Migrating to Nintex Workflow: Crafting a Project Plan

Your Guide to Project Success 

In this article, we will cover what a project is and walk you through the process of creating a project plan – essential for managing your project efficiently.  

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, outcome, or achieve a specific goal within a defined timeframe.  Ideally, you’ll want to break down the overall goal or objective into smaller tasks and milestones to make it manageable.  This will allow you to see what must be done, by whom, and by when.  

Your project will typically have phases such as Initiation, Planning, Execution, Testing and Cutover/Deployment.  Once your project is approved in the initiation phase, you will move to the Planning phase, where you’ll be crafting your project plan.   

There are numerous project planning tools available for download, or you can create your own plan in Excel.  Plenty of online videos can assist and guide you in creating your plan. So, let's dive into the process of creating your project plan:   

1. Obtain a list of all the tasks that must be completed to consider your project “complete.”  

2. Determine task dependencies to understand which tasks rely on others being completed first.  

3. Estimate the effort required for each task.  

4. Prioritize tasks logically.  

5. Assign tasks to the appropriate people with the right skill set.  Remember to consider the allocation percentage of each individual, as this will determine the overall duration of the tasks assigned to them.  

6. Incorporate time for creating test plans that the testing team will use during testing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT).  

7. Allocate sufficient time for testing. Testing is crucial to ensure deliverables are thoroughly examined before being handed over to UAT testers. Simple issues should be caught during this phase. A handy tip is to have the person executing the task do the initial testing, but ideally, you want a second person to test as well. It may seem like a time-waster, but you’re bound to miss something obvious if you’re the one doing the tasks.  

8. Determine the UAT participants. Ideally, the UAT group should consist of Subject Matter Experts.  It’s advisable to schedule UAT dates in their diaries in advance to ensure availability during the scheduled time.   

9. Allow time for training the broader team that will use the product/tool daily. It’s best for UAT members to train the broader team.  

Some things to consider putting in your project plan for migration are below, outlined by the different phases of migration referenced in this article. 

Planning:  

• Confirm your Migration Approach – UC Led, Self-Serve & Partner led. 

• Compile initial scope of workflows & forms that need to get migrated 

• Confirm team members have proper access to Nintex Workflow & all migration test environments. 

• Created SharePoint DEV site with identical structure as production site 

• Activate Nintex Workflow tenant 

• Enable SSO on Nintex Workflow 

• Integrate NW tenant with SharePoint DEV site  

• Create Connections from SharePoint DEV site to Nintex Workflow 

• Activate the Upgrade Tooling  

• Move your defined scope of work through the upgrade tooling 

• Align on a final delivery plan & migration scope & assign task to team members 

• Create shared Teams space for collaboration & alignment 

• Populate Workflow & Issue Trackers 

Execution: 

• Organize your scope of work into sprints, waves, batches, sites, etc – however it makes the most sense for your team.  

• Assign migration configuration work to team members based on their skill level. 

• Ensure UAT testers have capacity to test workflows once they’ve been configured. 

• Build test cases, or real-life scenarios for testers to follow, ensuring they get the proper outcomes from the migrated workflows. 

• Raise issues & assign team members to track & resolve  

Production Deployment: 

• Ensure all workflows are functioning properly & no more open issues remain on work items 

• Plan for a switchover date & communicate this out to the end users. 

  • If  already active in Nintex Workflow, you can choose to move the workflows into production as they’re ready – every customer’s approach will vary here. 

• Ensure URL’s, emails, actions turned off for testing, etc. are updated & accurate before publishing to production in Nintex Workflow. 

• Deactivate previous production workflows in your legacy tenants. 

Once your plan is complete, align with all stakeholders to ensure everyone is on the same page and aware of important dates and expectations.  Your project plan should be updated daily during meetings with your project team.  It’s also advisable to meet with your broader stakeholder team regularly to discuss progress, issues, and risks that may impact the project team members & overall project timeline to completion.