Kathryn Ripley is Head of Operations, part of her role was to manage the effective implementation and replacement of the old database with the Salesforce database.      

The Challenge

EveryChild faced significant issues with the old database, which led to them deciding to invest in a new system. As Kathryn explains:

“We realised that the database we had was reaching the end of its life and wasn’t fit for purpose any more. We had issues around stability and uptime, it was expensive to maintain, and we were struggling to get the information we needed to manage our supporter base effectively.”

“We knew that data migration would be a challenge because over the 10 years we’d been using the old system, what we did as a charity had moved on. We also had some workarounds with the old system, which meant that our data wasn’t as clean as it should have been.”

The main challenges of the migration were:

• Not to move the existing inaccuracies of the current system to the new system
• Run the migration in parallel with the Salesforce implementation project

Approach

Mast took an ‘Agile’ approach to the migration, first scoping the main types of data to be migrated and building a ‘backlog’ of tasks. As each part of the Salesforce configuration was completed, Mast then started working on the related tasks from the backlog.

“What I really liked about Mast was that they took a pragmatic approach,” Kathryn explained. “They were very results focused and concentrated on the end goal: to get the data we needed into Salesforce.”

Mast worked closely with the Salesforce consultancy, GiveClarity, on the implementation, to synchronise the delivery of the data migration with the configuration of the system.

“During each sprint, Mast would meet with EveryChild and come prepared with a list of questions or discussion points,” Kathryn continued. “They would then go away and populate Salesforce with the data for us to test.”

“This approach was effective for us. Instead of defining a lot up front, we just focused on discussing the areas that were next and not obvious. We appreciated Mast taking the initiative here.”

This flexible but controlled approach allowed EveryChild to keep track of progress and more importantly see what was left to complete. With Mast and GiveClarity.org working closely together the risks of the migration were reduced and any technical queries did not have be relayed or managed by EveryChild.

The Impact

Kathryn explains the difference the project has made for EveryChild:

“The clean data is a huge improvement. We’re now confident that our supporters are captured correctly and that we can communicate with them in the right way. We’re also not wasteful in our communications as we know we are only sending our communication to the right people.”

“In terms of being able to do the reports and analysis, it’s so much better. All fundraising staff can run reports and we are far more confident in what the reports are telling us, which helps us manage our supporter base better.”

Overall, this was a challenging migration, as Mast had to manage major changes in the Salesforce configuration and mapping as well as clean the data.

By not trying to map data until an area of functionality was configured, Mast did not waste time and reduced the amount of reworking throughout the project.

However, a flexible and agile approach meant they were able to adapt quickly and efficiently to minimise the impact of each change for EveryChild and save the organisation time and frustration with their complicated data migration.

“Mast were extremely easy to work with. They were very flexible, proactive, and an expert at what they did, so highly capable and competent. They gave us the solution we wanted and we felt all the way through that Mast were working with us to achieve what we wanted to achieve.”