Migrating a Deltek platform from an on-premises environment to the cloud does more than modernize technology—it improves scalability, enhances resiliency, reduces infrastructure burden, and creates opportunities to streamline operations. Organizations that approach the transition as a business transformation involving governance, data, security, controls, reporting, and people have a much higher probability of a successful move, than those who treat simply as a technical conversion.
Following this six-point guidance for a ground-to-cloud migration can assist in maximizing results:
1. Define the Project
- Clarify business objectives by aligning the migration to growth, efficiency, cost, compliance, and user experience goals.
- Confirm the future-state model by understanding the target Deltek environment, hosting approach, and scope of functionality.
- Set measurable success criteria by defining what success looks like for finance, IT, operations, and leadership.
- Establish governance early by assigning decision-makers, workstream owners, escalation paths, and project oversight.
- Build a realistic roadmap by sequencing phases, milestones, dependencies, and budget expectations.
2. Assess the Current Environment
- Inventory the full Deltek footprint by documenting modules, configurations, environments, interfaces, and technical dependencies.
- Identify customizations and exceptions by evaluating which reports, workflows, scripts, and extensions need to be retired, redesigned, or rebuilt.
- Map business-critical processes by understanding how project accounting, timekeeping, billing, forecasting, and reporting operate today.
- Evaluate infrastructure dependencies by pinpointing legacy systems, middleware, batch jobs, and third-party applications tied to the platform.
- Surface migration risks early by identifying unsupported components, performance concerns, and operational constraints.
3. Clean and Prioritize Data
- Determine what data should move by separating essential records from outdated, duplicate, or low-value information.
- Cleanse data before migration by correcting inconsistencies, closing gaps, and improving master data quality.
- Prioritize historical data thoughtfully by balancing business needs, reporting requirements, storage costs, and user expectations.
- Align to retention requirements by considering legal, regulatory, tax, privacy, and contractual obligations.
- Validate migration accuracy by reconciling balances, reports, and sample transactions before and after conversion.
4. Strengthen Security and Controls
- Reassess access models by reviewing user roles, privileged access, and segregation of duties in the new cloud environment.
- Enhance identity management by planning SSO, MFA, provisioning, deprovisioning, and access monitoring.
- Confirm shared responsibility expectations by understanding which security, backup, and control activities sit with the provider versus the client.
- Preserve auditability by ensuring system logs, approval of workflows, and control evidence to remain available and reliable.
- Review compliance impacts by aligning the environment to internal control, privacy, and industry-specific requirements.
5. Validate Integrations and Reporting
- Test upstream and downstream connections by validating interfaces with ERP, payroll, CRM, HR, procurement, and data warehouse tools.
- Confirm reporting continuity by reviewing dashboards, KPIs, management reports, and operational analytics for cloud compatibility.
- Redesign where needed by updating integrations and reports that rely on legacy architecture or unsupported logic.
- Perform end-to-end testing by confirming data flows correctly across systems during normal operations and exceptions.
- Protect decision-making quality by supporting data accuracy, timing, and completeness in business-critical reporting.
6. Prepare the Organization
- Equip stakeholders for change by setting clear expectations around timelines, impacts, and business benefits.
- Train users and administrators by tailoring support for daily users, process owners, and technical teams.
- Update procedures and documentation by reflecting new workflows, controls, escalation paths, and support responsibilities.
- Run cutover rehearsals by testing deployment steps, downtime planning, communications, and rollback options.
- Plan for transition and stabilization by supporting users after go-live and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.
A Deltek ground-to-cloud migration is most successful when organizations treat it as an enterprise-wide change rather than a standalone IT event. By defining the project, assessing the current environment, preparing data, strengthening controls, validating dependencies, and preparing the organization, companies can reduce disruption and position the cloud transition to deliver long-term value.
Learn how BDO can help your organization plan and execute a Deltek ground-to-cloud migration with greater confidence, control, and long-term value.
Contact a member of our Deltek team to assess your readiness for a ground to cloud migration and gain clarity on key considerations before you move.