Advice on migrating to "modern" software

[William J. McEachran]

Thanks Nancy,

Where possible, I'd think migrating existing data would be useful to check
that the new software and the old software produce the same results.
I'd think that at least during development and testing this would speed up
development and give some confidence in the program.

Your point about then new system holding data that the old system does not
have is a good one ... and complicates testing.

Some thoughts received privately:
- It will cost multiples of what they're being told
- It will take multples of the time expected
- Develop full specs. FULL specs.
- Make a proper project plan. Spend time/money on the master plan.
- There will be pain.
--
Bill McEachran
bill.mceachran at gmail.com
http://www.wjmceachran.com
http://www.fileproprogramming.com
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/bill-mceachran-82a56114


On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 5:21 PM, Nancy Palmquist via Filepro-list <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

> Bill,
>
> My advice is to start using the new system as of a certain date, like the
> start of a fiscal period.  Overlap both systems for a month or so in that
> you will put payments against items billed in the old system to close off
> the old invoices.  You will do all new business in the new system.
> Continue for a time until the remaining open invoicing in the old system is
> manageable, then create balance forward invoices for those items in the new
> system and drop the old system from then on.
>
> It may be possible to load basic data if the new system allows it, but in
> all my moves from one system to another, loading the data fresh in the new
> system always seemed to get a better set of data.
>
> The new system may ask for information not available before so even if you
> load it someone has to update each and every record to supply the missing
> data or modify where necessary.  I think adding is always cleaner than
> updating.
>
> This is not an overnight process and in all cases may take months before
> you can use the new system exclusively.
>
> I have seen many customer move from my Medical Office System to other
> kinds of billing and that is always my advice.  To write custom routines to
> try to load data effectively may just not be cost effective.  If you are
> leaving filePro, it is not hard to write export routines to dump filePro
> files to csv or txt files. What is not clear when you do this is the
> relationships between files, but it might be a good starting place if you
> want some files loaded for reference.
>
> IMHO - "Modern" is a lousy way to say WINDOWS, likely instead of Unix or
> just for the GUI stuff.  I still do not see out of the box software in the
> WINDOWS world that can and does work better than filepro especially if your
> company needs custom work often. But I may be a bit prejudiced.
>
> Nancy
>
>
>
>
> On 2/22/2018 4:52 PM, William J. McEachran via Filepro-list wrote:
>
>> I recently got asked to give some advice on 'how to' go about migrating
>> from and old legacy system to a new custom software solution.
>>
>> I have my thoughts ... but I know many of you have done this or in the
>> process of doing it and thought I'd pass on the question to the group
>>
>> What advice would you offer a small business that want to  migrate off
>> their 'obsolete' old system to the new 'modern' system of their dreams.?
>>
>> Thanks
>> --
>> Bill McEachran
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> --
> Nancy Palmquist         MOS & filePro Training Available
> Virtual Software Systems    Web Based Training and Consulting
> PHONE: (412) 835-9417           Web site:  http://www.vss3.com
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