Overview of Data Conversion

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) rigidly defines the exchange requirements for Financial Aid data. This enables Student Financial Aid (SFA) to use a delivered standardized set of code to quickly migrate data rather than requiring custom code for each school.

Oracle is focused on ensuring financial aid continuity for all students migrating from a legacy system to SFA.

Data conversion typically has a four phase lifecycle, exploration, planning, testing, and execution.

• Exploration: Review data requirements, foster understanding of data sources, and devise conversion strategy to minimize custom development for extracting data from legacy system(s).

• Planning: Establish cut-over plan and method; devise and refine strategy and time line for development, testing, and execution with consideration for student lifecycle and institutional requirements; for example, academic terms and end-of-life support for legacy systems.

• Testing: Perform testing and end-to-end dress rehearsals iterations to gain confidence in the data conversion process.

• Execution: Migrate students to SFA in accordance to the cut-over plan.