean-up required (or highly recommended) before migrating? Do you suggest clients take the time to thoroughly cleanse data before embarking on a migration?
A: The migration process offers clients a good opportunity to clean-up or cleanse their data. This isn’t a requirement, but we recommend taking the opportunity to clean data if possible. The Velocity product includes some capabilities for cleaning up data during the migration so that is often an easy option. If you can do it prior to the migration, you can simplify the migration process itself and reduce the amount of data that needs to be migrated. Either way, eliminating the data that shouldn’t be kept, and doing it prior to adding content to the GCDOCS environment is a good thing.
Q: Do you recommend that clients do a bulk migration from source structure to a temporary identical structure in the target system, and then grab information as/when needed?
A: This is one of many ways to do the migration. Typically, we recommend clients design their GCDOCS environment for day forward use and then use Velocity to map legacy data into that structure. This provides the GCDOCS users with all the content in the same structure and helps to ease the transition to the new system. The option isn’t always possible given time constraints or other limiting factors when conducting a migration. When you can’t map to the day forward structure of GCDOCS, migrating to a temporary structure provides a good alternative option. This allows the data to be migrated quickly and, depending on the type of data migrated, may not impact the GCDOCS users.
Q: What is the pricing for Velocity Content Migration?
A: Please contact sales@seeunity.com for more information on pricing.
These were all really great questions, and we really enjoy getting into the technical aspects of what our products can do. What you might walk away with here is that each migration is going to be a little different. Our Velocity Content Migration can be configured to make sure your specific use case can be solved. If you are ready to get started, read our Master of Migration Best Practices whitepaper and contact us at sales@seeunity.com.