for more information visit www.pingar.com

1. 5 Basic Steps
for a Successful
ECM Migration
for 2016

2. INTRO
If you are planning or considering a data migration for your organization, it
pays to cover the basics.
This e-book incorporates the latest advice from data migration research.
It contains explanations, insights, and tips on how to avoid basic mistakes,
as well as advice on how to streamline your data migration. Although most
of our advice is based on data migration in SharePoint, the principles and
information can be applied to any Electronic Content Management System
(ECMS).
There are two ways you can use this e-book
1. In a practical applied way – for example, by utilizing the check-list
attached at the end of this e-book as part of your data migration process – or
2. As an information resource – that is, as a reference guide to help you plan
for your data migration or appraise your data migration needs.
These two ways are, of course, not mutually exclusive. The attached check-
list is a convenient tool that has been included for your benefit, but it has its
place and time.
01
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
Make sure you
consider current
options and your
future needs.

3. 1Make a solid business case
Firstly, you should present a convincing business case to executive
management. It is common for senior managers to be unaware of the
operational problems that information managers and end users are facing.
So that management understands the issues, we advise you to convert the
value of data migration into dollars and cents — money talks, as they say!
Explain to management how much money is being wasted, what the costs
of fixing problems are and, perhaps most importantly, the dollar value data
migration will bring.
Use this simple equation:
ROI = W– C + A
ROI - Return on Investment
W - loss of money caused by the problem
C - cost for fixing the issue
A - additional value
Estimate the capability of your internal IT department
It is tempting to do data migration internally. However, make sure you are
aware of the risks.
Start by asking yourself the following questions:
Finally, consider the benefits of hiring an external data migration service.
STRATEGY
step
02
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
What is the opportunity cost of doing it internally?
Do you have all the necessary skills to complete the project?
If you don’t have the skills, how much time and money will it take to up-
skill your team?

4. Calculate your Return on Investment (ROI) options based on
different licenses in new ECMSs
Typically companies choose foundational licensing. Unfortunately, this
basic licensing choice has fewer features and options. And, as time goes by,
organizations often discover that basic features are not sufficient to utilize
their ECMS effectively.
In such cases, Information managers either need to change the licensing or
install additional software to enable the desired features. To do this, though,
they must go back to their managers and make another business case,
ask for additional funding, and take care of another project. So, we highly
recommend that you estimate your future needs in advance, and calculate
your ROI based on different licensing options.
Educate the end user on migration value
Just as you must convince management, it is also important to get the buy-
in of the end users.
End users respond positively when you can:
step
03
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
Demonstrate how the project will affect their daily tasks;
Provide key information about the project, such as timeline; .
Ensure that they will receive proper training on the new system; and
Let them know if they will have limited access to databases during the
migration.
STRATEGY

5. Evaluate your future needs
Make sure you consider current options and your future needs. Future
changes to ECMS architecture can create substantial costs. However, you
can prevent these costs by carefully considering your future needs before
the actual migration.
Set up a reasonable timeframe
If you decide to engage a professional company to conduct your data
migration, add a buffer on top of their estimated time for completion of the
project.
When estimating timeframes, also consider the possibility of first doing a
trial migration.
We highly recommend a phase-by-phase migration. By migrating data
in chunks, you will decrease the risk of losing all the data; you will also
minimize the disturbance to the end user. But the timeframe may change.
Please note that this advice is only relevant for large data migrations.
04
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
2PLANNING
step

6. Get executive approvals for information governance
Information governance policies should be in place at all times. And they
are especially useful during migration. So, ensure you have approved plans
for the new ECMS. Further, check that everyone involved understands the
policies in place for a smooth migration process.
Map potential risks and record changes
Small deviations from the original plan should not be considered a problem.
Corporate data migration projects are typically massive — there may be
times when things don’t go to plan.
Recording changes, new risks or exceptions will make it easier to recall
and review any decisions made during migrations. Document any
customizations – including web parts, workflows, and solutions – and
evaluate their value. Make sure unused data is archived or deleted, as
appropriate to your business requirements.
Make sure you have enough storage capacity
Because of the new ECMS environment, your system will require more
space for log files, redesign of tables, and databases in general. So, make
sure you have enough storage capacity.
05
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
PLANNING
Hint: Any exceptions
should be dealt with at
the end of the migration.
If this isn’t feasible, have
one team member dealing
exclusively with exceptions.

7. Conduct your SharePoint content inventory
It is important to identify redundant data. This will reduce migration time
and cost. This is easy to do if your team has created metadata. If they
haven’t, you can always enable automatic metadata that will fix previous
mistakes and fill in missing parts.
Decide which content should be migrated and which should
be deleted
You can clean up and reduce content by up to 76% (Perficient, 2012)
by identifying redundant and irrelevant information on file shares. It is
faster to go with software that cleans file shares automatically. However,
this comes with a higher risk. Alternatively, you may prefer to work with
software that merely identifies documents that should be deleted, so a
responsible user can decide if the document should be removed or not.
Audit your current Sharepoint workflows
Identify all current workflows. Decide if any workflows need to be updated
or removed. Also, check if all your current workflows will be compatible in
the new system.
06
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
3CONTENT
INVENTORY
step
Hint: If you are working in a
multilingual organization, make
sure that clean-up tools can be
enabled in the languages your
business operates in.

