The 4 Stages of Successful ERP Data Management

Data is the fuel your new ERP will burn, without this fuel it cannot produce the information you need to manage your business. You have accumulated a lot of legacy data. Your new ERP will require most of that and more. But be careful, some of your current data might not be healthy and you don’t want to be feeding it to the new ERP. Let’s look at the steps you need to take in order to plan the ERP data management phases of your ERP implementation project.

Study Your New Fields

Study and understand the fields in your new ERP. How are they populated and how does the system use those fields? Ask all your user groups to study this aspect of ERP data management. They should think about what they want to manage and how best to measure their activities. If there are any missing fields, where can they get the data to complete these measurements? Can the missing data be kept in user-defined fields in the ERP? Is this data a new measure?

Find the Gaps

Once you have a list of required data, make a list of currently available data and find the gaps. Except for new measures there should not be any. But some of the current data will come from outside the legacy ERP. Your ERP data management plan should include the details of how you will integrated this external data in the new system.

Migrate your ERP data and install new software successfully with this 120-step ERP implementation checklist

After identifying gaps, look again at any legacy fields that you have not mapped. Do you need these? Are you sure you might not need them later?

Test Your Data

Use the testing phase of your ERP implementation to test data as well as processes. Is it accurate? Do you have an effective and efficient process to capture your data? Do you have reports and dashboards designed to show the measures needed to manage all parts of the business?

Test your processes for moving the data to the new ERP. It will be coming from a variety of sources and there probably is a necessary sequence of populating the new ERP to keep the imported data validated. Know how much time is needed for the import processes. Try to shorten the time. At go-live you will be short of time and this will need to be done quickly and correctly only one time.

Backup & Secure

In modern ERP data management, security should take precedence over all else. Be sure that your backup and security systems will protect all your data in the new ERP. Ensure that any data from external sources such as customer portals is checked before it enters the new system. Look at other external sources of problems such as wireless connections. You want to protect the data and ensure that none is allowed to fall into the wrong hands.