Preserving legacy data is the key to a smooth migration

Nearly every business today has some systems they use to store data.  It can be as elaborate as a 3rd party specialized application or as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or shared document library.  Regardless of the form, that legacy data is what is driving the business today and likely is critical as you transition to a new and more streamlined system.  PRESERVING THAT DATA IS CRITICAL!

Question – How do we get the data into the new SharePoint format?

The answers depend on how it’s currently stored.  Lynch Interactive has migrated a lot of data and it usually involves a few stages.

Analyse Current Data

How is the data stored? Open system or closed? SQL or Excel? Exportable or requires manual copy/paste?

What data will we need to preserver? Everything in the source? Parts of each record? Selected Records? By Date? By Status?  How can we clean up the data?

What new data do we need? New columns? Additional sources? Possible to automate or manual entry?

Movement Automation

The most common question is how do we move the data without manually re-entering everything.  At Lynch Interactive, our goal is always to minimize the manual labor.  There is almost always some level of clean up of the data that could or should be done prior to import but that is a personal choice.

The old saying goes – “Bad Data In – Bad Data Out” so it really comes down to what your tolerance is.  We have software to move data, modern pages allow a lot of cut and past and the exact method really depends on the volume and complexity.

We will have a plan that sequentially imports the data into the appropriate storage spot, the amount of work vary but the end result will be usable clean data if we follow the plan and recommendations.