If you are going to move from one human resources management system to another, you will need to transfer data somehow from the old system to the new one. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new here. The topic of this article is to discuss what items will import into the new system easily and which items may not import or, at the least, not import easily. Importing of the data is pretty important considering the time and effort it takes to manually input information into a new human resource management system. How much time and effort would it take to have to manually input just 10 fields of data for every individual employee record of a 500 employee organization? The bottom line is, don’t assume all the data in your old human resources management system will import into your new system.

The Easy stuff to transfer over to your new Human Resources Management System

Single field items such as name, address, pay rate, department, supervisor…. Etc, should all easily transfer. To transfer this data, the human resource management system (HRMS) implementation consultant will need a report to include this desired transfer data. You may be able to run the report internally, your program may have an export feature included, or you may have to rely on the vendor to provide the detail. Once the report, or export file, is created importing this data is pretty easy. It’s really just a question of placing round pegs from your old system into the round holes in your new system. Remember, it’s important to make sure every possible field is transferred to the new system. The alternative of manually entering any information makes this perhaps the most important agenda item for a HRMS system implementation.

Human Resources Management System Data Transfer challenges

Now on to the hard stuff! As I mentioned above, the single field data is easy. The challenge comes from human resource management system data that is calculated from numerous fields. Examples might include history, benefits data, and leave accruals. These items are most likely calculated items based on several fields of data and the new system will very likely not handle the same calculations as your old system. What does this mean? Well, it means that the data may not transfer or that a custom program must be developed to import this information. On more than one occasion, I saw a client keep the old system just for the history files since the data would not transfer over to the new product.

Before you sign the contract with a potential vendor, make sure you have discussed the import of data from your old product to your new human resource management system. Find out exactly what will and, more importantly, what will not transfer into your new human resource management system. If custom programming is required, it needs to be included in the proposal and the implementation scope. This is one of those tips that can save your company a tremendous amount of time and effort. I hope it helps.