Data Migration for a Major Education Sector Superannuation Fund

A major public-offer superannuation fund serving the education and community sectors made the strategic decision to change its fund administrator, with the incoming administrator taking over from 28 February 2025. The fund had approximately 106,000 accumulation members and 6,500 income stream members — spread across two separate incumbent registry systems — requiring a coordinated, dual-stream migration with a single go-live date.

Desda was engaged to author the data migration strategy and lead the ETLR (Extract, Transform, Load, Reconcile) framework for the transition, working alongside the incoming administrator's data team. Our approach covered registry migration from both source systems, document migration of approximately 4.6 million files, workcase treatment, and a structured trial load program leading to a Big Bang cutover on go-live day.

~112K

Members migrated

Source registry systems

~4.6M

Documents migrated

Trial loads before go-live

The Challenge

The fund's member data was held across two distinct systems at the incumbent administrator — one for accumulation members and one for income stream (pension) members — each with different data structures, entity definitions, and migration considerations. Both needed to be migrated to the incoming administrator's unified registry platform by the same go-live date, with no split or phased cutover.

In addition to the registry migration, approximately 4.6 million documents were held across multiple systems at the incumbent — including 1.55 million annual statements, 1.4 million outbound correspondence items, one million inbound member documents, 115,000 emails, and 500,000 other working documents. Historical and in-flight workcases also needed to be treated differently: completed workcases extracted and archived, while active in-flight cases were migrated to the new platform's workflow system for the operations team to continue working on from Day 1.

Migration Scope

~106,000 accumulation members — from the incumbent's accumulation registry
~6,500 income stream (pension) members — from the incumbent's separate pension registry
~4.6M documents across annual statements, correspondence, inbound records, emails, and working files
Historical workcases (extract and archive) and in-flight workcases (migrate to new workflow system)
Defined Benefit members: deferred to a subsequent engagement

Key Complexities

Dual-registry source migration. Two structurally distinct incumbent systems — one for accumulation, one for income stream — with different entity models, data depths, and reconciliation approaches required a coordinated but distinct migration strategy for each stream.
Big Bang load approach. Unlike incremental pre-load strategies used in higher-volume transitions, the full member dataset was to be loaded to the target platform in a single event during the go-live window. This required precise trial load discipline, tight runsheet planning, and high confidence in data quality before cutover.
Workcase continuity. In-flight (active) workcases at the incumbent needed to be migrated into the target workflow system in a way that allowed operations staff to continue working on them post-cutover — not just archived. Where direct case-type mapping wasn't possible, cases were migrated to a generic type for manual indexing by the operations team.
Document volume and classification. ~4.6 million documents across five distinct categories required scoping, classification, and a tiered approach — some migrated to the target document management platform, others to archive — based on member scope, document age, and file type support.
Defined Benefit members deferred. The fund's legacy Defined Benefit products were out of scope for this migration and required a separate strategy. Managing the scope boundary — and ensuring the in-scope migration wasn't held up by unresolved out-of-scope decisions — was an ongoing governance requirement.

Our Approach

Desda authored the Data Migration Strategy document and led the ETLR framework design in collaboration with the incoming administrator's data and transitions team. The strategy defined every layer of the migration — from source extraction protocols through to reconciliation sign-off — and became the operational baseline for the entire transition program.

1. Strategy & Scope Definition

Authored the Data Migration Strategy document covering migration approach, RACI responsibilities, reconciliation methodology, data quality framework, data security protocols, trial load design, and high-level schedule. Workshops with incumbent, fund, and incoming administrator SMEs confirmed scope inclusions/exclusions and validated entity coverage across both source systems.

2. Source-to-Target Mapping

Analysed the two incumbent registry systems and mapped all relevant data entities to the target platform's Common Data Model. Identified the person/identity model transformation required (the incumbent was member-centric; the target is identity-centric), and confirmed which entities were applicable to accumulation and pension members respectively.

3. Trial Load 0 & ETL Build

Received an initial full data drop from the incumbent for analysis and early ETL build. Trial Load 0 served as the foundational analysis drop — all source tables with full history — providing the basis for mapping refinement, data quality baseline, and ETL pipeline development using Databricks on GROW's data platform.

4. Trial Loads 1–4

Four formal trials executed with increasing scope: Trial 1 covered selected entities for accumulation members only; Trial 2 extended to all entities for both accumulation and pension; Trials 3 and 4 refined the process using updated data drops, resolving defects and agreeing exceptions between rounds. Each trial included reconciliation outputs reviewed and signed off by all parties.

5. Document & Workcase Migration

Designed and documented the document migration approach — extracting files from incumbent systems, classifying by scope rules (member type, document age, file type), and loading to either the target document management platform or archive. In-flight workcases were extracted and migrated to the target workflow system, enabling the operations team to continue processing from Day 1.

6. Dress Rehearsal & Go-Live

Full dress rehearsal confirmed runsheet timings, reconciliation outputs, and go/no-go decision criteria. Big Bang cutover executed on 28 February 2025 — all members loaded from the final production data drop in a single go-live event, with reconciliation sign-off completed across all registry, document, and workcase streams.

Outcomes

The transition was completed successfully on 28 February 2025, with all ~112,000 members live on the target platform from Day 1. Both source registries were migrated and reconciled, documents were classified and loaded or archived according to the agreed scope, and in-flight workcases were available in the target workflow system for the operations team to action immediately.

The Data Migration Strategy document authored by Desda became the operational blueprint for the entire program — providing a single source of truth for scope, responsibilities, reconciliation methodology, and quality standards that all parties worked from throughout the transition.

Go-Live: 28 February 2025

~112,000 members live on the new platform from Day 1
Dual-registry migration completed in a single Big Bang cutover
~4.6M documents migrated or archived according to agreed scope rules
In-flight workcases available in the target workflow system on Day 1
Reconciliation sign-off obtained across all migration streams

What Was Achieved

A comprehensive Data Migration Strategy authored by Desda — the operational baseline for the entire transition program.
~112,000 members migrated across accumulation and income stream products from two source registries.
~4.6 million documents classified, migrated, and archived in line with agreed scope and governance rules.
In-flight workcase continuity — operations staff able to continue processing from Day 1 without manual re-entry.
Successful Big Bang cutover on 28 February 2025 with no critical member-impacting issues.
Clear scope boundary maintained for Defined Benefit members, preserving the project timeline for the in-scope migration.

"The strategy document gave the whole program team — across the fund, the incumbent, and the incoming administrator — a common framework to work from. Clear responsibilities, clear reconciliation standards, and clear scope from day one."
— Client feedback

Why Desda

Desda brings deep expertise in superannuation data migrations — from strategy authoring through to hands-on ETLR delivery. Our understanding of how fund data is structured, how registry and document systems relate, and how to design a reconciliation framework that gives all parties genuine confidence made us the right partner for this engagement.

Authored the data migration strategy from the ground up
Deep ETLR expertise across accumulation and pension product types
End-to-end coverage: registry, documents, and workcase migration
Track record across Australia's most complex fund administration transitions