Checklist: Document Management / Practice Management Migrations

We have worked on all sorts of software migrations, and have seen the good and the bad. We provide consulting services for software selection, project management, implementations and more. Our outsourced IT plans include a CIO to manage your vendors as well. Talk to one of our CIOs to get an idea how we can help. Meanwhile, here are a few tips to ensure a successful project:

  • While identifying potential software

    • Involve your IT team day one. There are technical requirements you may not be aware of, or unscrupulous consultants and sales people that omit important details. IT may not be needed in every meeting, but they will provide valuable input that will save you headaches through the process.

    • Select a few key users, and everyone keep a daily list of what features you use. Ensure that the new product(s) include those features (sometimes they may cost extra!) and that they’re on the implementation checklist.

    • The biggest complaint we hear about practice management is reporting. When identifying your key reports, also have the vendor walk you through how they are created, managed and generated as well. One popular cloud product charges as much as $1500 to setup a new report, which can get expensive quickly.

  • While negotiating the contract and scope

    • What data is going to be migrated? Be as specific as possible. “Documents” is not a good answer for example. Instead it should be “all documents contained in our current DMS from 2005 on wards, including the associated metadata”.

    • The same concept goes for feature implementation. We recently saw a practice management implementation completed without trust accounting because “no one told us you need it”.

    • Look at scope very carefully, and if possible make sure that any out of scope work requires written approval first. These types of implementations are notorious for surprise supplemental bills. We have seen many horror stories, such as a consultant promising features and then charging the client to demo the required add-on product mid-implementation!

    • Make sure your team will be available. Nothing derails a project faster than waiting on the client to provide critical information.

  • During implementation

    • Establish a regular cadence. There should be a regular status report meeting (typically weekly) involving all key parties. The vendor/consultant should have someone in that meeting who is an actual decision maker. Be concerned if its just a junior project manager reading off a spreadsheet.

    • Set milestones through the project, preferably tied to payment (unless you’re able to only pay upon full completion). These projects are never quick, and you need to ensure the implementation team is moving at a good pace. Have service level agreements (SLAs) written into the agreement for implementation. Often times consultants and support get overloaded, and you may be “implemented” but still waiting on key reports to be built months later. Every key task should have a firm timeline, with penalties for missing the target dates.

Dustin Bolander