Planning For a Great Migration Experience
Oct 03, 18
WSIPC went live on Qmlativ Business on July 2, 2018, and since then we have successfully invoiced our customers, collected and recorded their payments, paid our vendors, and processed payroll.
Now that we’ve had time to review the process, here are our top tips to help you be as prepared as possible for your Qmlativ migration:
Preparation
- Do as much clean-up as possible before you go live. The migration documentation we have provided will help you with this process.
- Consider different go-live dates to determine the best migration time for your district. For example, for reporting, a month-end cut-off is a good time to migrate, especially for finance.
- Review your business practices to leverage Qmlativ’s functionality to create efficiencies, and do this well before you go live.
Training
- Start training key personnel as early as possible. The Professional Development Center (PDC) will give your staff a good foundation in Qmlativ.
- When scheduling your training rollout, base your decisions on the needs of each role (training for payroll staff is a lot different than training for teachers).
- If you are responsible for setting up modules, make sure you understand Qmlativ Security before you set up each module.
Parallel Processes
- Running parallel processes is an effective form of training. It allows you to verify your skills in Qmlativ against your data in SMS 2.0, and it gives you confidence when you go live on Qmlativ.
- Complete core processes in both your Qmlativ staging database, and in SMS 2.0. This allows you to verify that you are running processes correctly, and that the data is correct in Qmlativ.
- Run through core processes from start to finish. For example, verify that you can cut a check from start to finish – including bank approval.
Data Migration Tool (DMT)
- Set a deliberate schedule for database refreshes, and don’t schedule more than necessary.
- Validate core data on all database refreshes, not just for your final go-live DMT runs.
- Seeing your own data in Qmlativ is very helpful in terms of data validation, training, and parallel processes. Because you are familiar with your data in SMS 2.0, you can perform reviews against it to validate your data in Qmlativ.
Communication
- Include communication in your migration plan. Make sure everyone knows what they need to know, when they need to know it.
- Include parent and student communications in your plan.
- Staff communication is also very important – make sure you include it in your migration plan.
- Prepare communications in advance to allow time for training, preparation, and a few unforeseen issues.
Thank You to Our Early Adopters
We would like to thank our early adopters. Your hard work has provided insights and feedback that will help enrich the Qmlativ software and streamline the migration experience for the districts migrating later in the cycle.
WSIPC is a non-profit cooperative that provides technology solutions (including Skyward), services, and support to K-12 schools. WSIPC’s purpose is to help schools do more with every dollar and to empower them with the tools to work smarter.
The Qmlativ Education Management System is a comprehensive, web-based system, encompassing two product suites (Student and Business). Qmlativ offers a wide variety of applications, and holistically manages the daily operations of your district or school.