Introduction

System migration is a necessary skill that modern business operations teams must master. Digital transformation programs are moving fast and require organizations to keep up with the evolving technological landscape. While migrating to a new system can offer numerous benefits such as revenue growth, increased efficiency, and adaptability, the process is challenging and requires significant staff time - often augmented with system migration consultants. This article will explore the top five tips business teams can use to ensure success for their system migration programs.

Tip 1. Gain user buy-in on how the new system will change their business processes

One of the most significant steps in a system migration project is a comprehensive understanding of the new software's requirements and how your business users may need to change how they work. The impact of changes will likely radiate beyond the new system you are implementing as data flows to downstream products and processes. Users need to see how the new system represents their data. Seeing familiar data within the new system helps with the configuration of screens and business needs. The following steps can help organizations address this challenge:

• Conduct a thorough analysis of the new system, including its technical capabilities, limitations, and integration requirements.
• Engage stakeholders from different departments to understand their specific needs and expectations.
• Develop a detailed migration plan that outlines the steps required to meet the new system's requirements, including data conversion, training, and process redesign.
• Setting expectations for timelines, reporting changes, compliance concerns, third-party risk management, process changes, staff training, and delivering on expected ROI (return on investment).

PRO TIP: Loading a first cut of data into the new system early can positively influence the buy-in from business users while helping them experience the new system with familiar data. Loading data early in a system migration will help with configuration and provide early visibility to owners of downstream systems and processes.

Tip 2. Efficient Field and Data Mapping for Seamless System Migration

The next step in the system migration is mapping the fields and their data from the original system to the new one. This process is not always straightforward and requires both the source and destination systems and the outcomes to ensure the project meets expectations. To streamline this step in the process:

• Create a comprehensive mapping document that outlines the relationships between fields and data elements in the original and new systems.
• Leverage advanced data conversion tools and methodologies to automate the mapping process, reducing manual effort and minimizing the risk of errors.
• Validate the mapping by conducting extensive testing and subject matter expert reviews to ensure accuracy and alignment with project expectations

PRO TIP: Data conversion platforms, like Zengines, dramatically speed up matching fields from source to target by applying artificial intelligence to solve the problem quickly and accurately.

Tip 3. Seamlessly Transform Data to Meet New System Requirements

Data transformation is a critical aspect of system migration, as the data from the original system may not be directly compatible with the new system. This challenge can be addressed by:

• Identifying the specific data transformation requirements, such as changes in data formats, units, or encoding.
• Safeguard compliance with reporting, regulatory, and process obligations, such as historical reporting, GDPR, TPRM (Third Party Risk Management), and executive reporting, using our data migration software. Optimize efficiency by developing and implementing data transformation scripts or leveraging cutting-edge data conversion tools, automating the process for swift and accurate migration. Prioritize data integrity by conducting rigorous testing and validation procedures, guaranteeing the accuracy and integrity of the transformed data.

PRO TIP: Transforming data has advanced significantly with data science toolkits and Python. End-to-end data conversion platforms will help automate this process with pre-configured business rules and algorithms.

Tip 4. Testing the Accuracy of Data Conversion

Ensuring your data conversion is accurate is vital for successful system migration. Inaccurate data can cause all sorts of headaches, from operational problems to unhappy users and even potential penalties from regulators. To ensure your reporting and operations meet expectations, follow these essential steps:

• Create a thorough test plan covering a range of scenarios, spanning data integrity checks, functional testing, and end-to-end testing.
• Optimize your testing process for data migration software by harnessing the power of automated testing tools and cutting-edge techniques.
• Establish an effective feedback loop with critical stakeholders to identify and resolve data conversion issues promptly.
• Select relevant stakeholders to validate jobs, processes, reports, and API feeds/links to enable end-to-end operations.

PRO TIP: Don't cheat on double-checking your data conversion; it's vital to avoid headaches down the line. Create a solid test plan covering all bases using automated testing tools for efficiency and engaging your stakeholders for quicker feedback. By getting the right folks involved in validating everything, you'll have all bases covered, ensuring a smooth end-to-end conversion for your operations.

