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Lotus Notes: Migrate to an Advanced Document Management System

 

Lotus_to_ENSUR

Looking to migrate data off of legacy Lotus Notes databases into newer, more flexible out of the box technology? Regardless of the record, (including Change Requests, Packaging SpecificationsQuality Assurance Procedures, Product Specifications and BOMs) it can be migrated into ENSUR.

The Problem - Migrating Critical Data Off Legacy Lotus Notes Databases

Manufacturing and packaging organizations are looking to migrate mission critical data off legacy Lotus Notes databases into newer, more flexible out of the box and Commercially Available off the Shelf (COTS) technology. These companies are often looking to centralize documentation and workflows into a single system and create links to ERP and CRM systems. In many instances, organizations no longer employ the necessary resource(s) to support their Lotus Notes database and are stuck with rigid workflows that once served them well, but are now out of date and require too much manual intervention. Most of all, these organizations are suddenly victims to an application that is no longer supported by the manufacturer that contains critical business documents. What to do?

The Solution – DocXellent Professional Services Team

The DocXellent Professional Services team has helped several Fortune500 companies as well as smaller firms migrate data from Lotus into our ENSUR document control system. The business content that customers have migrated include: Change Requests, Packaging Specifications, Quality Assurance Procedures, Tooling Data, Product Specifications and Bills of Materials or BOMs. However, the data type possibilities and format are not the concern, it’s finding the right company to partner with on the transformation of data without interruption or loss of access.

The Details

  • The primary data types that companies utilize in specifications or forms are; text, date, single value picklists, multi-value picklists, dynamically fed data from ERP, formulas, dimensions, metadata and dates such as created by, created date, approver(s) and approver date(s).
  • Data in Lotus Notes resides in multiple views and tables. Its critical to have experienced data transformation professionals work closely with data teams to merge and convert this data to the required format for migration without loss or compromise.
  • There are field types in Lotus Notes that are not capable of being exported such as front-end views of Lotus, however we’ve developed proven methods to migrate this data into ENSUR without data loss

The Upside

Not only do the DocXellent Client Relations and Technical Support teams work directly with business users to migrate their documents from Lotus Notes into ENSUR, but our focus is on enhancing the user experience and providing structure to the workflow, even where it did not exist in Lotus Notes. The Professional Services staff emphasizes on identifying optimum routing workflows, default numbering schemas, use of picklists to organize data (as opposed to text based user entries). Additionally, they consult about read-only fields, read-only form pages, custom reports, use of masters and templates, security to control who can do what to the disparate datasets, etc. All standard features in ENSUR.

Recent Migrations Highlights

Managing Sub-Assemblies in ENSUR:

In a recent migration of almost 30,000 packaging specifications, it was identified that the creation of printed components that were part of a Packaging Instruction BOM did not reside in an anticipated Lotus Notes isolated table and the records did not have an approval workflow, but instead added to the database on the fly by packaging engineers. After migration, these records are treated as BOM sub-assemblies in ENSUR with document control procedures applied to them: these printed components have their own unique records with approval workflow and associated electronic signatures. This will ensure that the record and its properties (the proper non-printed child component, brand, pack size information) are fully vetted before utilizing the printed component in its parent BOM.

Managing all data in ENSUR:

In another case, we worked with a client using Lotus for Document Change Requests (DCRs) where users would submit a request in Lotus to edit Technical Specifications already stored in ENSUR. We revised and built a new DCR workflow in ENSUR where users requesting a change could link directly to the ENSUR records – creation of the DCR, approval and routing to the users who will revise the impacted documents as part of the new workflow. We then collaborated to migrate all the archived, legacy DCR data out of Lotus Notes and into ENSUR so that they are stored in a central repository.

Call on the Experts

Having critical business documents still managed in Lotus Notes is a concern for many organizations. When its decided that something has to be done to mitigate the business risk of not having access to or not being able to reliably update the content, DocXellent and its document control application provide experience and functionality to migrate and continue to use the business content with confidence going forward.

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Tags: document control system, specification management, web based document control, lotus notes