When Migrating to Oracle Cloud from another system, determining which reports should be recreated can be a monumental task. Oftentimes it’s not immediately clear which reports will need to be recreated in the new Cloud system and which reports will not need to be migrated. Below, we discuss recommended steps to help your team decide which Cloud reports to develop.
Steps to decide which Cloud reports to develop
1. Compile an inventory of current reports in any module areas that will be migrated to Cloud and identify Subject Matter Experts that understand the organization’s current reporting inventory.
We strongly discourage recreating all reports that are present in the current system. Creating the inventory of current reports can be a good starting point in understanding the organization’s current needs and what kind of effort will be required going forward.
2. Create a reporting tracker template that will house any reports that will need to be developed. We suggest creating a template with the following columns:
- Module Area
- Priority
- Report Name
- Report Description
- Subject Matter Expert
- Report Developer
- Report Status
- Cloud Location
- Delivered Report Available
Additional columns can be added, but we have found maintaining a spreadsheet and populating the above columns for each report is a very helpful tool which in providing data points that can be used to monitor scope and report development progress as well as assist in prioritization and tracking.
3. Using the inventory in Step 1, identify any reports that are required by the government or other regulatory agencies (such as reports required for State and Federal Quarterly tax filings) and add these to the reporting tracker.
(Note that it is recommended to use delivered reports/functionality, if possible, in order to meet reporting requirements. Oracle Cloud provides many delivered reports required for regulatory reporting such as EE0-1 and Vets-4212. In addition to the delivered reports there are analytics and dashboards created for each module as well as many work areas where data can be exported from the page. Keep in mind that the successful use of certain delivered reports will require certain configuration and data to be in place).
4. Work with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to identify additional high-priority reports on current inventory that would be needed regardless of system and design. Track these in a reporting tracker as well.
5. Continue to work with SMEs to identify new reporting requirements based on how the Oracle Cloud system is being configured and how future state processes will work during the design phase of your implementation.
Track these in the reporting tracker with a priority level based on SME’s. Keep in mind that based on variances between Cloud and legacy system, new reporting requirements will likely be identified and current reports may not be needed at all.
In addition, reporting needs often ebb and flow, but having a reporting team that is skilled in the Oracle Cloud reporting tools and understands the tables/data structure will lead to a smoother implementation. We recommend that reporting resources are identified early in the implementation and are trained in Cloud reporting tools such as BI Publisher and OTBI (more on those here) and work with functional partners to understand Cloud data.
Report creation is dependent on design so starting development on conversion and data validation reports with functional guidance can give reporting resources hands-on experience with Oracle Cloud data. Additional activities for the reporting resources can be creating mapping documentation between legacy data and Cloud data.
Navigating your Cloud migration can be a tricky process even for the most informed SMEs. For more information on how Elire can help with your Oracle Cloud migration, visit our Cloud services page here and download our informational one sheet.