Sally Carter, Principal Documentation Officer at Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Wales Description: Process Planning & Volumes Issue log & improvements Help sheets & documentation What went well and what could be improved Benefits

1. Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales
Our Experience of
Migrating to Mobydoc’s Micromusée V7

2. Micromusée V7 - preparing for migration
- We started to discuss our migration plan with Mobydoc in October
2014.
- We sent off our Archaeology database as a trial migration in
November 2014 and Mobydoc came to Cardiff for 2 days training.
- The Archaeology database contains almost 300,000 records and
access to the Inventory screen was very slow. It was agreed that
improvements needed to be made to the performance.
- We did a second trial migration using the smaller Industry database
and in January 2015 we started a period of intensive testing.

3. Preparation of the old database
- The initial test migration highlighted a number of areas where changes
to the structure of the fields caused problems in V7.
- Between the first and second test migrations we made a number of
changes to the structure of the multi-thesaurus hierarchies (such as
Identification) to make the transition less problematic.
- The migration wipes out all the old profiles so we used this as an
opportunity to clean up the profiles and create some basic all-purpose
profiles for use in V7.

4. - Throughout early 2015 we worked closely with Mobydoc to make
improvements to performance and functionality. A lot of work needed
to be done but Mobydoc were very receptive to ideas and worked hard
to improve performance.
- In May 2015 testing ended and we began the process of live migration.
- Each database took approximately three weeks to ‘go live’ – two weeks
conversion by Mobydoc and a week of setting up and testing at the
Museum.
- Between June and October 2015 we completed the migration for all five
Micromusée databases.
Micromusée V7

5. We created a testing
checklist to make sure that
every aspect of the
databases was working
correctly.
Micromusée V7

6. We created an Issue
Log to record
progress with bug
fixes and
improvements to
functionality.
Micromusée V7

7. We worked with Mobydoc to improve the English translation.
Micromusée V7

8. We created a
spreadsheet to
map the new
field structure.
Micromusée V7

9. There is no English
language manual so we
have created a set of
basic help sheets to
guide the user through
the key functions and
fields.
Micromusée V7

10. - The database is updated
about once a month, usually
at the start of the month.
- Mobydoc provide a detailed
description of changes
made in the latest update
and this is accessible in
‘News’ within the Admin.
Module.
Micromusée V7

11. Progress since Migration
Micromusée V7
- 15,000 new records have been added to the databases.
- Thousands of existing records have been updated and enhanced.
- 70 users have been trained on the system.
- We are launching ‘Collections Online’ later this year and this will
allow the public to view core data held within Micromusée.

12. - Moving to Version 7 was a long process, and we sometimes felt like
guinea pigs for the UK version. There are still some outstanding
issues, but we are generally happy with the new database.
- It is far more user-friendly, people learn to use it quickly, searches are
very fast, and it has a clean, modern interface.
- The new system of monthly updates means that development is an
ongoing and more flexible process. However, it can also be disruptive
to have constant changes to the database and we would like to move
toward quarterly updates.
Thoughts two years on …

13. - Three of our databases currently run on SnBase so we look forward to
the development of V7 for these databases.
- We hope to see the development of web-based access to the database
through Axiell Collections, making it easier to use the database across
multiple workstations and on different Museum sites.
- We would like to see the development of APIs to allow easier third party
connectivity and better public access to the data held within
Micromusée.
We look forward to seeing how Version 7 develops into the future now
that it is part of the Axiell family of databases.
The Future …