Proceedings of the 21st Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems

501

Method of data migration from one ERP system to

another in real time
Stjepan Vidai, Igor Pihir,Robert Fabac
Faculty of Organization and Informatics
University of Zagreb
Pavlinska 2, 42000 Varadin, Croatia

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Abstract.

The transition from one ERP system

to another is a complex and demanding process for
every enterprise, associated with numerous risks
and unplanned expenses. This process usually ends
and a new information system becomes operational
at the beginning of new a business year. Practice
shows that many of these projects are ineective
and result in disputes. The subject of this paper
is a new methodology, created as an attempt to
answer one of the key issues critical to the success
of this type of projects, and that is the successful
migration of business data. The methodology
presents the migration from the current to the
new ERP solution: throughout a business year
and in a transparent way and real time. Potential
advantages of the methodology are numerous and
they will be further systematically described in this
paper. Developed methodology was successfully
applied to a medium size enterprise in a complex
business project that was successfully completed
within the planned time, scope and budget.

Keywords.

data migration, information system, ERP system, organizational change, database,

business application

1 Introduction
The migration from one ERP system to another
ERP system in an enterprise is a complex and long
lasting process that involves many risks and a number of both planned and unplanned expenses. The
word "(business) process" is used in this paper
as a representation of a collection of interrelated

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work tasks, initiated in response to an event, that

achieves a specic result for the customer of the
process [19]. This migration process usually takes
several months of a business year and ends at the
beginning of the following business year with installation of a new information system in the enterprise
that is based on the new ERP system representing
a group of new business program applications.
Practice shows that many such projects fail and
end up in disputes between the enterprise as customer and the ERP manufacturers as project creators, most often due to unsystematic approach and
inadequate assessment of the complexity and time
required for the realization of the project. This paper will try to give an answer as to where the problem lies and how it can be resolved by means of
automated algorithms, implementation of modern
methods and information technology. The authors
will analyze features and aws of classic methods,
and propose a new method of business data migration from the database of the current ERP system to the database of the new ERP system in real
time, throughout a business year. The authors will
subsequently try to prove the hypothesis that the
methods of migration from the current ERP to a
new one has not been completely explored, and that
this calls for new researches that would provide better explanation of the structure, course and problems relating to this process thus making it more
ecient, and, nally facilitate the communication
and understanding between the manufacturer and
the users of the ERP system, especially in terms
of the duration, expenses and management of that
process.

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Proceedings of the 21st Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems

2 Organizational aspects of
migration from the current
to a new ERP system
Organizational changes represent a signicant phenomenon that the majority of modern organizations have to face, occasionally or permanently. In
most cases changes occur as a result of aspiration of
the organization to adjust to the new situation on
the market. Changes are usually caused by some
factors from the environment outside the organization, although sometimes they can be provoked
by certain inner factors. The external environment
generates changes via factors that are in the domain of (market) competitiveness, socio-economic
trends, and technologies. The changes of strategy and organizational development are denitely
among the most relevant inner factors of change.
Organizational development represents a series of
techniques and methods that managers can use to
increase the adaptability of their organizations [14].
As a rule, organizational changes are met with resistance. Some authors claim that resistance can be
present at two organizational levels: at the level of
a group (team) and at the individual level [8, 307].
A large number of personnel within the organization tend to perceive changes as a threat to their
own position, status, salary, and as just another
burden and engagement out of their routine.
It is precisely the organizational development
that oers certain tactics that can be used to reduce resistance to change [8, 308], that is: education and communication, participation, facilitation, bargaining, negotiation, manipulation and coercion [13]. Many authors recognized change scenarios that could be classied as follow: structural
change, mergers and acquisitions, cultural change,
IT-based process change [1]. One of the major ITbased organizational changes is implementation of
the Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP).
Enterprise Resource Planning is an information
system used to identify and plan the enterprisewide resources. [9, 546]. The objective of the ERP
system is to coordinate all business operations of
an enterprise, from evaluation of suppliers to the
delivery of products and billing. ERP enables integration and automatization of business processes,
sharing of the common database, creation of information in the real time. It encompasses "big"

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502

modules like: MRP, nance, HR, SCM and CRM.

