Streamlining Microsoft Office 2010 Migrations Using Office-Converter

With ConverterTechnology’s file migration solution, IT can proactively

prevent end users from encountering broken Microsoft Office files

By: Chip Bates, Director of Product Development, ConverterTechnology

ConverterTechnology 1 Tara Blvd., Ste.301 Nashua, NH 03062 T 800-541-7409 F 603-882-8884 http://www.convertertechnology.com

IntroductionMany enterprises currently face the daunting task of migrating to Microsoft Office 2010. The need

to do so is prompted by Microsoft’s plans to sunset Office 2003, a version that many enterprises

stayed with in lieu of migrating to Office 2007. Even for those businesses currently running Office

2007, some may choose to migrate to Office 2010 since this latest version provides a significant

advancement in features—much more so compared to the advancements that Office 2007 offered

over Office 2003.

For those IT administrators as well as business-unit managers who have previously managed a

Microsoft Office migration, they will most likely recall just how much planning is involved and how

long the process can take. Applications such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Access will all

present issues as users open files in Office 2010 that were initially created in Office 2003 or Office

2007. Generally, 80 percent of Office files will not have any issues after the migration, but that

leaves another 20 percent that will present varying degrees of problems.

For enterprises migrating from 2003 to 2010, IT administrators face an additional challenge due to

the file-name extension change (Office 2007 extensions sync with Office 2010). With different

extensions, files with links to other documents in Office 2003 will break in the Office 2010 format

unless remediation is applied. When enterprises migrated to Office 2003, they did not face this same issue.

Excel files will likely cause the majority of issues—mainly because that application tends to be the

most heavily used and contains more complexity in terms of macros and formulas with more links between files. Word is likely to be the second-most problematic, but most Word files have no

Visual Basic programming to be concerned.

As plans are developed for migrating to Office 2010, enterprises have three options when considering how to deal with files that will not work properly after the migration:

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Option 1: “Fix on Fail” ApproachAlthough this approach might have some merit given that 80 percent of the Microsoft Office files

likely will not create any issues, large enterprise will still have a lot of work to do on the remaining

20 percent that could cause problems. Taking the fix on fail approach does save on the software

and resource cost of deploying an upfront, automated remediation tool, but the havoc it can create

for end users and IT is likely to be significant.

End users will suffer from lost or delayed productivity as they submit technical support requests

and wait for IT to fix file issues. If the fix requires significant time, the delay could last several days,

and IT will need to divert resources away from other tactical support or strategic deployment

initiatives. Enterprises that take this approach run the risk of a backlog of file issues that could

hinder IT and end-user productivity for an extended time.

Option 2: Deploy Office 2010 using Microsoft’s OMPM ToolsAlong with the release of Office 2010, Microsoft is also offering a free tool that facilitates Office

2010 migrations—Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM). OMPM scans files in batches and

requires files to be processed twice—once for scanning and once for conversion to Office 2010,

and then open and scan each file individually.

OMPM does not automatically remediate files with issues. However, the tool does offer a three-tier,

color-coding system to classify the level of migration issues found in each file when conducting a

light scan as shown in the following table:

Issue Level ID Description

Red Files with issues that can cause significant data loss such as edited-version loss or conversion failure

Yellow Files convert to the Office 2010 format, but some formatting or minor data loss issues might occur

Green Files may experience light cosmetic issues, but no data loss

Table 1

If a deep scan of the files is conducted, OMPM also provides a count of the number of lines of Visual Basic code (the Microsoft Office programming language) that contain potential issues due to

object model changes introduced with Office 2010. With the deep scan, OMPM also generates a

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count of potential issues caused by moving Office 2010 to a 64-bit environment. As an example,

using OMPM with the deep scan option could provide the following results for an Excel 2003 file:

File Scan Result Status/Count

Max Level Green

Functionality issue count: 8

x64 compatibility count: 0

Table 2

Option 3: Deploy Office 2010 using ConverterTechnology’s OfficeConverter

Tool SetThe third option for enterprises is OfficeConverter 2010 from ConverterTechnology. OfficeConverter

is the only third-party tool available on the market that speeds up the Office file scanning and

conversion to Office 2010 processes, while also providing a greater level of granularity as to the

extent of problem files. This helps IT prioritize which files to address first.

OfficeConverter typically requires initial training, but is intuitive enough for an IT staff to use without

additional vendor support. IT may also be able to rely on support from their primary consultant or

solution provider to properly manipulate the conversion tool. OfficeConverter also requires a

modest software investment, but the return on investment is high when considering the resource

time that will be reduced significantly.

The solution scans files for potential data loss similar to OMPM, but also provides detailed

information about Visual Basic compatibility issues and project references, as well as links to other

files. Each file scanned is assigned a numeric severity based on the most severe issue contained

in the file as shown in this sample report:

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Severity Level Description Impact on the File

10 Fatal Issues that generate compilation errors or significant data loss

20 Run time error Issues that generate run-time errors

30 In some context will prove fatal Issues that change the behavior of the application but will not cause a compilation or run-time error

40 Links to Office files File will open and run, but links to Office files will break when files are upgraded due to the new file extensions

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Table 3: The lower the severity level, the greater the impact

One important difference between OMPM and OfficeConverter to be aware of is that OMPM

contains multiple tools that each perform one task and must be run separately. For example, the

offscan.exe tool scans files while the ofc.exe tool converts files to the Office 2010 format. Another

tool within OMPM—Office Code Compatibility Inspector (OCCI)—is required to identify and label

specific functionality issues on individual files.

