ENABLING DISRUPTION-FREE CONTENT MIGRATION OF LINKED EXCEL SPREADSHEETS

Many companies seek to obtain the benefits of cloud computing by migrating user file shares to public platforms such as Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Box, Dropbox etc. While this is proven to be a worthwhile objective, it is a significant project and not without complications. For example, Excel files that are linked to other spreadsheets and/or data sources can be rendered inoperable when the file’s storage location is changed. These Excel files need special handling yet the sheer volume of files, often in the millions if not tens of millions, creates a challenge for the IT team in charge of content migration. Further exacerbating this challenge is that the average end user isn’t fully aware of which of their files have links. In summary, the average network drive is a black box and few people (if any) have a good understanding of the file composition/complexity therein.

Tackling this problem at scale can be readily accomplished with the use of high performance discovery tools. EUC DiscoveryTM can rapidly analyze the millions of files on a networked drive and provide insight into the extent of the Excel spreadsheet migration risk. Network drives can be prioritized in terms of their migration risk. This often correlates to certain departments with Finance usually having the highest risk. Once this segmentation is complete, systematic analysis of the higher risk files yields detailed information that enables the project team to resolve issues with the content teams in the line of business. With this actionable information, the more complex files with multiple data links can be identified for remediation (pre or post migration) and/or delayed. If Excel files are migrated to the cloud without any consideration of broken data links, significant business disruptions will almost certainly occur.

Disruption-free migration to cloud-based content management platforms

  • Secure scanning technology rapidly assesses where the high risk files are concentrated. Quantitative results show how many and where.

  • Excel files are systematically ranked for migration risk

  • Detailed categorization of data linkage including queries and both “absolute” and “relative” spreadsheet links

  • Actionable analytics for IT Infrastructure / file share migration team

  • Actionable analytics for line of business content owners