The challenge
The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) is an independent academy with nearly 1 300 members that promotes technological and economic development in Sweden. IVA previously had its documents stored in M-Files, a document management system that no longer met its needs. M-Files was difficult to integrate with other systems, had limited search functions and was not adapted to modern working methods. IVA needed a new document management system that was more flexible, efficient and secure.
The solution
IVA chose to implement MetaShare, a document management system based on SharePoint that offers a simple and intuitive user experience. MetaShare makes it easy to create, share, find and manage documents in different contexts. MetaShare is also fully compatible with Microsoft 365, which means IVA can take full advantage of cloud services such as OneDrive, Teams and Power Automate.
To migrate its documents from M-Files to MetaShare, IVA hired Ways, an expert in SharePoint and Microsoft 365. Ways has extensive experience in helping organizations transfer their documents to the cloud in a smooth and secure way. Ways carried out the migration in four steps:
- The documents from M-Files were exported, using a standard export function in M-Files, to a file structure on a file server. The documents’ metadata from M-Files ended up in a csv file with a reference to each document.
- The documents were migrated to SharePoint using Migration Manager for Microsoft 365, a tool that facilitates and automates the transfer of documents from different sources to SharePoint. With this tool, the documents were migrated quickly and securely.
- The documents were labeled with the information contained in the csv file, using a PowerShell script.
- Finally, a PowerShell script was run that first moved the documents from subfolders to the root folder and then deleted all folders.
The result
IVA now has a modern and user-friendly document management system that gives them better control, collaboration and productivity. IVA can easily search, filter and sort their documents by different criteria, such as subject, project, type or status. IVA is pleased with the migration and looks forward to continuing to develop their digital workplace with MetaShare and Microsoft 365.