The system takes years, and it's always about to change. It may be that the old system is not keeping up with students’ needs for Internet access, or that the manufacturers stop maintaining them, or that schools are having a unified platform.
Let's get the old system straight.
The first thing before the change is to get a look at the old system. How many accounts, how many in use, how much balances are, what equipment is tied up, how the billing rules are matched and which systems have been connected. Many schools built old systems for years, with several shifts between them, files were long incomplete, but only in the system. The more detail this was done, the less unexpected it would be when moving. We saw the fact that there was a special set of accounts in the old system.
New and old systems in parallel
The risk is high that the old system will be shut down and the new system turned off. Once the new system is in trouble, there will be no backsliding of the entire school network. It would be prudent to keep the new system parallel: the new system will first take some buildings or some users, the old system will continue to carry the rest, observing the new system is unstable and data is not accurate, moving the user from the old system to the new one gradually. While the parallel period will require a combination of two systems, it offers room for a quick retreat. We suggest that the parallel period should not be too short, covering at least a full costing cycle, with monthly deductions, charging, reconciliations, all being tested in real environments and considering downlined old systems. The safe movement is when there are retreats.
Data migration needs to be cleaned and mapped.
Moving old system data to the new system is not simply a copy of pasting. The old system often accumulates a lot of dirty data: duplicate accounts, zombie accounts for school leavers, non-coherent room numbers, and unreciprocal historical records. These are all things that if they were moved to the new system, they would be taken away. A round of data cleansing before moving would be done to clear the apparently ineffective format and harmonize the format. We recommend that the migration be completed by a full reconciliation of data, especially balances and consumption records, in order to be able to match them on a case-by-case basis.
Switch window is selected for the net downhill
The window of time that really does the switch is always chosen when students use the net least. The low part of the dormitory network is usually early in the morning, and summer holidays are a perfect window. Avoid late peaks, avoid exam weeks, avoid web-intensive periods during school seasons or rely heavily on the network. Select pairing windows, even if the switching process has short network breaks, affects the least number of students. We have seen school maps change at 8:00 p.m., hit Internet peaks, and then a brief break is felt by countless students, complaining about it; we also see those who choose to cut in the morning or during vacation days, with little notice from the next day. The choice of switching windows determines directly the impression given to students at this conversion.
The old system doesn't have to be dismantled so quickly.
The new system has gone well, and it is not urgent to dismantle the old system. Historical data in the old system may be checked, financially correct, audited, for example, a year ago consumption records or reconciliations dating back to history. It would be more prudent to keep the old system for a read-only filing period, such as three months to six months without charge, but with data available. The resources that were saved by the rush to dismantle old systems often fell short of the data being searched later.
To switch to talk to students before and after
The purpose of the conversion is to make students feel less comfortable, but necessary communication cannot be avoided. Before switching, students are told through official channels that there may be a short network adjustment at some point in time, that there is a change in the way the new system is certified after being online or that the charge entrance is filled, and who will have problems finding it. If the authentication or the charge operation changes, the instruction is issued in time. Even if the whole process is smooth, the student knows that the school is doing the upgrade and knows that problems are under control, he/she is sure. We see the boring and uninformed schools where the certificate page has become so wrong that the phone calls are broken. The highest level of the transition is technologically seamless and tactile.
The main thing is to change the engine from an old system to a running car. Clearing the house, new and old parallels, cleaning maps, selecting windows, keeping files, and communicating. These steps are done, so that the replacement of the school dormitory Internet billing system can be done almost undetected by students. The highest point in migration is that no one has seen you changing the system since it was switched. Steady, more than ever, is important, especially with thousands of students who use the Internet every day.