The cloud has now become a given for just about all companies in Tennessee and throughout the world. The pandemic reminded everyone why being able to access your work and data from anywhere is not only convenient, it’s vital to business continuity.

Having workflows in the cloud also means finding the best tools for your needs, and according to SaaS statistics from Blissfully, businesses are having some challenges in this area.

Companies churn through about 30% of their cloud applications annually. This means they are nearly always in a continuous state of moving from one cloud app to another.

There are many reasons for this. A company may have outgrown an app they’re using now and they need more features, or a business may have moved to an app and then after using it for a few months decided it’s not a good fit.

Whatever the reason, when moving from one app to another there is a migration process involved. Migration means that data has to be moved from the old cloud app to the new one. That data can include things like:

• CUSTOMER, VENDOR, OR EMPLOYEE RECORDS
• DIGITAL ASSETS LIKE IMAGES, DOCUMENTS, AND PDFS
• CUSTOMIZATIONS LIKE CUSTOM FIELDS OR APP INTEGRATIONS
• AUTOMATIONS AND SPECIFIC WORKFLOW SETUPS
• USER ACCOUNTS AND SECURITY POLICIES

Whether you’re moving from one business email application to another or switching all-in-one productivity platforms, it involves the migration of a lot of data, and if that migration isn’t done correctly it can be costly.

CONSIDER THESE THINGS WHEN MIGRATING CLOUD DATA

ENOUGH TIME BEFORE SHUTTING OFF THE OLD ACCOUNT

When trying to do a migration many companies will give themselves just a few days before their old account is shut off. They don’t want to pay for two different accounts for more days than they need to.

But not allowing enough time for the migration and not having your original account to refer back to should anything go wrong, can mean additional cost and lost data should the former SaaS provider have already purged your account information.

It’s best to leave at least 2+ weeks of overlap when both accounts are active as a safeguard.

VALIDATING YOUR MIGRATION BEFORE TRANSFERRING EVERYTHING

Migrations can be tricky because the way that data is handled in one application may be completely different than another. Not all fields may match up correctly and something as simple as choosing the wrong date separator during upload can mean unreadable text.

It’s vital to transfer just a few records initially to validate that your data migration is set up correctly. It’s much easier to fix a problem when you have transferred just a couple of records, than when you’ve transferred thousands.

TRANSITIONING YOUR CUSTOMIZATIONS

Companies can lose important productivity customizations and automations if they’re focused solely on transferring files and records from one cloud app to another. If customizations aren’t also transitioned over to the new tool, employees can be confused, and you can end up having to revert to manual processes that you eliminated years ago.

Be sure when migrating to get help transitioning any alerts, automated workflows, and other customizations you’ve made over to the new SaaS application, so you don’t end up with broken workflows.

CAPTURING EVERY FIELD, EVEN IF THAT MEANS CREATING ONE

One of the common problems when going through a cloud-to-cloud migration is that your new app might not have the same fields as the old one. If you just save that data in a spreadsheet, it’s bound to get lost over time. It’s better to create a custom field for any data that doesn’t have a place to go.

This ensures that you’re starting off with all your data and not leaving any behind that could cause a problem when your team is looking for it in the new tool and can’t find it.

MIGRATING YOUR FILES TO THE RIGHT PLACE

Platforms like Microsoft 365 have several areas where files and data can be stored. If you don’t take the time to become familiar with those, you can end up migrating data in a less effective way.

For example, just putting all files in a cloud storage app like OneDrive, instead of utilizing SharePoint or Teams for team-based data, can mean you miss out on platform optimizations.

Migrating your data with a strategy can help you take full advantage of security and sharing features that one part of a platform may have, which another doesn’t.

Here’s an example of how data can be migrated more efficiently when moving to Microsoft 365:

• ONEDRIVE FOR PERSONAL FILES THAT ARE USED BY ONE EMPLOYEE
• SHAREPOINT FOR COMPANYWIDE FILES THAT ARE SHARED INTERNALLY
• TEAMS & SHAREPOINT TEAM SITES FOR DEPARTMENT AND PROJECT SPECIFIC FILES

GET EXPERT HELP WITH SMOOTH DATA MIGRATIONS

Save time and frustration by having your data migrations handled by a pro. Unbound Digital can help your Johnson City, Tennessee business with a quick and painless move to a new cloud tool.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 423-335-2461 or reach us online.