8. Delete old users and duplicates
There is no need to save documents that will not be used. We once had a
client that had twice as many file shares as employees! So, delete old users,
archive old file shares and move on.
Make sure taxonomies and architecture are well defined and
up to date
It is important that your architecture doesn’t have too many exceptions.
This will only complicate your work later on. So, don’t forget to update your
taxonomies: delete outdated branches, include new alternative labels and
make it work for you.
Enable automatic metadata
To implement defensible deletion in your ECMS, auto-categorize
documents against retention policies. Automatic metadata will also improve
findability, decrease the risk of information overload, identify redundant
information, and increase user adoption. We strongly recommend that you
enable automatic metadata — the benefits are immediate and it is so easy to
implement.
If you have folder-based architecture, make sure you have all
the necessary content types
Solutions such as DiscoveryOne provide a content inventory for identifying
“low- hanging fruit” for immediate archiving or disposal. For example,
DiscoveryOne can identify duplicates and near duplicates. DiscoveryOne
also enables you to migrate content systematically by asking for content
that matches a variety of types listed within your company’s retention
policy.
step
07
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
CONTENT INVENTORY

9. 08
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
4ARCHITECTURE
step
Identify migration opportunities for your ECMS architecture
Typically, our customers know their problems well. However, their most
common excuse for not solving them is that everybody is used to doing
things the old way. Data migration provides a great opportunity for you to
update your architecture, so that it provides information managers with the
latest features for information governance.
Map site templates
Ensure that your old site templates exist in the destination farm. If your
current templates are outdated, you will need to check that they work in
the new system (hint: conduct a sample test). There might be more value in
creating new templates than fixing the old ones.
Clean up permission levels
Update your permission levels. Check that people with the highest
permissions haven’t left the company. We strongly suggest that you import
permissions first and users second.
Document your current system settings
Reapply system settings such as connections, property mappings,
versioning, etc. in the new ECMS. It is easier to check if your settings are
working properly if you have documented them before the actual migration.

10. Select and install migration software
Evaluate the risks of a manual compared to an automatic data migration.
Read user reviews about software that is typically used. Contact your
system integrator partner. Ask for demos before committing to a provider.
Test your migration with a trial package before you commit.
Then test it again
Standard practice is to conduct a trial migration first. Create a document
package with multiple settings. Include multiple document types with
different permission levels. See if all the right users can view, edit , relocate
appropriate files. Check that infrastructure, metadata, settings, and
documents are migrated correctly.
Index your data if you haven’t done it before
Indexing your data is one of the simplest ways to ensure happy end users
and good findability. If you have just migrated your content, make sure it is
properly tagged — it’s a good time to clear up the old mess.
Have a backup
It never hurts to be safe. And it’s always better than being sorry.
09
5 Essential Steps for a Successful Data Migration
5ACTUAL
MIGRATION
step

11. DiscoveryOneTM
DiscoveryOne Content Enrichment is the
easiest way to improve search, enable
defensible deletion and identify document
security risks. By reading, categorizing
and tagging documents, DiscoveryOne
automatically creates metadata. This
metadata can be used in systems such as
enterprise search, document management,
email and CRM.
CONTENT ENRICHMENT
DiscoveryOne Content Inventory reads file
systems to present an overview of what
they contain. It identifies documents that
are redundant, outdated, trivial, or useful
and worth retaining. Usually, a file system
contains only 25% of relevant, valuable and
useful content, the rest are candidates for
disposal.
CONTENT INVENTORY
DiscoveryOne Content Intelligence allows
you to mine text for business opportunities
and commercial risks. It extracts and
condenses insights from massive amounts
of text and it does in hours what would
otherwise take a person months. Analysts
can now identify relationships, topics, trends
and sentiment from emails, documents, the
web and social media. Utilise your content to
discover new value as you have never been
able to do before.
CONTENT INTELLIGENCE
For more information please contact us | North America +1 408 663 2328 | Asia Pacific +64 9 950 3299 | info@pingar.com | www.pingar.com

12. CHECKLIST FOR
ECM MIGRATION
Make a solid business case
Estimate the capability of your internal IT department
Calculate your ROI options based on different licenses in new ECMSs
Educate the end user on migration value
Evaluate your future needs
Set up a reasonable timeframe
Get executive approvals for information governance
Map potential risks and record changes
Make sure you have enough storage capacity
Conduct your SharePoint content inventory
Decide which content should be migrated and which should be deleted
Audit your current Sharepoint workflows
Delete old users and duplicates
Make sure taxonomies and architecture are well defined and up to date
Enable automatic metadata
If you have folder-based architecture, make sure you have all the necessary content types
Identify migration opportunities for your ECMS architecture
Map site templates
Clean up permission levels
Document your current system settings
Select and install migration software
Test your migration with a trial package before you commit. Then test it again
Index your data if you haven’t done it before
Have a backup
STRATEGY
PLANNING
CONTENT INVENTORY
ARCHITECTURE
ACTUAL MIGRATION