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Data and Document Migration

Chances are that you now keep client demographic data in at least one existing system, possibly more. Your accounting system will always need some client data, but if you are currently using a contact management system such as ACT or GoldMine, you will want to let Waypoint entirely replace it. In that case, it will be best to pull all of your historical client and project data into Waypoint at the time you begin using Waypoint. This process requires planning and depends on the specific data handled by your current systems.

Data and document migration can be labor intensive and should be timed to match the changeover to Waypoint. It will be necessary to check that all the fields that Waypoint requires for each data record exist in all your historical data. Other tasks include defining Waypoint's drop down lists from your data and creating the links necessary for the actual migration. A Technical Note discusses these issues in complete detail and is available upon request.

Likewise, if you have been managing client documents by storing them in server directories named with the client's name or project code, it will be necessary to define a migration scheme so that Waypoint can begin to manage the storage and retrieval of these documents for you. Once this is done, users should no longer access files directly with Microsoft Explorer. This will allow you to track who accesses which files, who has checked them out for editing and hence, prevent the checkout of a file by two staff members at the same time.