The system of billing for the WiFi network in our dormitory has not been installed once and for all. Three or five years have passed since equipment aged, students changed with Internet usage, school reconciliations were high, and upgrades are needed sooner or later. But promotion is most feared: thousands of students use it; you break the net and change bills and complaints flood the network center. We have done several replacement projects, and we have a core: upgrading can move the bottom but not let students experience and account.
Think about whether it's for the change or the promotion.
The first step is to distinguish between complete replacement and version upgrades. Some schools are just new versions of the billing platform, functional enhancement, data format compatibility, so that direct ups and bills are all there. Some schools are early-age manufacturers whose systems have been discontinued and must be replaced as a whole, so we need to move the data. We've seen them mixed: they're small upgrades, and they find the bottom incompatible, and they have to move overnight, and students are not connected for half a day.
Data migration is the biggest mine of all.
The change of systems is most feared for loss. Student balances, packages, historical bills, are real silver, and the move to one is a complaint plus a financial reconciliation. We move on the principle that the old system freezes writing, exports checks full, imports the new system in two-way matching, with zero-for-flowing differences. Leave a read-only copy of the old system during the migration, so that if the new system is faulty, we can check it back immediately. We usually recommend moving after holidays or examination weeks, avoiding web peaks and dividing buildings to a gray cut without cutting all the schools.
Greyscale cutting is more stable than a single.
The surest way to change is grayness. Pick one or two buildings for a week, with a new system, and look at the success rate of certification, bill accuracy, student feedback, and then expand to several schools. Even if there are hidden problems in the new system, the impact is kept small enough to return to the old system. We've seen confidence fill with a full school-wide speed limit strategy that has led to a miscalculation of a building in the new system, a whole night high-rise card, a telephone explosion. Slowness, but a good night's sleep, value.
You have to be as insensitive as you can.
The change of accounts, the set of meals, the way they are charged, the system changes. When we do our projects, we keep the student's self-help page entrances and authentication pages to avoid students thinking that they have a platform to re-read. The balance and bill can be found in the new system, and the old system is right for them to stay calm. And one thing: during the change of generation, no rules on calculating fees are changed, how many schools use upgrades to secretly price prices, and the students are slubbering. Upgrades, rules are different.
Keep the exit tunnel.
The new system is on the line for two weeks, the old system has a single-way back in place and data syncs are available. Once there are problems with the new system that can be solved, it can quickly lead back to the old system, allowing students to access the Internet and then look slowly. We have seen the old system down before we find out about its major flaws and the whole school is suspended.
I'm gonna have to do a full reconciliation after the replacement.
Finally, after the new system has stabilized, a full reconciliation must be made: balances frozen in the old system, amounts transferred, receipts and payments during the operation of the new system, three pairs. We suggest that the reconciliation report be issued every day for the first week following the replacement, confirming that there are no nominal differences in student balances and no duplicate billing charges. The reconciliation is done so that this change is actually closed. Many schools have been relaxed after the conversion, and financial records on certain types of meals are not matched a month later.
Old system data to archive
The data from the old system cannot be deleted once the replacement is complete and the new system has stabilized. We suggest that a read-only archive of accounts, bills, logs of the old system should be kept for a certain period of time. Financial audits may go back to history in the first instance, with a historical dispute over the new system in the event that it becomes unrecorded, archiving being the only recourse. Archiving is not garbage, but a base for school accounting and compliance.
We can't afford to have less training after the change.
The system changes, and the habits of the network centers and the customer service change. We've seen a successful transition, but the transport teacher has also mistook the new system’s strategy and failed it. So the replacement end must include a training round for use and transportation, which will bring back the new system, reconciliation, alarm, and retreat.