Tip 5. Managing Change and Ensuring User Adoption

The success of a system migration hinges on users' enthusiastic adoption and seamless integration of the new system. Achieving success in system migration relies on effective change management strategies and user adoption. To fulfill these crucial requirements, it is imperative to:

• Develop a change management plan that includes communication, training, and support strategies to help users transition to the new system.
• Facilitate learning by providing comprehensive training and resources like user guides and video tutorials.
• Establish a robust support structure featuring responsive help desks and user forums, providing prompt assistance and addressing user concerns throughout the migration process.
• Ensure executives and key stakeholders can monitor progress and your proactive communications.

PRO TIP: Foster a positive attitude towards change and user adoption by highlighting the benefits and addressing potential concerns through frequent engagement and positive interactions in your communication and training materials, helping users feel more comfortable and excited about the transition.

Conclusion

System migration is a complex and challenging process that requires careful planning, execution, communications, and management. By understanding the requirements of the new system, effectively mapping fields, seamlessly transforming data, quickly testing the accuracy of data conversion, and adeptly managing change, organizations can successfully migrate to a new system. By doing so, they can unlock the value of their digital transformation programs and drive their organizations to higher levels of growth and effectiveness.

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Data conversions are far too manual

Companies have moved their data from old to new since the first computer system was retired. Enterprise software has advanced a lot since then, but the process for converting data hasn’t. IT teams and consultants still rely on essential tools like spreadsheets, scripts, and SQL queries. These are labor-intensive and require high-level expertise, extending the timeline for onboarding new applications. This fragmented approach to data conversion is time-consuming and inefficient, resulting in too many projects delivered late and over budget.

Zengines has a better way of converting data with a platform that automates the entire process from end to end. With Zengines, data conversion efforts are faster and less labor-intensive resulting in reduced costs and risk.

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AI-powered data conversion rapidly accelerates data analysis, mapping, and testing

Companies migrating to new systems often need more expertise in the new target system. In contrast, software vendors for the new system tend to shift the responsibility for data conversion onto the data owners. This creates a data conversion gap that is challenging to navigate. Questions that customers of new software often ask include:

·       How long will it take to convert the data?

·       Will there be a gap in the data compatibility and completeness between the two systems?

·       Is my source data sufficient to populate the target system

·       Will I be able to achieve the business goals we are seeking?

·       Do I need to enrich my data from other sources?

·       Can my target store all of my current data?

With Zengines, a data conversion project never starts from scratch. Our AI algorithms understand the requirements of the target system. They will automatically analyze the source system's table structures, relationships, and data to automate the data conversion process. The result is a tremendous head start with any data conversion projects and a better understanding of what is required to achieve your business objectives.

How Zengines uses artificial intelligence to accelerate data conversions

1. Analyzer: Connect to 45 different databases or ingest multi-format data sets from CSV, Excel, XML, PDF, or APIs
2. Analyzer: Classify tables and fields. Automatically build relationships based on primary-key/foreign-key relationships.
3. Analyzer: Identify quality issues within source data.
4. Mapper: Identify source-to-target field matching.
5. Mapper: Detect and resolve data type differences.
6. Mapper: Produce field-level logic where data needs to be transformed to meet the requirements of the new target system.
7. Loader: Integrated Testing and Validation

Zengines ML models continually improve with each new conversion, offering better results with each data conversion project.

Automating the data conversion process with the Zengines platform

Zengines provides an end-to-end platform, digitizing and streamlining each step of the data conversion process. This integrated approach simplifies the user experience, with inputs and outputs for each step in the process, and they seamlessly flow from step to step until all data is converted. Four technologies underpin the flow of data throughout the process:

1.     Zengines Data Catalog^TM – System migration projects need up-to-date, accurate metadata to identify critical patterns between the source and target systems. Zengines’ intelligent data catalog is rapidly constructed from all source and target system schemas and metadata generated by Zengines Analyzer, providing the foundation for data conversion analysis.

