Planning a Document Migration

This article helps you plan a document migration from another document management system or network based file-share into a business application or a document management application (e.g. Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum or DocuNECT). Technology plays a big part in any migration, however, migrating large volumes of documents and data requires a process to insure the integrity of data. It is recommended to develop a procedure that can help guide you through the migration. In putting together this procedure you should consider the following points:

1. Establish the Chain of CustodyIn migrating files from one location to another it is important to manage the "chain of custody" to understand what happens to the documents at every stage of the process.
2. Identify the Document Set. Identify the documents you wish to migrate, including the number and location of the documents before they are migrated. Portford has developed an application to help you inventory documents stored on a local or network based file-share to assist with this process. This application can be downloaded free from CNET Downloads.
3. Determine the Migration Rules. Once you have identified the set of documents you wish to import then the migration rules need to be determined. All business and document management systems have a structured way to store different document types, attributes (data about documents), security and location of documents. The rules define what information needs to be updated and how it is assigned. Portford's DocuNECT solution can be used to extract this information from the content of the documents, or an external database to help automate this stage. There may be some situations where this information cannot automatically be assigned, especially when migrating from a network based file-share. DocuNECT's web based indexing module can be used to index and confirm information before it is distributed to the business and/or document management system. As part of the "chain of custody" the original document path, file name, and a document signature (such as an MD5 hash) should be stored.
4. Validating the Migration. Once the migration is complete, it needs to be validated. This can be as simple as counting the source and target documents, however, it is recommended to also confirm that the migration rules were applied correctly. A sampling algorithm can determine the appropriate sample set of documents to check out of the total. The sample should be applied to each unique set of data, such as different document types or applications.

Portford Solutions has significant experience in migrating large amounts of documents and data to third party business and document management systems. In addition to DocuNECT, our migration technology platform, we have also developed a robust migration approach as part of our Idea to Implement (i2i) delivery methodology.

DocuNECT helps one of the largest home builders in the US move towards electronic document capture at the desktop

Company Profile

The company profiled in this case study is one of the largest home builders in the United States. Like many organizations today, this home builder was faced with the challenge of trying to get away from managing paper which was labor intensive and time consuming. They embarked on a project to see what solutions were available to capture documents electronically from the desktop, index them and then distribute them to both Microsoft SharePoint and EMC’s Documentum D6 document management systems.

After a detailed software evaluation the company selected DocuNECT, developed by Portford Solutions Group, Inc. The I.T. manager said “This just seemed to provide a different set of tools than the other products. We really wanted to move electronic document capture to the desktop.”

A proof of concept confirmed that DocuNECT met all their desktop capture requirements and worked well with both Documentum and SharePoint. Although the initial need was to implement the Virtual Print Driver, the company’s technical team was impressed with the capabilities offered and quickly began brainstorming other document challenges the platform could be applied to.

The Solution
The company first implemented DocuNECT’s Virtual Print Driver to digitize desktop document capture, which immediately reduced the amount of paper the company was moving between departments. Rather than printing the documents to paper, and then scanning them into Documentum, the documents were printed directly into Documentum using the Virtual Printer Driver. This made the documents quickly available to other users who needed access to them to make business decisions.

The Benefits

The Virtual Print Driver solution had two main benefits:

1)     Quickly reduced the amount of paper being managed by the business

2)     The documents were available more quickly in the Documentum system for other users to access

DocuNECT v4.6 Released - Making Document Management Easy!

Please contact Verna Goodloe at (949) 910-4422 or verna.goodloe@portfordsolutions.com to learn more about Portford's DocuNECT, or visit the DocuNECT web site.
	Document Management – An easy to use central, secure document repository. Perform different actions on documents, such as check out/in, view history, view indexes, view workflows, etc.
	Role Based Dashboards & Summary Reporting – Business information at your fingertips!
	Retention Schedules – Apply records retention policy requirements and retention schedules
	Powerful Search – DocuNECT’s search works either within the cabinet, or across cabinets, against the document indexes and the document content
	Workflow Automation – Automate existing document based processes inside DocuNECT to increase efficiency and tractability
	My Documents Feature – Easily access documents you frequently use
	Integration to Dropbox – Add your Dropbox account to DocuNECT to take your documents with you wherever you go!
	Desktop Scanning or Network Scanning – To complement the existing Virtual Print Driver and Desktop Capture you can now easily integrate with software that comes with your desktop or networked scanner

Portford on Twitter

Follow us on Twitter! Our blog articles are now be published to our Twitter account @PortfordSG (https://twitter.com/#!/PortfordSG)

DocuNECT Now Integrated with Dropbox

Portford Solutions Group, Inc. today announces the integration of their DocuNECT Capture and DM products with Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). Now you can use Dropbox to capture documents from your Dropbox account, or use your account to manage documents that are stored within the DocuNECT DM repository.
	Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Dropbox is supported on a number of different operating platforms  including Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux. Dropbox also has powerful device support, providing users access to their documents on Apple (iPads and iPhone) and Android (smart phone and tablets) devices.
This integration allows DocuNECT users to manage their DocuNECT DM My Documents in their Dropbox account so they can work anywhere. This feature is contained in the DocuNECT v4.6 version.

Life Science Project Management

Portford Solutions' Experienced Life Science PM Team Provides You with Active, Engaged Project Leaders

 

With over 20 years of experience managing initiatives within Life Science, we are skilled at using technology to improve our partner's processes, and practiced at managing the process evolution, organization change, and management expectations that accompany these projects. We have advanced schedule and budget oversight controls in place, pre-configured to plug in to your R&D Organization.

 

Portford Consulting - Project Control

People People
We integrate into your existing team, forming productive work relationships quickly and easily. We're accustomed to matrixed reporting, and understand how to communicate at all levels in your life science organization

Experienced Project Managers
Our PMs bring years of life science specific project management background with them. We ramp up quickly, understand the pressures inherent with R&D, and help you achieve your initiative on time and on budget

Life Science Process and Technology Experts
Tempered in the crucible of enterprise clinical services projects, our PMs understand your R&D challenges. We can help you model a new process, deploy a new technology (our expertise ranges from Document Management to Core Site Research tools)

Power Up Documentum D6 with DocuNECT

 DocuNECT is an electronic document capture and migration solution that captures electronic documents from their source, extracts and organizes the necessary business data, and then distributes it to a third party business application to make the information readily available.

Visit our DocuNECT for D6 Solution Page

What is DocuNECT?

The following online presentation provides an overview of DocuNECT:

 












Access our library of demos by clicking on the icon below:

Key Functions

Desktop Capture Applications: Easily capture documents directly from the desktop, using the Virtual Print Driver, the Windows Explorer or Microsoft Outlook integration

Using Multi-Function Devices: Utilize multi-function or network based scanners to capture documents for indexing using DocuNECT's web based indexing application

Automating Document Import: Automate document imports from third party vendors, web sites, FTP/sFTP sites and more

Automating Indexing: DocuNECT can extract and apply business rules against the content of documents to automate the indexing process

File Share Migration: Migrate legacy file shares into D6, applying business rules to the folder structure and/or document content to populate the D6 index values