Migration to Documentum D2 and the Life Sciences Solution Suite

Colleague | migration-center Team

Author
Kirstin Dreyfürst
Consultant @ fme AG

October 11, 2016

The implementation of a standardized DMS like D2 or the Dell EMC Documentum Life Sciences Solution Suite requires the migration of documents from the old to the new system or a transforming of the data model within the system in order to work properly with the new application. Often this old data is not fully standardized and structured, but either based on a less controlled system such as Documentum Webtop or on a controlled system with slightly different structures such as CSC FirstDoc or Cara.

To make one thing clear: Migration of a regulatory system is never a piece of cake. But it’s feasible in a reasonable timeframe as it can be automated. And as a side effect, migration helps to improve the quality of the content. Our experience with hundreds of migration projects shows, that there are up to 20 % quality issues in the source systems or source file shares. Inconsistencies in structures, missing or wrong attributes, twice approved documents, doublets of documents or corrupt version trees are just a few of them.
The fact that each of these older systems carries its own legacy of insufficient data quality and structure has to be taken into consideration. The data needs to be moved from one data model to another. Controlled value lists must be set up based on the old data and fitting into the new system and new processes.

Also, cleaning up and archiving before migrating is a topic to think about. It helps to keep the effort of a migration project low. Why migrating ten draft versions of a document or cancelled documents, if they are no longer needed? Cleaning up or archiving old versions because of compliance and just migrating the current one, reduces the effort a lot.

No matter if you plan to use migration-center for an in-place migration or a real migration, cleaning the source repository in terms of quality and quantity is always recommended.

If you want to learn more or see how it works, give us a call or visit us at the EMC Momentum in Barcelona. We’ll run a session about migration on thursday, November 3rd 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. CEST.

In this session, the main steps are explained, the most important challenges are discussed and different options for different use cases will be presented. Systems vary in a lot of criteria; there are high volume systems or rather small systems, well-structured data and external or legacy data, which needs to be consolidated into a new system, or an inplace-change from an old technology to a more modern application is needed, which is more appropriate to new technologies, requirements and usability. Special requirements for migrations to D2 and Life Sciences Solution Suite will be pointed out and also some hurdles, which are relevant to most of the migration scenarios.

Benefit from our best practice methodology for content migrations in regulated environments and get to know how to migrate to D2 or the Dell EMC Documentum Life Sciences Modules.

We are looking forward to sharing best practices and important updates about migrations in general and especially to D2 and the Life Sciences Solution Suite and answering your questions. Should you have any inquiries ahead of the session, please send an email to info@migration-center.com.