2.     Zengines Knowledge Graph^TM – The Zengines Knowledge Graph is the repository for training our powerful data conversion models. Our patent-pending technology uniquely builds domain-specific models for each industry and commercial software platform we have worked with. Customers benefit from prior data conversion efforts, making the algorithms smarter over time.

3.     Data Conversion Pipeline – On the Zengines platform, data flows through an integrated process: ingestion à cleansing à transformation à post-processing à loading of data, à reconciliation. Our Data Conversion Pipeline controls the flow of this data as it is prepared for the target system and enables rapid iterative cycles through the pipeline to refine outputs continuously.

4.     Collaboration and Control – System migration efforts involve many teams, people, and environments, such as Development, Testing, User Acceptance Testing, and Production. Hundreds or even thousands of decisions need to be made and tracked during these projects. Zengines Collaboration and Control module ensures that project users and resources stay organized and can operate from a common source of truth.

Why we load data fast, early and often

Companies migrating to new systems often need more expertise in the target system, while vendors tend to shift the data conversion responsibility onto the data owners. This creates a data gap that is challenging to navigate. To address this issue, it's crucial to adopt a target system-focused approach, starting with the new system's requirements in mind.

Target and downstream system vendors, product owners, and users eagerly wait to see their data within the new system resulting in project delays and waste. Zengines believes in loading data quickly, even if it's not initially perfect, to allow for iterative improvements in data completeness and quality and to drive overall project efficiencies.

Conclusion

Zengines offers an entirely new way of converting data. With an emphasis on speed and repeatability, Zengines combines artificial intelligence and automation to transform manual and time-consuming data conversions into an efficient and predictable process.

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CHICAGO, March 27, 2023 -- Zengines, the first AI-powered data conversion platform, announced today the closing of $5M in funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners with participation from Hyde Park Angels. The funding will be used to expand product, engineering, and go-to-market capabilities.  

When organizations migrate data to new applications, systems or outsourced services, Zengines automates the end-to-end data conversion process. This reduces the risk, time and cost associated with implementing new technologies.

“Organizations and their systems are in constant change,” said Caitlyn Truong, Zengines co-founder and CEO. “It’s estimated that companies spend more than $100B per year converting their data to new systems. The problem is messy and complex and limits an organization’s ability to execute their business and technology strategy. With Zengines, there’s a better way.”

The Zengines data conversion platform has three major components.

1. Analyzer. Identify data requirements for new target systems and analyze the data and schemas of the source systems that are being replaced.  

2. Mapper. Generate field and code list matchings, perform needed data transformations, quality checks, and business rules.

3. Loader. Load the target systems with the transformed data directly through load files or APIs. Test and validate that the conversion was completed correctly.

“Data conversion efforts still rely on spreadsheets to map the fields and custom code to do the heavy lifting,” said Carl Drisko, Zengines co-founder and CTO. “Zengines has developed industry-specific AI models that dramatically improve the speed at which data is analyzed, matched, transformed, and loaded into new target systems.”

“We’re thrilled to be working with the Zengines team,” said Greg Barnes, Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners. “The founding team at Zengines is a group of industry experts solving one of the most painful problems facing all enterprises; successfully and efficiently converting critical data to new systems.”

About Zengines

Zengines has created an entirely new way of converting data. The Zengines AI platform automates the end-to-end data conversion process, reducing the time, cost and risk associated with data conversions, system migrations and data onboarding for a variety of business solutions. Zengines is used by leading enterprises, software vendors and consultants across multiple industries.

Contact

Mike Maziarz

Zengines, Inc.

VP, Product & Marketing

mike@zengines.ai

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Have you ever been involved in migrating a legacy computer system to a new platform? If so, you’ll agree it’s an amazingly difficult job.  

Whether switching vendors, moving to the cloud or undergoing a complex digital transformation, companies struggle with converting their data from where it lives to where it needs to be. Projects often take multiple years, cost millions of dollars, and typically run far over budget. Yet, despite the cost and urgency, the tools and methods for converting data are basic and not built-for-purpose; most heavy lifting is still performed manually with SQL scripts and spreadsheets. Even after systems migrations are declared finished, a lack of data analysis, testing and conversion tools can lead to low quality or incomplete data – resulting in rework or even failure after the new systems go live.  

