Changing property management software is a real challenge, and assistance with the migration is essential if you are to successfully complete the project.
You're ready! The software publisher has been selected, your needs have been expressed, it is time to start managing the project. While changing the software will considerably improve your employees' performance, it will also change their habits and company processes. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to several sensitive points in order to carry out the transformation successfully and smoothly.
The software publisher will propose a retro-planning in several steps that will be more or less long depending on their complexity: initial data audit, pre-migration, product customization according to the agency's needs, migration, training, support. During all these stages, the team in place will be the publisher's relay point and will ensure, at the same time, the communication around this project to the other employees of your company.
Transferring data from old software to new software, in other words, “migration”, is an important step when you change software. As with a move, this stage of preparing for migration is a time for sorting out and organizing! The duration of data recovery itself varies according to the volume of data that needs to be recovered. On average, it takes between 1 and 3 days. To reduce this delay as much as possible, it is essential to check, prior to the migration, the dates of the end of the mandate, of rental leases and of the trustee contracts. But also, to check the balances and the amounts held on tenant and supplier accounts...
This means that certaing data, whose historical records are no longer useful, will not be included in the new software. In the case of a portfolio session, it is essential to ask the publisher about how to retrieve this data.
Before moving on to the migration, a volume of data analysis will be carried out (number of rental management lots, number of condominium lots under trustee, etc.).
Data recovery can be done in 3 different ways:
Please note that automatic migration does not correct the data; all the information will be reproduced identically on the new software.
Before deploying the new software, it is important to plan the change in technical equipment (computer, printer, check reader, network scanner, etc.) to ensure that it will work with the new tool. To do this, the software publisher is in a position to provide the required technical characteristics. You can also ask them to provide you with the equipment best suited to their solution.
During the deployment of the software, production can be interrupted from about one to three days. However, the old software must be accessible in read-only mode to be able to respond to clients. In order not to waste this time of inactivity, you could plan employee training.
During the data migration, the publisher will train your employees in the new software. The aim is to enable them to make the most of business functionalities. The trainer will guide each employee in setting up their application and will adapt the tool to the agency's operating mode. Each session will be set up according to the user's profile. Only certain company employees will have access to all the data and will be able to create, modify or delete it.
At the end of the training, and according to your needs, the publisher must commit to providing training follow-up throughout the period the software will be used. You will be offered continuous and tailor-made support in order to be able to answer questions employees may have about the software. It is also important to check that a quality support service is set up at the publisher and accessible over an extended time frame, responding to the opening hours of the real estate agency.