Since ERP implies factors of organizational changes
from the IT domain, it is worth mentioning that
a large part of organizations still fail to achieve
the business value that they expected to achieve
when they decide to accept IT-based changes [1,
243]. As a result, there are several important issues
that come into focus: strategy and IT, the role of
IT management, the need for IT change managers,
achievement of process change, change of the information culture. Certain analysts mention bad
experiences in the implementation of ERP that are
due to inadequate planning, and they provide several reasons why: pre-implementation preparation
activities were carried out poorly; people were not
well-prepared to accept and operate the new system; the implementation took much longer than
expected; the costs of implementation were much
higher than initially planned [4]. The sta has to
be well educated and willing to accept the new roles
that introduction of the new ERP system has imposed on them. That is a task for managers and
company leadership.
Implementation of information technologies implies to a large extent the organizational culture.
Some researchers perceive IT as the subculture of
the organization [18], at which subculture implies
opposition and independence from the organization.
Given that there are standard ERP systems of
more or less prominent providers, the question
raises of the harmony between the organizational
structure and processes, and the requirements and
standard IS solutions. Introduction of the ERP system or switching to another supplier often forces
the organization to sort out its business processes
(not earlier!). Some researches show that in the
course of implementation of ERP products, companies make substantial investment in customizations
to adapt the ERP system to their business model.
This investment in customizations can sometimes
be compared with the original cost of the ERP software [11].
Extensive organizational changes that take place
when introducing ERP system are primarily a result of the need to change the organizational design
- from the one based on the rigid structure in terms
of function, to a process-based design that provides
support to the operation of the integral system [3].

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Proceedings of the 21st Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems

3 Methods of ERP system implementation and data migration, and their eectiveness
Today's practice uses three basic methods of transition from one ERP solution to another. By abbreviation 'ERP system' (Enterprise Resource Planning
system) we mean an integrated information system
in general. There are three basic implementation
methods:
1. Big Bang - Implementation happens in a single
instance. All users move to the new system on
a given date;
2. Phased Rollout - Changeover occurs in phases
over an extended period of time. Users move
onto new system in a series of steps;
3. Parallel Adoption - Both the legacy and new
ERP system run at the same time. Users learn
the new system while working on the old [12],
[2].
The majority of authors agree that these are
three basic methods of introducing the new ERP
software. Surveys show that the rst two are most
commonly implemented (Big-Bang 38%, Phased
Rollout 40%, a combination of Big-Bang and
Phased Rollout 11%, Parallel Adoption 9%, Others 2%) [12].
Authors use dierent methodologies of introducing the ERP system, but they all usually envisage
the following introduction steps:

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Data migration is rarely perceived as a very serious problem, and it tends to be insuciently accentuated. According to investigations into the main
technical problems that cause failure of implementation of ERP solutions, data migration is one of
the primary factors of failure [20]. Along with optimum design of chart of account structure, eective and ecient migration of data is one of the
cornerstones for the success of an ERP implementation [16]. It often happens that, in order to reduce their expenses, executors/vendors of software
impose the burden of migration on users/former
providers of ICT services, or on the internal information system. When introducing their software,
the leading manufacturers/oerers of modern ERP
systems [10]: SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, request
complete data for import into the new system according to the already existing specication. The
data model of the new system remains unchanged,
and the data from the old systems are adjusted to
the new solution. Excel, Microsoft Access or SQL
databases are used as a medium for the exchange
of data.
ERP systems also support data import and their
manipulation in the course of that transfer. As
for non-standard data, it is usually necessary to
design a "custom-made" application. This application converts data from various records into the
one that was specied in accordance with the models provided by ERP manufacturers [15].
One of the recent researches on the introduction
of ERP was conducted in 2008 by the consulting
company Panorama Consulting Group on a sample
of 1,322 world companies for a period from 2005 to
2008. It yielded strikingly poor results (Table 1.).

1. Business Review,
Table 1: ERP implementation success results [6].

2. Project Planning,
3. Installation, Upgrade and Data Conversion,

% Description of results

4. Training and Education,

93%

5. Business Process Engineering and Best Practices,

59%

6. Conference Room Pilot Testing,

7. Go-Live!,

57%

8. Post Implementation Review and Continuous

Improvement [5], [7].

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13%

of ERP implementation take

longer then expected
implementation cost more than
initially assumed
of companies characterize themselves as "very satised" with
software impl.
of participants suered operational stoppages.

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Proceedings of the 21st Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems

The data given in Table 1 indicate the need for

new and more eective ways and methods of introducing new systems, with a special emphasis on
data migration as one of the key factors in the implementation of a new solution.

Table 2: Process of migration from the current to

a new ERP system

No. Description of the steps in the migration process

1

4 Methods of migration from

the current to a new ERP
system in real time
Some ERP systems researchers listed four basic
rules of data migration see Fig. 1, this was used as
starting point in authors development of the proposed methodology.
This new methodology presented in Table 2. perceives and executes migration as an automated
repetitive business process in real time rather than
as a one-time technical operation.

