Reconciliation is what the business uses or businesses uses to determine if the data has been migrated correctly. The data migration reconciliation becomes what will be used for the final decision to go ahead with the data migration into production therefore it is important to include meaningful data items in the final data migration reconciliation.
Only count what counts
If you are nervous about the data mapping exercise it can become very easy to try to reconcile every field that you are migrating. This can later prove to be a costly and timely exercise because when you discover that this is actually something that cannot be counted, it has usually taken a few days (or weeks) to investigate the various reasons why it doesn’t match. Categories of this that you should include in your data migration reconciliation:
Customer Money
Count money coming in (being paid by customers) and money going out (money that will be paid to customers). This also applies to counting factors that will affect the customer’s money (for example prices)
Tax Money
Don’t mess with the tax man, always make sure the source tax amounts, both tax coming in (if applicable) and tax being paid out
Dates
If you have dates that are important do a hash total count of them. For example start dates, next payment dates, end dates. How you do the hash total doesn’t really make a difference, just make sure that both the source reconciliation and the target reconciliation program use the same method for the hash count of dates.
Don’t count what can’t be counted
Don’t try to replicate complicated Mapping rules in the reconciliations. If you are extensively manipulating the source data before creating records to load into the source, don’t try to count them. For example, if you are creating separate records for husbands, wives, children and other members of a family based on complicated rules using their address (or vice versa) where previously they were a single record; don’t try too hard to manipulate the data to force it to match. Make sure to document why it cannot be counted, and be prepared to accept a different viewpoint from the stakeholders on how to count those.
Data Migration Methodology
Our Data Migration Methodology has been built up over our years of experience and we have incorporated extensive testing, reconciliation, review and validation into our data migration methodology.
How JMR Consulting Ltd can Help with Your Data Migration Project
JMR Consulting UK Ltd.’s core expertise is based upon its Financial Services heritage and 15 years of operating in the Finance and IT sectors. Over this period, JMR’s staff have developed key application migration and data migration solutions and a constant focus on our service philosophy which is at the core of JMR’s business operation.
This post was written by Jo-Anne Owen, a member of the Professional Services team at JMR Consulting UK Ltd. If you would like more information about data migration or our professional services, please call us on 0845 052 0900 or email info@jmruk.com. If you would like to become part of our professional services team, please email jobs@jmruk.com.
Tags: data migration, data migration lessons learned, data migration methodology, data migration project, data migration reconciliation, data migration solutions