A Better Way to Approach SIS Data Migration

Earlier this year, Carey Baptist College in Western Australia was informally recognized by Veracross for the quality of their SIS data migration. Parker IT supported the project, and we are sharing the process in case it helps others.

The Typical Way

Most migrations involve writing a script to extract data, converting it on the fly, and dumping it into a CSV file. It’s fast, but it doesn’t preserve the original data. That makes it hard to troubleshoot and harder to trust.

What We Did Differently

Carey Baptist College migrated from Synergetic to Veracross and also brought in data from their HR system, Elmo, to create a unified view.

The process was architected by Neil Abeyratne, who has experience with Tier 1 corporate data systems. After the initial import, Veracross support Scott Le Brun noted that Carey’s migration ranked in his opinioin in the top 1 percent of schools. For context, Scott has been in the SIS space for a long time. Some of Scott's confidence came from Veracross's tools that scan for anomalies. Carey’s data passed cleanly with only minimal issues.

Key Steps to Success

1. Understand the Specs: We reviewed every requirement from Veracross and flagged inconsistencies early.

2. Build a Strong Base: We set up a lightweight data warehouse with two way API access. This gave us full control over transformation and testing.

3. Preserve the Raw Data: Instead of transforming immediately, we stored untouched copies. This gave us a reference for audits and troubleshooting.

4. Validate and Transform with Intent: We worked with the school to: - Review actual data - Decide how to handle differences in date formats, field lengths, and flags - Fix issues before import

5. Check for Dropouts: Because we had the original data intact, we could spot any gaps before going live.

By the time that the first import occured, we were already confident about the result.

Final Thought

Clean data does not happen by accident. It comes from process, planning, and collaboration.

If your school is planning a migration, this is your best chance to clean your data and get it right for the future.