October 2021 - Academia ERP

In today’s competitive educational sea, the institution needs to become ships that can survive and reach the desired edge. An ERP is one of the best technological tools that is helping educational institutions to attain their desired results. It makes a smooth completion of all the academic and administrative tasks of the institution. Sometimes it happens that institutions choose ERP software that fails in proper ERP implementation and data migrating in the best way. It is necessary to follow and create an ERP data migration checklist that can lead to systematic ERP implementation. Let’s discuss some of the major data migration challenges during the ERP implementation process.

What is Data Migration?

Data migration is the process of transferring data from one storage or technique to another. Looking in the Edtech world, data migration is considered as one of the most important segments through which another switching into the system becomes easier, systematic, and convenient.

Importance of data migration for ERP implementation in educational institutions

The data migration process is crucial and transferring in the new ERP system needs to be smooth and transparent as in an educational institution every single piece of data keeps a significant role. Effective data migration at the time of ERP implementation is most important as improper data migration leads to inaccurate data and challenges.

Major Challenges in ERP Data Migration

Data repetition and integrity

In an institution, different departments like admission, fee, library, and many others store data of a single student, but in manual interventions, identifying and searching the needed data becomes too crucial. Sometimes improper communication and concentration at the time of data migrating from manual to ERP software involve data repetition which then needs to be solved with proper communication, concentration, and integrity.

High cost of migrating the data

When the institution was already in manual intervention then the ERP implementation team will need more efforts in extracting the important data and in retrieving data, the cost of all this will get included in the ERP implementation budget. There must be one more case in which data from an older ERP system needs to be shifted to a newer one, so in these cases, the cost of data migration remains less and needs to be decided by both parties.

Third-party involvement

Educational institutions own various tasks and thus it becomes difficult to keep data migration on priority at the time of ERP implementation that indirectly creating internal conflicts in the institutions is one of the major challenges in ERP data migration. As discussed above, there are various departments in an institution like admission, fee, examination, and various others, and there is always a person associated with every department who manages everything systematically, but while ERP implementations sometimes have other tasks administrators gives most of the work to the ERP implementation trainer to that increases the chances of data inconsistency.

Regulatory issues

Educational institutions must follow various regulatory issues that were made by higher authorities in every state, city, or country. When migrating the data into an ERP system institutions should comply with those regulations to maintain systematic, smooth, and flexible operations in the institute.

What are the solutions to overcome the ERP implementation challenges?

Give precedence to data migration

Data migration is one of the most important elements of ERP implementation, it needs to be pre-planned with systematic workflow. It is obvious that the entire implementation process is time-consuming but data migration should also be systematic with allocated and enough resources along with a dedicated team from the institution and the ERP trainers. It needs to begin with the extraction and cleansing of important data from source systems so that important data can be used accordingly in the future.

Consider the Complete Institutional Scenario

It is also important to analyze the complete data of the institute to understand how it can associate with the ERP system to enhance the academic and administrative operations of the institutions. It starts with extracting and cleaning the data that we have discussed above, after extracting the data, mapping it to the structure of the ERP database, setting up rules for translating the data into the structure during migration.

ERP implementation is an opportunity to get better insight into the business in real-time by analyzing its data. It is also important to think about how the institution can be used for decision-making across the whole institution.

Assigning responsibilities to administrators and faculty

It is essential to determine who will own the specific data of the institution from the team, from admission, fee, examination, library, and many others. The institutional team will also need to assign roles and responsibilities right before the implementation of ERP software, it directly will make the data migration process more smooth, efficient, scalable, and significant.

Conclusion

So, have you understood the significance of data migration and how to overcome the challenges in ERP data migration for successful ERP implementation? For this, you will need to choose a very good and robust ERP system like Academia, it provides efficient and effective academic and administrative management along with significant data migration, training, and ERP implementation, and needed customer support. So what are you thinking about? Let’s connect today to discuss more contact us now!

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Technology is playing a key role in today’s era. Every segment and industry is shifting to opt for technologies that can upgrade and help them in being the competition. Looking in the education sector, it is now important for educational institutions to opt for technologies like ERP/SIS that can eventually help them in associating and operating the day-to-day operations of the institute. A better and robust ERP system can eventually help educational institutions to manage all the administrative and academic operations of the institute.

But educational institutions must select a good ERP platform that can help institutions in attaining growth along with fulfilling all the requirements. Even after selecting a very good ERP, institutions sometimes make mistakes that should be avoided while implementing an ERP system in the institute.

Let’s take a look at a recent interview of an ERP specialist taken by an educational media interviewer. In this, he asked about the common mistakes that can be avoided by institutions while having an ERP implementation.

Question 1

How can the institution prepare itself for digital transformation?

Answer by ERP Specialist:

Digital transformation is considered the new need for educational institutions, it helps in streamlining and managing all the academic and administrative operations. But in my opinion, there is a proper process that institutions need to understand before thinking to opt for digital transformation. Different educational institutions today are at different stages of digital transformation, hence, they all need customized paths to achieve 100% digital transformation. These stages or situations can be majorly classified into 3 major categories:

Situation 1:

Manual Interventions in the institution

I think there are more than thousands of institutions that are still working using the manual process in their institutions. I do not regret the point that manual intervention can also help institutions to grow but the fact is its slow growth and which in today’s time is considered as no or less growth. Let’s take the example of the admission process of an institution using the manual process. It starts from a long queue for the admission form and ends with a lot of documentation from both ends for enrollment, right? It becomes a hectic, long, and confusing process for students, faculty, and staff. So it is the right time for institutions that are still operating with manual processes to understand and choose to move towards automation of each process in the institution.

