Frequently Asked Questions

It's the process of extracting every document, metadata field, annotation, and audit trail entry from a legacy content management system and loading it into a modern platform — without losing anything. Organizations do this when their current system hits end-of-life, maintenance costs become unsustainable, or they need capabilities (cloud access, modern search, mobile) that the legacy platform will never have.

A straightforward single-system migration (a few hundred thousand documents, clean metadata) runs 4 to 8 weeks. Multi-system consolidations with millions of documents, complex metadata, COLD data, and annotation layers take 3 to 6 months. The biggest timeline drivers are metadata complexity, annotation handling, and how clean the source data is — not raw document volume. We give you a realistic timeline after Discovery, not a sales estimate.

It depends on scope — document volume, number of source systems, metadata complexity, annotation handling, and compliance requirements all factor in. We don't quote off a rate card. After a Discovery engagement (usually 1-3 weeks), we provide a detailed fixed-price estimate or time-and-materials structure. Initial consultations are free, and we can give you a ballpark range after a single conversation about your environment.

Yes, and we build it into every project. We run role-specific sessions — end users, power users, and admins each get training relevant to what they actually do. Training uses your real migrated data, not demo content. We also come back after go-live for follow-up sessions once your team has had time to work in the new system and surface real questions.

We work at the database and storage level of ECM platforms, not just their APIs. Most IT firms use vendor-provided export tools, which miss COLD data, annotations, and complex metadata relationships. We reverse-engineer the internals — proprietary storage formats, undocumented table structures, binary annotation data — because that's where the content actually lives. A generalist firm will move the easy 80%. We move all of it.

Alongside. Your IT team knows your business systems, network infrastructure, and organizational requirements. We know the ECM internals. The best migrations happen when both teams collaborate — your people handle environment access, security, and stakeholder coordination while we handle extraction, transformation, and loading.

Checksum verification on every document. Field-by-field metadata comparison between source and target. Automated reconciliation reports with document counts, page counts, and exception logs. We don't sample — we validate the entire repository. Your source system stays untouched and fully operational until we can prove, with documented evidence, that every item transferred correctly.

They come with. Annotation formats are proprietary to each platform — ApplicationXtender stores them differently than OnBase, which stores them differently than Documentum. We extract annotation data at the binary level, not through export utilities that flatten or lose them. Depending on the target system, we either convert to the native annotation format, burn them into a rendered layer while preserving the original, or both. Redactions are always preserved as permanent, irreversible markings. We show you samples before running the full migration.

Workflows can't be copied between platforms — every ECM system has its own workflow engine, rules format, and integration model. What we do is document every existing workflow (triggers, routing, approvals, notifications), then rebuild them on the target platform using its native tools. Most clients find this is an opportunity to clean up workflows that accumulated years of workarounds. We also migrate in-flight work items and task history where the target platform supports it.

This is where we earn our reputation. Homegrown and niche systems lack documented APIs and standardized export tools, so we reverse-engineer the database schema and file storage structure, then build custom extraction tooling from scratch. We've migrated content from systems that other vendors flat-out refused. If your data is in a database and a file system, we can get it out — regardless of what application put it there.

All of them. PDF, PDF/A, single and multi-page TIFF (including Group 4), Microsoft Office, Outlook MSG/EML, JPEG, PNG, BMP, CAD drawings, DICOM medical images, XML, HTML, plain text — we transfer files in their native format without conversion unless you specifically request it. If your repository contains unusual or legacy formats, we identify them during Discovery and handle them appropriately. We don't skip what we don't recognize.

We run the bulk migration while your legacy system stays fully operational — your users keep working as normal. Extraction runs during off-peak hours to minimize system load. The only disruption is a brief cutover window at the end when the legacy system goes read-only, and we work with your team to schedule that during the lowest-impact period possible. Most users experience zero downtime.

We inventory everything: document types, volumes, metadata schemas, annotation types, workflow configurations, retention policies, and compliance requirements. We query the source database directly to get real numbers — not estimates from the vendor console, which are often wrong. We interview stakeholders to understand business dependencies. Discovery takes 1 to 3 weeks and ends with a detailed assessment, migration strategy, timeline, and cost estimate. No surprises later.

We recommend it for most projects. Phased migration — by department, document type, or date range — lets us catch issues early, gives each group time for user acceptance testing, and keeps risk contained. The first phase also builds confidence across the organization before we move higher-stakes content. We work with you to determine the right sequencing based on your priorities and compliance constraints.

Your source system is never modified or decommissioned until migration is fully validated — your original data is always there as a fallback. Every phase has rollback procedures and go/no-go checkpoints. Our tooling monitors in real time and quarantines problem documents automatically rather than halting the entire job. In practice, the most common "issues" are data quality problems that already existed in the source system — missing metadata, orphaned records, corrupt files — and we surface those early so they can be resolved properly.

We don't disappear after go-live. Every project includes a hypercare period with priority response times, system monitoring, and issue resolution for any migration-related anomalies. We provide follow-up training, guidance on legacy system decommissioning, and complete documentation of the migration — mapping rules, transformation logic, validation reports — so your internal team has a full record of what was done. Optional ongoing managed services are available if you want long-term support.

You get reconciliation reports that cover every document — not a sample. Document counts, page counts, file sizes, checksum verification, and field-by-field metadata comparison between source and target. We also provide error and exception reports for anything that required special handling, plus side-by-side sample comparisons your team can review independently. These reports are formatted for internal review, regulatory audits, and long-term record-keeping. You'll know it's right because the data proves it.