With decades of experience and hundreds of projects under our belts, the team at Zengines knew there had to be a better way. In 2020 we founded Zengines to make it easier and faster for companies to move their data to new software platforms; our vision is a future where data conversions are frictionless and companies are no longer chained to their legacy systems and data.

Since our founding we have invested tens of thousands of hours into R&D solving the many challenges our customers face analyzing, mapping, and loading data into new systems. Zengines uses the latest in AI, machine learning models and data science to support the data conversion process end-to-end.

As companies and industries become increasingly dependent on software, their agility and speed of technology adoption will determine the winners and losers. For those companies looking for a competitive advantage, Zengines has developed an entirely new way of converting data.^TM  

Welcome to Zengines, and to the launch of our blog, Accelerator. It is our intent to share all the tips, technologies, and data conversion best practices we can offer. Our goal is to help your IT & business teams unleash their productivity in every way we can. To help, we have recruited our highly experienced data conversion consultants, product experts, engineers, and outside contributors to write articles for Accelerator. We welcome you to subscribe and we will keep you posted of articles and news.

If you have any tips or experience you’d like to share with the Zengines team, please email us at accelerator@zengines.ai or fill out our contact form on the website. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

- Team Zengines

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Zengines has created an entirely new way of converting data. The Zengines AI platform automates the end-to-end data conversion process, reducing the time, cost and risk associated with data conversions, system migrations and data onboarding for a variety of business solutions. Zengines is used by leading enterprises, software vendors and consultants across multiple industries

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AI-powered Data Conversion

For Onboarding Customer Data

Onboarding new customer data is a challenge

Enterprise software vendors spend a tremendous amount of time and effort winning new customers. But when the evaluations are finished and the contract is signed, world-class vendors of sophisticated software know the hard work is just beginning. For enterprise software companies and their customers, time is money and the gap between sales and effective software deployment is always a challenge.

Even with established onboarding methodologies, strong deployment teams still struggle with the messy process of converting customer data from old systems to new software. This is understandable. Vendors are experts in their software products. Customers are expert users of their old systems and operational data. The gap between these two teams is often difficult to bridge and a major source of onboarding project delays and risk. Unfortunately, most vendors still rely on spreadsheets and custom code to do the heavy lifting when it comes to data conversion. But spreadsheets and simple CSV import solutions cannot handle the data complexity of sophisticated enterprise software solutions.

With Zengines, there is a better way.

An entirely new way of converting dataTM

Zengines has developed industry-specific AI models that dramatically improve the speed at which data is analyzed, matched, transformed, and loaded into new target systems.

The Zengines data conversion platform is an end-to-end SaaS application that supports the full lifecycle of every data conversion project. Zengines has three major components.

1. Analyzer.Identifydatarequirementsfornewtargetsystemsandanalyzethe data and schemas of the source systems that are being replaced.

2. Mapper. Generate field and code list matchings, perform needed data transformations, quality checks, coercion, and business rules.
3. Loader.Loadthetargetsystemswiththetransformeddatadirectlythroughload files or APIs. Test and validate that the conversion was completed correctly.

Benefits

Reduced Costs

Conversions consume up to a third of the time set aside for migrations. By automating these processes Zengines helps take cost out of your migrations.

Managed Risk

The complexity of the conversion process makes them tricky to manage. Our built-in processes and project visibility tools help your teams control risk.

Automated Expertise

In most conversions, experts are asked to work on everything, overloading scarce resources. Zengines reduces reliance on experts and automates manual tasks – freeing time of valuable staff.

zengines.ai •

An entirely new way of converting data

The power of AI

By training AI-models with industry-specific data, it is now possible to automate tasks that required expert knowledge, such as: • Project scoping
• Data cleansing and enrichment
• Mapping and transformations (including many-to-many)

• Testing and reconciliation Without Zengines

Conversions are done using
people – some mix of internal,
vendor, professional services, with Excel and SQL, and usually requiring some technical expertise.

Conversions require expertise in both the source and target systems.

