The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), Britain’s largest workplace pension scheme, was initiated by the UK government in 2010 due to pension reforms and the implementation of ‘The Pensions Act 2008’.
NEST outgrew its existing financial system, SAGE200, and wanted to transition to Xledger to enhance reporting and achieve more detailed financial data analysis.
To ensure accurate, quality, and consistent data transfer while minimising business disruptions, we were asked to help NEST migrate its data to the new system within three months from initiation.
This process included the complex translation of different data streams to meet the enhanced reporting requirements of the new financial system.
We used rules-based migrations (instead of manual ones) to ensure reliability and repeatability at any point. By pre-loading information into the live environment prior to the cutover, we reduced the amount of time needed for the actual cutover.
The migration required the translation of information provided by NEST in the form of mapping tables, which translated transactions from the old system into the new Chart of Accounts, including complex text analysis.
We identified any mapping detail issues early to give NEST more time to resolve them. Meanwhile, we concentrated on data streams without issues, allowing us to design, build, and load data streams ready for testing, while NEST addressed the identified issues with the other data streams.
The primary tool used for the data migration was our AIM ETL (Accounting Interface Module, Extract Translate Load) tool. This rule-based desktop tool was used to extract data from SAGE200, transform it into the format required by Xledger, translate codes, validate the data, and upload it into the new system.
Using our solution, we conducted test loads for all data streams. Any issues identified were quickly resolved by adjusting the rules, thanks to the repeatable translation process we had established at the beginning of the project.
We also performed several rounds of rule testing until NEST received its desired outcome. NEST remained on schedule and successfully went live with the new Xledger system, with the translation of the data they required for reporting purposes.
“Just want to say a big thank you to you and the team for all the help and support, I particularly remember the PO migration where we had to rewrite the entire spec and rework the migration route, both of you worked weekends or late evenings and shared our goal, passion and speed to deliver. There were also instances where the mapping wasn’t consistent, and you helped us clarify our asks.
Working with you felt like working with one of us in the team and we wouldn’t have gone live on the scheduled date without your support and commitment. As the implementation lead, I am very grateful, we could just trust that whatever you set to deliver will be delivered and focus on other areas.”
Shubnah Sanjeevan, Financial Planning and Analysis Manager, NEST Corporation.