60-Second Guide · 14

Is a Successful Data Migration Just a Record Count?

Verify values, metadata, signatures, attachments, relationships, access, and retrievability instead of relying only on matching totals.

Author
Sandip Thorat
Published
12 September 2026
Last reviewed
12 September 2026
Duration
About 1 minute
Content type
Video learning
Topics
Data migration · Reconciliation · Electronic records

Transcript

Matching counts can still hide failure

Suppose ten thousand C A P A records leave a legacy E Q M S and ten thousand arrive in the new system. The counts match, but attachments may link to the wrong parent, units may transform incorrectly, approval history may be incomplete, and signature meaning may disappear.

Combine totals with record-level evidence

Use approved mapping, control totals, field reconciliation, transformation checks, exception review, and risk-based sampling. Verify critical signatures, audit history, metadata, attachments, and record relationships. Retrieve representative open, closed, old, large, and unusual records using the roles that will operate and inspect the archive.

Preserve meaning, not only rows

The migration summary should explain the population, executions, totals, sampling basis, exceptions, deviations, retained limitations, and retrieval result. Record counts are useful, but they are one control. Successful migration means the required record remains complete, accurate, linked, accessible, and interpretable.