Figure 1: Four Golden Rules of Data Migration [17]

Apart from the manufacturer of the new ERP
system and automated algorithms by which the
data from the database of one business application
migrate to another in real time, the process involves
only the key personnel, or all employees capable of
monitoring the realization of specic business processes.

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Denition of the X-set of actual key

data about business processes in the
database of the new ERP system, from
the beginning of the business year to
an x-date. The X-sets make it possible
to interrupt operation of the current
ERP system conclusively with x-date
and to resume the operation in the new
ERP system starting with x-date + 1,
without having to stop business processes.
Identication of the data from X-set
within the database of the current
ERP system on the basis of a detailed analysis of the logical and physical database model. If identication
of the X-set is possible, next step has
to be taken. If not, it has to be concluded that migration from the current
to the new ERP system in real time is
not possible.
Demo installation of the application
and the base of the new ERP system
onto the company's central computer.
Design of service application for the
direct migration of actual data from
the X-set of the current ERP system database to the new ERP system
database.
Installation of service application for
the direct migration of data onto the
company's central computer.
Beginning of the systematic training of
personnel for the work with the new
ERP system applications by means of
audio-visual presentations of applications and work on the demo installation of ERP system onto the company's business network.
Launching of the service application on
the company's central computer and
performance of direct migration of actual data from the X-set of the current
ERP system database to the data base
of the new ERP system.

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Proceedings of the 21st Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems

No. Description of the steps in the migration process

8

10

11

12

Systematic daily testing of transparency of the actual data in the current ERP system and the data that migrated to the base of the new ERP system. The testing is performed by the
personnel skilled in monitoring the respective business processes.
Assessment of transparency of the data
in the base of the new ERP system
and deciding on whether conditions are
met for termination of work with the
current ERP system and proceed with
work using the new ERP system. If the
decision is negative, the process goes
back to step 4). If the decision is positive, the process continues.
Identication of specic functionalities
of the current ERP system that are not
present in the new ERP system but are
required in order to provide standard
support to business processes
Final work on the applications of the
new ERP system in line with specic
requirements of the company, and activation of all control parameters of the
applications of the new ERP system.
Termination of operation of the old
ERP system on x-date and transfer to
operation of the new ERP system as of
x-date + 1.

The fundamental starting point of the method

described in Table 2. is the denition of X-set of
data, whose migration from the base of the current
to the base of the new ERP system enables starting
and continuing the operation in the new system.
The experience of authors of this paper in the
practical implementation of the described methods
prove the fact that X-set does not necessarily encompass all data from the current data base and the
actual business year, but rather those data that are
capable of determining the transparency of the data
that migrated to the new ERP system and continuation of the company's operations in the new
system at any given moment of x-date + 1 in the
course of the business year.
In that sense the X-set is basically composed of
the following subsets of data:

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1. All referential catalogs of the database that

render possible the instituting of referential integrity in the relational base of the new ERP
system;
2. Entries of all warehouse/commodity input/output transactions that document the
circulation of commodities from the beginning
of a business year, and the current state of
stocks;
3. Entries of all nancial records created in the
nancial processing of analytical documents
of business processes and commodity-nancial
transactions;
4. Standard counter of all documents used to support business processes.
Implementation of the method presented in Table 2, may have manifold eects: it makes possible the testing of transparency of actual and migrated business data in real time; uninterrupted
company's work without stoppage of the current
ERP system; informing the personnel about the
possibilities of the new ERP system and training
of users in operating the system by applying actual business data as demo data; observation of
the dierences in functionality between the current and the new RP system; detection of requirements for the necessary nishing of implementation
of the new ERP system; and making a realistically
founded decision on whether or not the migration
of the company's information system from the current to the new ERP system is possible.
This method, due to its characteristics, can be
applicable in all three classical ways of implementing ERP systems (big bang, phased rollout, parallel adoption). Benets that are obtained by this
method are easily applicable to any of the classic
scenario of implementing ERP systems, noting that
the best results can be achieved in parallel adoption.
In the view of the method described above, the
manufacturer of the current ERP system may, but
does not necessarily need to have a role or responsibility, except the responsibility for the consistency
of the base and authenticity of business data.
The manufacturer of the new ERP system provides service program application for automatic migration of business data, whose program code automatizes the entire algorithm of the direct data

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migration and guarantees transparency of migrated References

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The idea for this paper is a result of authors' yearslong experience in the eld of development and
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