Success Story

Legacy Cloud System Migration

Legacy Cloud system migration

NSW ACT IEU (Independent Education Union) Legacy Cloud system migration
Challange
IEU logo

The client, the NSW ACT IEU, is a union for all staff working in non-government schools and private business and English colleges, and for teachers working in private and community-based early childhood centres throughout NSW and the ACT. A twenty-year-old legacy system was being used to manage memberships for their 30,000 members.

The legacy membership system was a critically important asset, underpinning the membership process, data storage and revenue management for the organisation. The system had many limitations, however. It was incompatible with new technology, expensive to maintain and at increasing risk of failure. It was straining to handle the demands required of it and regularly failing, which was frustrating for staff and adversely impacting productivity. It also required separate installation on each desktop computer and when problems occurred, there was a heavy reliance on the one developer who knew how to maintain the system. The availability of ongoing support for maintenance of a system of this kind was also dwindling.

The existing system held twenty years of membership data and preservation of this was a paramount concern. Many members of the NSW ACT IEU move in and out of employment and it is vital to retain long-term information to ensure data is complete and to avoid the complication of inadvertently creating duplicate records. The NSW ACT IEU also sought to minimize change management issues and wanted any new system to be comfortable for existing users to work with.
NSW ACT IEU approached stSoftware in late 2009 seeking a solution.

Solution

stSoftware’s expertise is in converting legacy systems to web-based (Cloud) applications, enhancing the critical core business functions and sustainability of our clients’ operations. By being cloud-based, its system is accessible from any location using any internet-enabled device. In early 2010, stSoftware began working on tailoring a solution. This solution also included successfully migrating two decades worth of data to the new web-based membership system. The new cloud-membership system also replaced many other disparate IEU systems, centralising all data into one easily accessible resource. The new system was launched in April 2011.

Result

A survey conducted with primary users in September 2011 indicated that converting their old legacy system into stSoftware’s Cloud-based technology had generated significant improvements. These included:

Summary

Overall, the NSW ACT IEU has benefited by having: