Road to CA

Everything is in place to begin Conversion #3 on Wednesday. Over the weekend Pete created a new conversion environment, leaving the conversion 2 environment around so that we can continue testing, training, and report writing there. Also over the weekend, we refreshed the data in bentest.

Today all the pre-processes were completed - doing any file manipulations we've learned are needed to get some old records to convert, creating all the BENCA files in the new bentest, and setting up the L1 groups.

While we aren't running this conversion as a mimic of live, we are using it to help us figure out timings and division of labor for the fourth - and thus, live - conversion. Todd is going to move her computer into my office for this run to reduce the time we spend wearing out the carpet between our offices and aid communication. If you happen to pass by Murray 105 in the next week or so, don't be surprised to see Todd and I feverishly running conversions with a stopwatch running in the background!

Our penultimate CA training session takes place this afternoon - Major Donors. Todd, Matt and I will once again convene in Murray 116 with our instructor on the telephone for this virtual classroom training.

We have a workbook the size of a dictionary, but only 4 hours of online training scheduled. Something tells me we won't be getting through the entire book in one afternoon!

In just under two weeks we will have our last training session, Planned Giving. After that, we should know all there is to know about Colleague Advancement!

Conversion 3 was completed in 4 working days, plus about a half day to run post-conversion processes. We had expected it to take about a week, so it looks like we are right on track.

Our goal for this conversion was to convert all valid data, and that goal was met. We were somewhat surprised by the number of errors that we encountered along the way - some errors that we had seen before but hadn't been fixed, but most new errors since the last conversion two months ago. We fixed these errors as we were converting, in order to meet our goal of leaving no data behind, which slowed us down a bit.

For the July test conversion and also the August live conversion, we plan to run a mini-conversion a week or two ahead of conversion, in order to find these errors and get them fixed when we aren't under pressure to get the conversion completely quickly.

Our computed columns for solving address ambiguities worked well in this conversion. For N1 (Other addresses) the modification to the computed columns that would map former addresses to former addresses and current to current worked better than expected. We were able to resolve all but 115 addresses at N1 with this technique.

Today Todd, Matt and I have our last CA training session - Planned Giving. This last training, like many others, takes place online. The three of us will gather in Murray 116 with a telephone nearby for this virtual classroom training.

For those counting, this marks the 14th CA training session or workshop we have participated in since Cohort F began in October:

• Three two-day sessions at Datatel in Fairfax, Virginia


• Two Collaboration and Custodianship telephone workshops


• Three webinars


• Four virtual classroom courses


• Two two-day on-site visits from Datatel

While our Datatel-led training is just about over, the real training is just beginning - getting those who will use CA in the Development Office up to speed on the new software. Todd and Matt have been preparing for this all along and have already started on training sessions with some of the staff.

We've completed three conversions and all of our Datatel-led training. So what's left to do in the 2-1/2 months between now and live conversion? Plenty! Here are some of the things we're working on now, or about to start.

• Reporting. Datatel delivers many good custom reports in CA, which we will be using. Todd has been identifying the reports we will still need to write, and prioritizing these. Our goal is to have the drop-dead reports ready to go on August 11th, and work on reports that aren't needed until later in the year after conversion is completed.
• Writing Computed Columns. To support these reports, many computed columns need to be written. Todd already has a start on that, but there's lots more to be done.
• Communications. We are beginning to create the documents needed for communications - receipts, acknowledgements, etc. A list was created of what we needed when Amy Huoy from Datatel was here last month, but the documents themselves still need to be created.
• Security. Security classes need to be defined and set up so that end users can access the parts of CA they need.
• Reviewing the Converted Data. We have reviewed much of the data that was brought over to CA in the test conversions. But we need the people who work with the data every day to get in there and take a look, too. If there are problems, they are the ones most likely to find them. Once found, we can address the issue before the next conversion, to avoid problems in the final product.
• End User Training. We are using the second conversion environment for training and testing. Some of this has begun, with more on the horizon.
• Data Cleanup. This is an ongoing process. While we have a good handle on dealing with address ambiguities, we'd rather not encounter them at all. While it may not be realistic to think we can eliminate all of them, we are using quiet moments to do as much clean up as we can. Every little bit helps!