Moving old software to new online systems (like the cloud) is important in today’s tech world. We’ve already talked about why this move is good and what it means in our big guide. Now, let’s see how it’s actually done.
Welcome to “Legacy Software Migration in Action”. Think of this as a step-by-step tour, showing you how things work in real life. By the end, you’ll see how our big guide plays out in the real world.
Ready? Let’s dive in and see how it’s done!
The Need to Migrate
For this illustration, let’s dive into a tool many businesses use – the spreadsheet. As highlighted in our comprehensive guide, one major concern is “limited scalability.” But why does a spreadsheet fit this description?
Well, spreadsheets often stumble upon multiple challenges:
- Errors: A minor oversight in a cell can lead to significant miscalculations across the sheet.
- Validation Issues: There’s no built-in check in spreadsheets, making it easy to enter incorrect data.
- Security Concerns: Sharing spreadsheets, sometimes even accidentally, can expose sensitive data.
Benefits of Shifting from Spreadsheets to Cloud Systems
Leaving behind our old spreadsheet ways and moving to the cloud has some pretty cool perks. Based on the insights from our main guide, here’s how our business can get better:
- Stay Quick and Nimble: With the cloud, our business can change and grow fast. If the market or our customers need something new, we can adapt swiftly.
- Keep Our Data Safe: Cloud systems have strong safety features, so our business’s data stays protected from threats.
- Happy Customers: Cloud systems work smoothly and are always on. This means our customers get a better experience, which makes them happier!
- Better Teamwork: Even if our team is spread out in different places, the cloud helps everyone work together in real-time. This makes getting things done faster and easier.
- Save Money: By moving to the cloud, we can cut down some costs. No need to spend as much on taking care of old systems or updating them.
The Plan
Evaluation and Assessment:
What are we working with?
- Current System: We’ve got a spreadsheet with years of data, formulas, and maybe even some colorful charts.
- Business Needs: We want a tool where many people can work at once without errors. We need to make sure it’s safe, it can grow with our business, and everyone can access it from anywhere.
- Outcome: We understand that our spreadsheet can’t do all this. It’s time to find a cloud solution that can.
Planning:
Making a Game Plan
- Strategy: We need a game plan for moving our spreadsheet to the cloud. This includes deciding on when and how we’ll make the move.
- Choosing a Provider: There are many cloud services out there. Which one fits our needs best? For this example we are going to move to a low code builder called Knack.
- Preparing: Before the big move, we should be ready for any surprises. Maybe we need to clean up our data or tell our team what’s happening.
Execution:
Making the Move
- We are going to learn the low-code builder ‘Knack’ or hire an agency to build it for us.
- Moving Data: It’s like moving houses, but for our data. We’ll take all the info from our spreadsheet and put it into our new cloud system. Knack makes this easy by allowing us to import our spreadsheet
- Implementing User Authentication: After importing all our data, we can proceed to craft a ‘Page’ by choosing it from the sidebar. This allows us to activate user access.
- Displaying Our Data: we can represent our data visually by integrating a data grid into our newly created page.
- Enhancing the Application with Features: Based on what the project needs, we can make our application even better by adding things like forms and charts.
Conclusion:
So, moving from old systems to new ones might seem hard, but step by step, it’s not too bad. We showed you how using a simple spreadsheet example. If you want to learn even more, take a look at our other blog called “A Comprehensive Guide to Legacy Software Migration: Transitioning to the Cloud.” These two articles will give you a complete picture. Keeping up with new tech helps your business do better. Let’s keep moving forward and try out new things!