14 Tips for Planning an ECM content migration to

SharePoint

Agenda

•Overview of SharePoint ECM

•Why migrate content from legacy ECM systems into SharePoint?

• 14 Planning tips for ECM content migration to SharePoint

About Tom Castiglia

• Principal / Director of SharePoint Consulting Services

• Started with HersheyTech in 1998

• Active in the SharePoint community

• Speaker at various SharePoint Saturday conferences

• President of the San Diego SharePoint User Group

• Contact Me

• Twitter: @TomCastiglia

• tom@hersheytech.com

Why Migrate to SharePoint?

Common Legacy ECM Applications

EMC - Documentum • D5/D6/D7• ApplicationXtende

r

Hyland• OnBase• Liberty

Fortis• Fortis• File Magic

FileBound LaserFiche

Hershey Technologies• XenDocs Content

Server

Xerox• DocuShare

Canon• ImageWare

IBM – • FileNet• Content Manager

OpenText

Perceptive Software• ImageNow

Why SharePoint for ECM?Powerful taxonomy

featuresManaged metadata

Site content types and columns

Business Connectivity Services

Lookup columns

Document Sets

Powerful search engine

Workflow

Versioning

Check-In / Checkout

Records Management

eDiscovery and Holds

Site Mailboxes

Content Organizer Rules

Metadata Navigation / Filtering

Partner Eco-system

IT Consolidation

Why Migrate Content to SharePoint?• Many legacy ECM products have been deprecated

• ECM ApplicationXtender is being phase out. EMC is pushing clients to upgrade to Documentum D6/D7 which is much more expensive

• File Magic from Westbrook Technologies was discontinued in 2006 to favor a new product called Fortis.

• Many other vendors simply have stopped innovating their products

• Consolidate IT infrastructure

• Reduce maintenance costs

• If IT staff is already maintaining a mature SharePoint farm, do they really need to also maintain a separate document management system?

Why Migrate Content to SharePoint?• Take advantage of improved taxonomy features in SharePoint

• Content Types

• Site Columns

• Managed Metadata

• BCS

• Lookup columns

• Take advantage of Records Management features in SharePoint

• Take advantage of SharePoint’s flexibility in general

• SharePoint is more extensible and customizable than any other ECM product

• SharePoint has largest market of 3rd party solutions to provide additional features

SharePoint Migration Planning

Tips

Tip # 1 –Consider splitting one legacy repository into multiple SharePoint libraries

Eliminate the need for item

level permissions

Reduce number of documents per library (improves

performance)

SharePoint and XenDocs

allows unified search across

multiple libraries

Vendor

PO #

Invoice #

Division

Alpha, LLC

3456617

74584 ACSC

Bravo, Inc

3456633

88363 ACMO

Charlie Co.

3456641

56546454 ACSC

Alpha, LLC

3456648

74584 ACSC

Delta Signs

3456652

675676 ACTX

Echo Ink 3456661

INV-324454 ACTX

Bravo, Inc.

3456670

456546464 ACMO

Vendor

PO # Invoice #

Alpha, LLC

3456617

74584

Charlie Co.

3456641

56546454

Alpha, LLC

3456648

74589

ACSC Invoices

Vendor

PO #

Invoice #

Delta Signs

3456652

675676

Echo Ink 3456661

INV-324454

Vendor

PO #

Invoice #

Bravo, Inc

3456633

88363

Bravo, Inc.

3456670

456546464

ACMO Invoices

ACTX Invoices

Legacy RepositorySharePoint Libraries

Tip # 1 –Take advantage of SharePoint Content types

Tip # 2 –Consider converting legacy “document types” into SharePoint Content Types.

Document

Contract

NDA

Retention: 5 Years

Workflow: none

MSA

Retention: 7 Years

Workflow: Approval

FieldsPartyNameContactNumberEffectiveDateExpirationDate

Tip # 2 –Consider converting legacy “document types” into SharePoint Content Types.