Situation 2

Semi-Automation

In my opinion, there are various higher education and K12 institutions that have opted for semi-automation. Semi-automation is considered as the situation in which institutions opt for individual software to automate some of the processes of the institution like the Learning Management System (LMS) to enhance the learning experience of students, Tally to audit databases, and various others. I think this eases out the work but initially, it increases the chances of more confusion among the administrator and faculty as multiple software increases the need for multiple hands to operate and track each data.

Institutions must opt for an ERP along with some of this software, as it helps in storing and tracking all the data from one single software that can be used by any of the administrators, faculty, or staff members. A good ERP system also avails interoperability of other software along with the ERP. It manages all the operations from admission to the alumni and the student giving easier and more efficient access to everyone available in the institute.

Situation 3

Having an inefficient ERP System
Once I visited a higher education institution, they already had an ERP system that they were using to operate several tasks like admission, fee, examination, and many others, but to my surprise, I found that they have witnessed the same growth even after using the ERP system for their academic and administrative operations. Then I checked with each team who was operating the system what was the issue, it amazed me more when I found the real issue was the ERP itself. It was hard to understand for a normal faculty or student, it was not easy to operate, and it does not even have a mobile app to provide easier access to students.

So as per my experience, it is most important for educational institutions to choose an ERP system that provides them with complete functionalities, no or very less code language, proper training, systematic implementation, and all other important functionalities that a good, robust, and flexible ERP should have.

So this way, institutions have to analyze their position before seeking digital transformation in their institution.

Question 2

Interviewer:

What is the training process that institutions should opt for while implementing an ERP system?

Answer by ERP Specialist:

Hmm, the answer to this is also quite interesting, because various institutions opt for an ERP system but fail to seek a proper training process for administrators and faculty which leads to the unsuccessful implementation of the ERP system. Institutions must choose a perfect ERP system leading to proper training from the implementation team of the ERP vendor company.

An institution must check every detail before seeking for implementation of the ERP software, the training and implementation team will include these steps:

Firstly, the ERP implementation team should visit each campus of the institution to analyze the current working process and the needs of the staff and administrators.
After understanding the needs and working process of the institute, the institute must focus on initiating the training process of the administrators and staff who are going to operate the software in the future.
As the last step, the training and implementation team must check that everyone in the institute is comfortable with using the software and is initiating all the processes like the admission process and all the other processes effectively using the software.

Question 3

Interviewer:

Is change management important or should it be avoided?

Answer by ERP Specialist:

I think this is high time for educational institutions to opt for change, and a good ERP system can help them in initiating this process. Although institutions must opt for the proper change management process before initiating any kind of new implementation in the organization.

Now, if you are thinking about what change management is and why it is important, let me help you understand it properly. Change management is an art, that requires a careful balance between faculty, processes, and technology in the context of an educational institution. It needs continuous judgment, evolution, and strategic decisions at each end, and the first one to implement is choosing a good and best ERP software. In my opinion, Academia ERP is one of the best, most flexible, and scalable ERP software that provides the best technology adoption to institutions who even are far away from advanced technologies in their institute.

Question 4

Interviewer:

Is inadequate budget can also be a problem while implementing an ERP system?

Answer by ERP Specialist:

There is nothing like an inadequate budget, if a higher education institution focuses on bringing advancement and growth they can manage any circumstance. I mean, educational institutions need to understand that an ERP system is a step that can help them in achieving new goals along with more opportunities, it leads to systematic management of all the academic and administrative tasks in the institute.

Institutions who are having a tight budget must choose a very good and reasonable ERP system that can provide them with bringing automation and digital transformation to their institution. Here it is also important that institutions must find a good ERP system, as in search of a reasonable software compromising the success that a good ERP software can provide can also become a mistake for an institution’s growth.

Question 5

Interviewer:

What is the common mistake that most institutions make while having an ERP implementation?

Answer by ERP Specialist:

Educational institutions need to understand that successful ERP implementation can help the overall educational institution with streamlining workflow, optimizing costs, and the systematic arrangement of all the academic and administrative tasks. But institutions must avoid these common mistakes:

Not able to explain proper requirements to ERP vendor
Not taking into account the end-users that are individual department heads
Implementing the ERP software just after one initial discussion
Not having regular maintenance

Last Conversation:

Interviewer: I hope this knowledge given to you will help educational institutions when they focus on striving for digital transformation in their institution. Any recommendations that you wanna give to our readers while selecting an ERP software vendor.

Answer by ERP Specialist:

Yes, of course, I would suggest institutions opt for a good, scalable, robust, and flexible ERP system in their institute, they must need to be very careful while selecting the ERP software. I would recommend checking with Academia, it is one of the best and award-winning software that provides one of the best institutional management in all prospects avoiding all the major mistakes we have talked about in this session.

Month: October 2021

Data Migration Challenges during ERP Implementation