When IntelliData Consultants Became Team Members, SfN Reaped the Benefits

The core team at the Society for Neuroscience knew they had a monumental task ahead of them. They needed a new association management system (AMS) and had already started the process of selecting a new system. That was the easy part.

 They also had to migrate their data from one system to another. It sounded easy – after all, they had direct access to the AMS database, and they could pull and query any data that they needed. Several members of the core transition team, however, had experience with data migrations, and they understood the complexity and difficulty of the task they were facing.

The Society’s Success Complicated Its Data Migration Process 

One of the challenges to SfN’s data migration was the amount of data the Society had collected during its history. SfN has been in business since 1969 with the mission s to advance scientific exchange, support the neuroscience community, educate and engage the public, and advocate for the field.

 The newly formed Society met several unfilled needs for its members, and its growth was rapid. By the time SfN wanted to change management systems in 2019, it served nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries. Its annual meeting attracted more than 30,000 attendees, representing 80 countries. More than 536 companies exhibited during meetings, and almost 300 journalists covered the event. SfN also published two highly regarded, peer-reviewed journals. 

At the time of the AMS conversion, the Society also had more than 350,000 individual records and 12,000 company records, renewal billing and other sales history, as well as engagement records like committee membership, awards and speaking events. The new AMS would have to handle data for all of those constituencies, and records had to be transferred from one system to another.

SfN knew they had to consider the massive data transfer at the time of the conversion, but they also had to accommodate new data that would be created in the coming years. The Society was growing and it needed an AMS that could handle the load.

Making the Decision to Hire Outside Help

When the SfN team started thinking about their data, they knew from previous experience that they simply did not have the bandwidth or expertise to do it efficiently. They needed an analyst and a programmer who understood their business processes and could help them determine what data needed to be migrated. Furthermore, they needed to clean up their data, map it appropriately, and ensure a smooth migration to the new AMS. 

 SfN turned to IntelliData because of previous experience working with the company.

“The Society first worked with IntelliData when we were going through some staff changes and needed extra help. We built up a good amount of trust at that time, so it was natural for us to turn to Denny and his team for this project.” – Scott Moore, SfN’s Director of Technology Services

 Denny Lengkong, President of IntelliData, had built his company exactly for this purpose. As a data solutions company, data migration is one of IntelliData’s specialties. His team had created a process that could be tailored to each client’s unique requirements, and that helped the client make decisions about their data in a systematic way. By following the process, SfN was able to answer critical questions about how their data would look and interact in the new AMS.

 “There were lots of moving parts,” Egle Derkintyte, SfN’s Director of Information Strategy & Business Analysis and Project Manager for the AMS conversion, said.

“We had so many systems that were previously integrated that we needed to make all these decisions as we went through the process.”

“Fortunately,” she continued, “IntelliData had a process to follow, and it helped us get our staff onboard with this project.”

Getting the SfN Staff Ready to Move

SfN staff, of course, had their own jobs to do, but the data migration team needed their help to decide how their data should be handled.

 “IntelliData’s spreadsheets were very clear and showed inconsistencies in the data. We used them as conversation starters so we would have concrete results to discuss, not just vague questions about clean data.” – Egle Derkintytle, Director of Information Strategy & Business Analysis and Project Manager for the AMS Conversion.

Moving to a new AMS is like moving to a new house, Lengkong said. “When you’re getting ready to move, you purge items you no longer need. That’s what SfN did in this conversion.”

 But, he said, the team had to get buy-in from the SfN staff. By following the IntelliData process, SfN was able to identify and discard information that was no longer useful. That type of housekeeping helped keep the database size of the new AMS to a minimum and reduced the data storage cost.

 “We just didn’t have the ability to manually flag data issues like duplicate records,” Nikhil Deepak, SfN Data Systems Specialist, said. “IntelliData created an algorithm that gave us a duplicate record score to use as a baseline. Using that, we could sort true duplicates from accurate records.”

Project Timeline & Staffing

The team began in late 2019 with the AMS selection. SfN knew that the conversion would not be a simple one- or two-month project.  Derkintyte served as project manager and allowed a year for the data migration alone.

By March 2020, it was clear that the project would be complicated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The silver lining of that dark cloud, however, was the pandemic provided months of relative quiet, so the migration team was able to concentrate on the conversion – working from home, of course. The team met the go-live date exactly on schedule.

 IntelliData embedded two of its team members into the SfN migration team. They were available to answer questions and help make decisions.

“At one point, we were copying them on any question we had because they had become like part of our staff. They had such a good understanding of our system that we trusted their judgement. They really helped us stay on track.” – Nikhil Deepak, Data Systems Specialist, Society for Neuroscience

Would SfN Hire IntelliData Again?

Scott Moore said, “The old saying is that you’ll never get fired for buying IBM. Denny and his team are the best. You won’t ever regret hiring them.”

 Egle Derkintyte agreed. “They were committed to helping us manage a smooth transition. Being on the same level made hard days easier, and it helped that they could make a joke when we needed one.”

 SfN even gave IntelliData high marks for invoice integrity. “One non-technical thing that I can mention,” Moore said, “is that we had no financial disputes during the project, and that can’t be overrated.”

 Denny Lengkong said that understanding the client’s frustrations comes from years of experience. “We’ve done this so many times, and we’ve seen the stress they’re under. We try to make the process as easy as possible.”

Final Advice

SfN works with a large staff, but they know when they need help. With a large project like an AMS conversion, most associations need expert guidance. Moore said his best advice was “don’t try to do it yourself.” 

Derkintyte’s advice is this: “Surround yourself with experts. Data migration of a large AMS is not the time to cut corners. We hired a consultant to help with the project and IntelliData to help with data migration. We had a strong implementation team and committed stakeholders.”