TRUcompare Identifies Hidden Errors in Quality System

Overview

The client is a leading integrated global pharmaceutical company engaged in the development, manufacturing, marketing, sale and distribution of generic, brand and biologic pharmaceutical products.

Background and Objectives

Faced with a replacement project for its training manager system, based on the ISOtrain platform, the company knew that it needed to approach the migration effort with compliance in mind. It knew that the project would not be a small feat, as the system contained more than 2.4 million records. Reviewing several options, and after careful consideration, the company selected Sparta Systems’ Trackwise Training Manger as the replacement system. Because it was one of the first instances of this application in the company’s IT environment, the data import process needed to be refined from prior TrackWise implementations. The scope of the migration required active records to be moved to TrackWise Training Manager, and inactive records transferred to an archive system. The company had serious reservations about the feasibility of migrating ISOtrain data, as their in-house technology team did not understand the context of the data maintained in the ISOtrain Oracle environment.

Migration Challenges

In addition to its IT team’s limited ISOtrain data knowledge, the company’s migration project was riddled with challenges that posed significant risk if not addressed properly from the onset. First and foremost, the ISOtrain system was poorly documented, making it extremely difficult for the migration team to determine which records were active versus inactive.

Additionally, while the new target system, TrackWise Training Manager, was able to utilize Sparta Systems’ PR Import, the data import application did not support all of the required fields. Because of this limitation, the source-to-destination migration analysis had to identify those fields that PR Import would not support. For those fields, a direct write to the Oracle Instance for TrackWise had to be designed into the migration process.

The mappings were also complex, due to the significant difference between the source ISOtrain system and TrackWise Training Manager. Additionally, the data – which included foreign language characters – had to be standardized and cleansed. What’s more, efforts to design the import process, together with the migration of more than two million records, needed to be completed during the course of a weekend.

Valiance Solution

Faced with these challenges, the company knew that it would need the guidance of a proven expert in the field: a company that had not only completed migrations of this caliber for other highly regulated organizations, but also technology that could significantly streamline migration processes. Valiance Partners emerged as the top migration partner, due to a strong recommendation by Sparta Systems and its reputation in the industry.

An on-site proof of concept of Valiance’s TRUmigrate software and services convinced the client that it could meet all of the ISOtrain to TrackWise migration challenges. Valiance first performed a partial analysis of ISOtrain, mapped the data fields and configured an automated testing process for the client’s review. The TRUmigrate demonstration was done by configuration only, without custom coding or scripting needed.

Valiance also demonstrated the merits of its automated data migration testing software, TRUcompare, for validation purposes. During the demonstration of TRUcompare, Valiance invited the client to introduce random migration errors into the fold in an effort to force changes in the destination system without its knowledge. Without missing a beat, TRUcompare was able to identify each of the new errors – but that wasn’t all. During the demonstration, the technology also uncovered data-level problems previously unknown to the client. As expected, the client was astounded at the outcome, and as a result, decided to move forward and purchase TRUmigrate and TRUcompare software and services to drive the complex migration project.

Results

Similar to other migrations that Valiance software and services have been a part of, the client’s migration project was completed as intended, on time and within budget, and with the highest level of compliance in mind. One of the client’s main concerns with the migration was the poor documentation in ISOtrain. These fears were quickly erased when the Valiance migration team reviewed the Oracle schema and determined how to successfully map the ISOtrain data to TrackWise, a process that relied heavily on Valiance’s knowledge of similar systems.

For Valiance, the engagement resulted in yet another satisfied client. One of the best compliments a company can pay is through repeat business. For this client, the success of the ISOtrain to TrackWise engagement led to the subsequent use of TRUmigrate and TRUcompare for its Safety Data Management migration, from several legacy applications and hard copy to Oracle Argus. It’s clear that the client was able to experience first-hand the value that Valiance’s software and services provides for those facing complex migrations