Data Population
It is of paramount importance to set up data on the new system both accurately and in timely fashion.
The data cleansing, mapping and conversion procedures described above should ensure that the new data is accurate and remains accurate. Do not forget that re keying data can also be beneficial in certain circumstances, particularly if the data cleansing, mapping and migration procedures have not been proven, and the necessary controls are in place to prove that data input to the new system is complete and accurate.
It is clear that a critical part of data migration is the final cut-over from the old system(s) to the new system and it is vitally important to cause as little disruption to the day-to-day business operations as possible. This key implementation task is known as Data Population.
Any problems when populating data could impact the level of service provided and damage the institution's reputation with staff in administrative offices or academic departments, students, suppliers and, indeed, any stakeholders. Again, poor project management and communication at this time can spoil an otherwise faultless implementation.
A common solution to data migration nowadays is the use of Excel spreadsheets, which have become familiar to technical and non-technical employees alike, to record data from the old system, manipulate it as necessary and then populate the database of the new system with it. However, it is important to recognise that data conversion programs written in-house, in whatever format (including Excel) are in fact examples of customisations that write modified data to the database.
As has been previously mentioned in this infoKit, suppliers may require sight of proposed customisations before approving their inclusion within the software and will almost certainly only allow them in circumstances where data is extracted from the system and not written to it. Therefore, all proposed data conversion programs must be passed to the supplier for approval prior to their use and, if this is not done, the supplier may invalidate the institution's licence to use the system or choose not to support it.
Suppliers often try to assist the data migration activities by providing Application Program Interfaces (APIs), which are a set of programming routines, tools and protocols for building software applications. A good API makes it easier for a programmer to develop a program to populating databases with the required data without manually entering it into the system. However, good APIs are few and far between and great care must be taken to convert and populate data accurately.