There is incomplete understanding of current data and its issues. Business knows the data is “bad” but don’t know where, why, or how to fix it.

Data transformations are individually hand-crafted for each element being migrated. The process is prone to errors that aren’t identified until much later.

Parallel testing of the old and new systems is done by hand, usually by operations personnel who have “day jobs” and lasts for months.

With Zengines

Every step in the data conversion process is supported

by intelligent software that is usable by a business analyst.

“Translator expertise” is already embed- ded inside Zengines and it continuously learns from each project.

Data is analyzed and profiled within minutes,

giving business a comprehensive view of their data to drive data quality improvements and testing.

Most transformations are generated automatically. Complex transformations can be designed and tested within a tailored Zengines UI.

Special cross-system testing tools enormously simplify the testing and comparison process. Testing results flow directly back into Zengines to iteratively

improves data over the life of the project.

An entirely new way of converting data• zengines.ai • info@zengines.ai

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AI-powered Data Conversion

For Enterprise System Migrations

Zengines reduces the time, cost and risk of Enterprise System Migrations

The pace of change for businesses today is unrelenting and accelerating. To remain competitive, every business must invest in digital transformation, new software applications, innovative managed services, and next generation cloud-based solutions. There is no choice – and you can’t leave your data behind.

Companies spend more than $100B each year converting data to new business systems. The data conversion problem has always been messy and complex – and severely constrains an organization’s ability to execute their business and technology strategy.

Typically, teams of industry experts are deployed to support the data conversion process. While these experts bring talent and project methodologies, the tools to support their work have not kept pace. Data conversion projects still rely on spreadsheets and custom code to do the heavy lifting.

With Zengines, there is a better way.

An entirely new way of converting dataTM

Zengines has developed industry-specific AI models that dramatically improve the speed at which data is analyzed, matched, transformed, and loaded into new target systems.

The Zengines platform supports the end-to-end data conversion process with three major components.

1. Analyzer.Identifydatarequirements for new target systems and analyze the data and schemas of the source systems that are being replaced.

2. Mapper.Generatefieldandcodelistmatchings,performneededdata transformations, quality checks, and business rules.

3. Loader.Loadthetargetsystemswiththetransformeddatadirectlythrough load files or APIs. Test and validate that the conversion was completed correctly.

Benefits

Reduced Costs

Conversions consume up to a third of the time set aside for migrations. By automating these processes Zengines helps take cost out of your migrations.

Managed Risk

The complexity of the conversion process makes them tricky to manage. Our built-in processes and project visibility tools help your teams control risk.

Automated Expertise

In most conversions, experts are asked to work on everything, overloading scarce resources. Zengines reduces reliance on experts and automates manual tasks – freeing time of valuable staff.

zengines.ai •

An entirely new way of converting data

‍The power of AI

By training AI-models with industry-specific data, it is now possible to automate tasks that required expert knowledge, such as: • Project scoping
• Data cleansing and enrichment
• Mapping and transformations (including many-to-many)

• Testing and reconciliation Without Zengines

Conversions are done using
people – some mix of internal,
vendor, professional services, with Excel and SQL, and usually requiring some technical expertise.

Conversions require expertise in both the source and target systems.

There is incomplete understanding of current data and its issues. Business knows the data is “bad” but don’t know where, why, or how to fix it.

Data transformations are individually hand-crafted for each element being migrated. The process is prone to errors that aren’t identified until much later.

Parallel testing of the old and new systems is done by hand, usually by operations personnel who have “day jobs” and lasts for months.

With Zengines

Every step in the data conversion process is supported

by intelligent software that is usable by a business analyst.

“Translator expertise” is already embed- ded inside Zengines and it continuously learns from each project.

Data is analyzed and profiled within minutes,

giving business a comprehensive view of their data to drive data quality improvements and testing.

Most transformations are generated automatically. Complex transformations can be designed and tested within a tailored Zengines UI.

Special cross-system testing tools enormously simplify the testing and comparison process. Testing results flow directly back into Zengines to iteratively

improves data over the life of the project.

An entirely new way of converting data • zengines.ai • info@zengines.ai