Background:
A mid-sized manufacturing company was using Project Server 2012 to manage their projects. They had a large number of projects, resources, and users on the platform. The management team wanted to upgrade their system to the latest version, Project Server 2019, to take advantage of the new features, improved performance and security
Migration Challenges:
The migration project presented several challenges that needed to be addressed, including:
- Control: The client’s Project Server was managed by a third party, who could not extend all support whenever the client needed. There was no documentation of the implementation and the customisation. Support was ad-hoc and unreliable.
- Data Migration: The migration of project data from Project Server 2012 to Project Server 2019 was critical to the success of the project. The company needed to ensure that all project data was migrated accurately and without data loss.
- Customizations: The client had several customizations on their Project Server 2012 environment. The company needed to ensure that all customizations were migrated successfully to Project Server 2019.
- Integration: The client had several integrations with other applications, such as SharePoint and SAP, that needed to be tested and validated after the migration. Client did not have AD integration done for Project Server, which also had to be implemented.
- User Acceptance: The company needed to ensure that the new system was tested and validated by the users to ensure it met their needs and expectations.
Migration Approach & Solution:
To address the challenges, the client engaged PiOne, an authorized Microsoft Solution Provider with substantial experience in Project Server migrations. The following steps were taken:
- System Study: To understand the implementation complexity, customisation and the integrations, our team had spent 3 weeks to understand, document and freeze the requirements and the current state.
- Planning: The migration project was planned in detail based on the documentation, including timelines, milestones, and dependencies.
- Test Migration: PiOne team picked a couple of large projects and couple of small projects to initiate the test migration.
- Data Migration: With the success of these test migration, a thorough data migration plan was developed to ensure the rest of the project data was migrated accurately in discussion with the client stakeholders. We used both our internal tools and third-party apps to migrate the data, which helped to minimize data loss
- Customizations: All customizations were documented and tested in a test environment before being migrated to Project Server 2019.
- Integration: The integrations with SAP and other internal systems were tested and validated in a test environment to ensure they worked correctly after the migration
- User Acceptance: The new system was tested and validated by the users before being rolled out to the entire organization
Conclusion:
The migration of Project Server 2012 to Project Server 2019 was a successful with the appreciation of our client. The company was able to take advantage of the new features and improved performance of the latest version, and the project was completed without any major issues. PiOne’s ability to bring in the right expertise and matured team were critical to the success of the project.
