"Transferring valuable data to or from legacy systems can be a time-consuming task and prone to error. Particularly when importing data into Baan, it is imperative to identify all target tables and fields that the data must populate. Brookdale can handle your data migration issues to and from Baan using either Baan Exchange or by writing tailored development scripts."
Following a Baan implementation project, organisations will find that the focus of the project has obviously been on
the core processes and sometimes it is decided to continue running legacy systems after 'go-live'. Some implementations
are even phased to introduce various packages or modules in stages.
For this reason, it can be some time before an
organisation is ready to start using Baan to handle the additional functionality. Once the decision is made to start
replacing your legacy systems, however, it will be necessary to map, transfer and convert the data for use in Baan.
Brookdale can assist you in all your data migration requirements to ensure smooth, accurate, comprehensive and
efficient transfer.
Table Identification
The data migration process will include an analysis of your existing systems and the function, importance and volume of the
data that resides within them - both static and dynamic data has to be considered. The volume of data will, to a large
extent, determine whether the process will be a manual or automated task - there is little point writing an Exchange scheme
or session script if it will take longer to write than to manually transfer the data!
The entity relationship of key Baan tables must be analysed to ensure data integrity is maintained. An example of this
might be Business Partners, where a legacy system has a single reference to 'Supplier' or 'Customer'.
In Baan,
multiple tables will be impacted and it needs to be ensured that all relevant fields are correctly populated. The example
on the right is taken from a Baan Vb system and shows some of the many entities that hold a reference to business partner.
Field Mapping
Data conversion needs to handle differences in data fomat or to reference lookup tables. It also needs to take into
account the fact that default values might have to be assigned where source data does not exist, or conversely that
legacy data is no longer applicable, in which case it will either be discarded or have to be mapped elsewhere. Either
way, all mandatory fields must be populated with valid data. Shown below is an extract from one of Baan's 'Business
Partners' tables.
For your migration process to run smoothly, responsibilities must be assigned to key personnel to ensure that all
legacy data is presented in agreed format and in the right location and that it is validated.
With experience in all these, as well as many other, areas of data migration practice, Brookdale can assist you in
co-ordinating and executing your migration project.
Data Migration