ECM migration

Automated and field-tested bulk document migration between ECM systems

The most of Barré Technologies’ enterprise document management (ECM) projects are so-called brownfield investments, i.e., most implementation projects are delivered at customers where a document filing system or enterprise repository already exists. It is therefore no coincidence that our customers have a legitimate need to preserve, store and re-use their existing corporate document assets. In response to the market needs, our experts have developed a multipurpose ECM migration software tool that can connect to multiple source systems via adapters, such as SAP, EMC Document, IBM Content Manager, IBM CMOD, Microsoft SharePoint and of course IBM FileNet, but can also be developed with any source and target adapter. With this tool we have successfully migrated documents and folders in the order of 100 million documents and folders in government, banking/finance, and energy sectors.

The tool is able to extract data from a working source system, so it is not necessary to shut those down during the migration. Data extraction can be scheduled for less busy periods, such as public holidays. The migration process can be interrupted and resumed later from the interruption point. The migration tool detects if a document, once migrated, is modified in the source system, and can migrate it again. In this way, the migration is performed without error even if the source system is up and running and gives a consistent result. Synchronization can be interrupted and restarted at any time, even years later. The tool also supports data transformation and metadata enrichment, is capable of running database lookups and communicating via interface.

Migration is usually done in several stages, along business groups of documents to be migrated. For each of these groups, document types, their metadata, authorization and access levels and the storage folder structure are defined. After a detailed assessment and planning, preliminary migration tests are performed during the migration, the results of which are evaluated to refine the migration rules. It is important to note that only data that appears at document or folder level in the source system can be migrated. Workflow instances and other elements cannot be migrated. An ECM migration job often consists of the following steps:

• Data cleansing, transformation – Performing data cleansing on the documents to be migrated using values and value sets that match the document data model. The aim is to ensure that all documents are uniquely identifiable and can be assigned metadata. The transformations required to fit the data model must be defined.
• Migration mapping – A migration mapping contains exactly where each document will be moved from and -to, with what metadata, entitlement, and other properties, and into which folder structure.
• Automated document migration – Based on the mapping, an algorithmic migration of documents is performed.

Our company’s professionals have decades of international experience and up-to-date expertise in the field of ECM migration. Our expert team confidently recommend our services to our Hungarian and international corporate clients who are planning to migrate their document assets due to the renewal or replacement of their document management systems.