FieldsNameTitle

Tip # 3 –Consider converting “choice” fields into Managed Metadata, Lookup or External data columns

Managed

Metadata

Lookup External Data (BCS)

Hierarchical YES NO NOReference other columns

NO YES YES

Scope Farm Site Collection Enterprise

Tip # 4 –Improve column name consistency

Policy#

Policy No

PolicyNumber

Legacy ECM System

Policy Number

SharePoint Site ColumnRepository Field

Name

Auto Policies PolicyNumber

Medical Policies

PolicyNo

Home Policies

Policy#

Repository Field Name DocType Values

Policies DocType Application

Renewal

Cancellation

Invoices DocType PO Invoice

Non-PO Invoice

Expense Report

Check Request

Claims DocType Accident Report

Estimate

Tip # 5 – Fix Improper Column Re-Use

Doc Type

Legacy ECM System

“Claim DocType”

“Policy DocType”

“Invoice DocType”

SharePoint Site Column

Tip # 6 –Understand file types in legacy ECM system

Scanned Documents

PDF• Searchabl

e• Image-

OnlyTIF• Multi-Page

(1 file per document)

• Single-Page (multiple files per document)

MS Office

Word

Excel

PowerPoint

Engineering

Auto-Cad• dwg

Email

msg

eml

Multimedia

Audio• mp3• wmv• wav

Video• avi• mpeg• mp4

Tip # 7 –Understand metrics in legacy ECM system

Total doc count in each repository

Average page count per document (or total page count per repository)

Average and peak file size per repository

Growth rates per document type or repository (# new docs/month)

Frequency of document retrievals per day per repository

Tip # 8 –Understand document capture use cases

Do users validate new documents after they have been exported to the document management system?

How do we sync terms between the ECM system and the document capture system?

Does the current document capture system support exporting documents and metadata to SharePoint?

How is content received? (dedicated scanners? fax? file import? MFPs? email?)

Are there any specialized indexing scenarios (e.g. One to Many data)

Tip # 9 –Understand ECM security model

By Repository

Document Level

Security

Tip # 10 –Understand how documents are found

How many docs are returned in typical query?

Save queries for re-use?

Search metadata vs. full-text (or

both)

What business condition cause users to search for

a document (e.g. customer service inquiry,

vendor payment, etc.)

Tip # 10 –What do users do with documents?

Read-Only• View• Print• Email

Edit Metadata

Annotate• Sticky notes• redactions• shapes• lines• Stamps

Edit pages• Rotate• Re-Order• Clean-up• Insert• Delete

Tip # 11 –Understand any workflow processes related to the documents

Ad-Hoc routing Formalized workflow

Tip # 12 –Understand any application integration with current ECM system

Are there any Line of Business apps that have links to documents in current ECM system?

Are there any custom reports created on data stored in current ECM system?

Is data from current ECM system ever exported to other systems?

Tip # 13 –Consider some 3rd party ECM add-ons

Metadata-based search

is less intuitive

SharePoint formats Search results like a “search engine”,

not a DMS.

SharePoint metadata filtering does not scale for

large libraries

Tip #13 – XenDocs ECM Search With Vizit™Intuitively build

precise document

queries

Sortable search results

Image previews for scanned

images

Tip # 14 –Understand migration tool options

• Existing 3rd party tools vs Custom tools

• Field mapping (different field names between source system and SharePoint)

• Filters to allow migrations to be performed in chunks

• E.g. Only migrate documents where DocType=‘Expense Report’ and DocDate>’02/13/2009’

• Start/pause/stop/resume –

• not needed for smaller repositories, but critical for larger ones

• Ability to audit status of every record

• File Conversions

• Single Page TIF to Multi-Page TIF

• TIF to PDF

• Image only PDF to Searchable PDF

• PDF to PDF/A

Tip # 14 –Migration tool pricing

• Pricing Models for SharePoint Content Migration Tools

• Per PC or server

• Subscription based (monthly or annual)

• Size based (Per GB of content)

XenDocs Migration Tool

In closing

• If you need assistance in planning an ECM content migration , note that we can offer 2 hours of complementary consulting services to assist with this or to provide a demo of various migration tools.

•Upcoming webinars

• Tomorrow at 9:30am – Using Kapow for web content migration

• Sept. 24th on AP Invoice Automation