Historical Conversion Process

Maintaining the integrity of your student data as you move from your legacy environment to PeopleSoft® Campus Solutions is the number one priority of the historical conversion process.

Depending on the volume and the completeness of the data being converted, the overall timeframe for the entire process can be anywhere from several weeks to several months of dedicated planning and execution. The basic steps of the conversion process include Discovery, Translation, Mappings, Data Extraction, Coding, Testing and Implementation. Although broad in nature, these steps describe the method that has been successfully applied to historical conversions from both legacy systems and less optimally developed PeopleSoft® Campus Solutions Systems.

1. Discovery

This initial step determines what data is available to be converted from your legacy system. Experienced personnel are required to collect, analyze and interpret the data. Decisions must be made as to the depth of the conversion; i.e. how long of a time is data available or desired, how is the timeline segmented? Also, you must consider what level of detail you want to convert from your legacy system.

2. Translation and Mapping

This step determines all data values from the existing system that require a direct translation or a look-up list mapping of values to fit into the PeopleSoft® Campus Solutions system. Personnel from both technical and functional groups are required to participate in the translations and mapping to ensure nothing is lost or overlooked, and that all assumptions or defaults are reasonable and acceptable. Every single data element to be converted must be inspected and translation values determined.

3. Data Extraction

With a complete knowledge of the PeopleSoft® Campus Solutions structure and setup in place, an extract design for each record or related group of records is determined. Small data-set extractions are performed and hand-checked for completeness.

4. Coding

This is the step that binds all of the pieces together. It consists of combining the extracted data with the translations and mappings to create new rows of complete and accurate data in the new PeopleSoft® Campus Solutions structure. The coding process is broken down into records or related-record groups to allow step-by-step testing and implementation of the conversion data.

5. Testing

The testing phase of the conversion process is by far the most important and requires the dedicated participation of technical and functional personnel. Small Sample or Control-Group Testing allows a thorough validation of all the decisions made in each prior step. Hand-Checking the transformation/mappings, data extraction and coding phases creates the opportunities to refine each step. Large-Sample Testing allows benchmarking of the overall conversion process and determines the scheduling of the final step: Conversion Implementation.

6. Conversion Implementation

This final step will be executed based on a schedule determined in the testing phase. Many of the records and related-record groups that do not have a strict time dependency may be moved into the production database from the test environment. Some related-record groups require conversion during off-hours and must be scheduled accordingly. The final task of the Conversion Implementation is testing and validation with the plans used in the testing phase.