FAQ: Migrate My Data Into Your System

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 9 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright

QUESTION: I have four companies utilizing FileMaker for all financial control, stock, shipping, customers, prospects, rep commissions, personnel etc, in general the vast majority of operations in the companies. Is it possible to migrate my data into your system without losing any?

-------
ANSWER: Without looking at the files first, I would be guessing. Since you are using FileMaker now, my best guess is .... “Yes, it certainly can!”. Working with legacy data integration is always an adventure however. Here is what we do for complex legacy data migration ...

All your data is imported into a new FileMaker 9 file and a unique table is created for each file or existing table you have. For the sake of this discussion, lets call this the Data Translator.

After phase one, the Data Translator will contain all the tables, fields and data from your current system. We then create scripted routines to place your data from the Data Translator into the InBizness shell. In some cases, the data may not go cleanly into the new shell and has to be “worked / cleaned” to fit snugly into the new system.

After this is done, the Data Translator will have a collection of scripts that clean and place your data into InBizness SOHO. At that point we ...

- Empty the Data Translator
- Get a fresh copy of InBizness
- Import your latest legacy data into the Translator
- Run all its data cleaning scripts
- Run all its scripts placing data into InBizness
- Upload the new InBizness file to your server

We then recommend a testing period to make sure we got it all working correctly. This can be anytime from a week to a month. We fix any data problems we come across. Then we do a final Data Translator action and we should be good to go.


=
More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2008 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.