Scenario:
You wish to migrate an existing DocuWare On-Premise system to the Cloud.
Solution:
The first task to be completed before starting the migration is to upgrade the on-premise DocuWare system to the same version as the Cloud.
Always download the latest DocuWare update to ensure that you have all the latest patches.
There are no scripts that will replicate the On-Premise system in the Cloud. Almost all of the migration of the DocuWare system and workflows has to be completed manually.
- Users can be synchronized from Active Directory or LDAP if that is being used in the On-Premise system.
- Forms can be exported and re-imported to the Cloud.
- File Cabinet settings can be exported and re-imported to the Cloud.
- All workflows can be exported and re-imported to the Cloud. (Only applicable for Versions 7.4 or higher)
- Document Processing configurations can be exported and then imported into the Cloud.
- Export Data configurations can be exported and then imported into the Cloud
The suggested order of replicating the On-Premise system follows:
- Replicate Groups, Roles, and Function Profiles.
- Replicate Users.
- Export and import File cabinet settings.
- Replicate Public Stamps. (Note: that Private Stamps must be re-created by the owner of the stamp).
- Export and Import Forms.
- Replicate all Capture configurations.
- Replicate all Workflows to be used in the Cloud.
- Replicate all other configuration settings as required.
- Transfer or Synchronize documents.
Plan whether to Transfer or Synchronize documents.
Synchronization:
Designed to keep 2 or more file cabinets in ‘sync’ by optionally transferring new and changed documents between those cabinets. Synchronization also has a mirror option, which can be used to send new and changed documents in one direction only. For a migration from on-premise to the Cloud, the mirror option is the best choice.
Pro's:
- Keeps a relationship between the source documents and the target documents.
- Can be re-run as many times as required if documents are changed in the on-premise system.
Con's:
- Cannot be used with file cabinets that are version control enabled.
Deleting documents in the target cabinet.
If a Sync job is run to copy documents to the cloud, and documents are deleted in the cloud cabinet, then those documents can no longer be synchronized to the cloud again. The reason for this is that that the deleted documents are flagged so that they are not re-synchronized.
The important thing to remember is that you cannot perform a sync and then decide to delete all the documents in the cloud and start over.
Transfer:
Designed to copy or move documents from one file cabinet to another.
Pro’s:
- Quite fast rates of transfer can be achieved with Transfer as it does not do any source and target comparisons. (Depending on document size, number of pages etc.).
- The ability to delete the source documents after a successful transfer provides an effective means of avoiding duplicates and fail-safe restart of the transfer.
Con’s:
- Because there is no relationship between the source and target documents it is possible that duplicate documents are created in the target file cabinet if the Transfer job is restarted or re-run. Transfer does not keep a record of what is transferred. If the “Delete source document” option is not used, then an effective filter must be implemented in the transfer configuration.
- Changes made to documents in the source cabinet after the transfer will not appear in the target cabinet. Re-transfer of those documents is required.
Suggested Do’s and Don’ts:
In general:
- Do take a proper full backup of the on-premise database and file system before migrating a file cabinet.
- Do check all custom date fields for correct dates before commencing a Synchronization or Transfer if the on-premise system database is MySQL. The reason for this is that MySQL does not check the validity of a date apart from it being newer than 01/01/0001. The DocuWare Cloud databases are Microsoft Azure and will not accept any date older than 01/01/1753. Any mistyped dates older than 1753 will fail to Synchronize or Transfer.
- Do check the field mappings between the source and target file cabinets to be sure that all index values are correctly synchronized/transferred. This is critical if the cloud cabinet has been created manually.
When using Synchronization:
- Do not delete documents in the cloud file cabinet. Those documents will not be able to be re-synchronized.
- Do not (where possible) allow storage of new documents to avoid having to run multiple sync jobs on one cabinet.
- Do restrict users to read-only in the on-premise file cabinet.
If a user is editing a document when the Synchronization tries to access it, the document will be skipped.
When using Transfer:
- Do not allow any storage of new documents in the on-premise system.
- Do not allow the on-premise server to be updated or rebooted during a transfer. A Transfer that does not flag itself as complete (either by error or success) will restart automatically. This will result in duplicate records in the cloud cabinet.
- Do restrict users to read-only in the on-premise file cabinet being transferred. If a user is editing a document when the Transfer tries to access it, the document will be skipped.
- Do use the “Delete source document” option to avoid duplicate records and provide a simple fail-safe method of restarting the job. This option also makes it easy to list all documents that did not transfer. A full backup is critical when using this option.
Auditing a Transfer:
There are situations where for various reasons it is not possible or desirable to use the “Delete source document” option when transferring documents. In this situation, great care must be exercised to ensure that duplicate documents are not created, and that it is possible to isolate any documents that do not transfer so the cause can be corrected.
Note that this method of controlling the transfer is quite technical and requires constant monitoring of the transfer progress. Attention to detail is also imperative.
To achieve an auditable transfer, we must create a relationship between the source documents and the new document in the cloud.
Create 2 new fields in the on-premise cabinet
ORIGDOCID type NUMERIC
TRANSFERRED type TEXT
- Create the same fields in the Cloud cabinet.
- Create an AutoIndex job to transfer the Doc Id to the ORIGDOCID field in the on-premise cabinet.
- Create the Transfer job, ensuring that the ORIGDOCID is correctly mapped from the on-premise to the cloud file cabinet.
- Set a filter on the transfer job to only transfer documents where the TRANSFERRED field is EMPTY.
- Run the transfer.
If the transfer fails or ends with un-transferred documents, do not re-run it until an audit has been performed.
Performing the Audit:
- Execute a global retrieval in the Cloud cabinet and output the result list to csv.
- Set up a file connection to the CSV file in the on-premise system.
- Create an AutoIndex workflow to iterate the CSV file and match the ORIGDOCID in the CSV to the Doc Id in the on-premise file cabinet.
- When a match is found, write a fixed entry into the TRANSFERRED field. The entry can by anything you wish - for example the current date.
- Now, you can perform a search in the on-premise cabinet where TRANSFERRED is EMPTY() and inspect the documents that did not transfer for possible reasons.
The transfer can now be re-run without the possibility of duplicates. Again, if it fails, you must repeat the audit steps to update the TRANSFERRED flag on newly transferred documents before re-running the transfer.
KBA applicable for both Cloud and On-premise Organizations
