by Xiliary Systems Ltd.
In 2010 we were commissioned to replace a legacy document management system (Zarion). The legacy system was complicated, expensive, under-supported and not a good fit for our client. The system was a very large and feature-rich including many unnecessary workflow options. Such a large system was also difficult to support. It looked like initial configuration of this legacy system to fit our clients needs would have been more work than building a new system that fit their use case. In this scenario, the extra features actually got in the way and presented an obvious case where more was not better.
Our client wanted less friction. Xiliary looked at how our client was using the system and discussed further requirements. We also conducted a technical analysis of how the legacy system stored data and devised a way to export all existing data from the system. We returned to our client shortly with a series of mockup images to illustrate the functionality we would deliver. We went through another round of discussion before creating a document specifying what the new system would do and roughly how it would look. This document included a feature specification, mockups, migration plan, support plan, and price.
The new document management system is still in use over a decade later.
Our basic approach of liberating existing data from a legacy system should work for many databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, Excel, or Access. If you'd like to hear more please contact brendan@xiliary.com