Conversely, OfficeConverter performs all of these tasks, which can be performed all at the same

time.

Scanning the same sample Excel file noted in Table 2 using OfficeConverter identifies the same number of functionality issues as OMPM but also provides a higher level of granularity by assigning

a severity level of 20. This is because some of the functionality issues in this example will cause

run-time errors when users attempt to run the Visual Basic code using Excel 2010.

OMPM versus OfficeConverter: Key DifferencesIssue Granularity: One of the significant differences between the scanning and reporting

performed by OMPM and OfficeConverter is that, in addition to identifying which files may lose data

when migrated to Office 2010, OfficeConverter also identifies which files will not function. Reports

generated by the converter scan typically include the following details:

• File Name

• Location of discovered issues—such as form, module, worksheet or line number

• Copy of the line of code and/or function that contains the issue

• Details of the automated fix for the issue (when available)

Conversely, the reports generated from the data collected by the OMPM scan contain only the

number of potential functionality issues found in each file. No details are available for individual

issues. Whether any of these issues will actually affect how, or if the file will function when using

Office 2010, is not available from the OMPM scan.

Overall Process Acceleration: OfficeConverter also accelerates the overall process by scanning files, converting them to 2010 and remediating 90 percent of the files that have issues—all within a

single process. IT can then consider manually remediating the remaining files with issues, which will

total approximately two percent in relation to the entire estate of Office files. Of these files, likely

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half can be remediated efficiently, but the other half will likely require so much work that IT may be

better off simply shutting those files down.

Conversion Speed: Another area in which OMPM and OfficeConverter differ is the second step in

the migration—converting the selected files to the Office 2010 format. OMPM supports batch

conversions of Office 97-2003 files to Office 2010 with the Office File Converter command-line tool

performing the conversion. The files that will be migrated can be selected either by specifying a list of folders or by referencing a list of files that has been exported from the OMPM reporting tool.

OfficeConverter performs more efficiently with the ability to configure the tool to convert the files to

the new format at the same time files are scanned for potential compatibility issues. Instead of scanning and then migrating files in separate steps, users can scan, migrate and automatically

remediate files in a single step.

File Remediation: OfficeConverter also helps to a greater degree when it comes to file remediation after selected files have been scanned and migrated to Office 2010. For this step,

Microsoft offers the Office Code Compatibility Inspector (OCCI) as an add-in to OMPM. Using the

sample file documented above in Table 2, a user first opens the file using Excel 2010 and then runs

OCCI to identify and label the eight potential functionality issues.

The user then has to open the Visual Basic editor, find all eight identified issues, determine which of

those issues will affect the functionality of the file, and then edit the lines required to enable the file

to process as before. These steps need to be performed for each file that OMPM identifies as

having one or more potential functionality issues. This could lead to a great deal of work for IT

administrators.

File remediation is simplified significantly by OfficeConverter. While files are migrated to the Office

2010 format, potential functionality issues are marked in the files. More importantly, many of the

significant functionality issues are automatically remediated and will not need manual remediation.

Files containing functionality issues with severity ratings of 10 or 20 (as illustrated in Table 3)—that

will prevent the files from functioning and are not automatically remediated—are easily identified so

that only those files need to be manually opened and repaired.

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The Best AlternativeAs IT administrators and business unit managers know, a major aspect of any technology rollout is

the impact it will have on end-user productivity. The Office 2010 migration presents enough

challenges, anything that an enterprise can do to streamline the process will pay huge dividends.

For large enterprises with massive Office file estates, OfficeConverter provides tremendous value

when it comes to migrating away from Office 2003 and Office 2007. By automating the steps and

running them simultaneously, the solution gives IT the ability to proactively identify and

automatically fix most issues. IT also gets a jump on the small percentage of files that require

manual remediation.

Having these capabilities makes it possible to eliminate the file issues that end users will inevitably

face. Doing so proactively allows them to maintain their productivity and takes a major headache

away for the IT support staff—the need to fix Office files under the pressure of end users who need

them back fast.

Overview Comparison: Functionality Provided by each toolset

Application Identify files with potential issue

Count of potential VBA issues

Convert file to Office 2010

Identify specific lines of VBA code with compatibility issues

Automatically remediate VBA issues

OfficeConverter Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

OMPM Tools

Offscan.exe Yes Yes No No No

Ofc.exe No No Yes No No

OCCI No No No Yes No

Table 4

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Microsoft OMPM Office 2010 Migration ProcessThe following diagram illustrates the process for migrating Microsoft Office files to Office 2010

using the Microsoft Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM):

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ConverterTechnology’s OfficeConverter Office 2010 Migration Process

The following diagram illustrates the process for migrating Microsoft Office files to Office 2010

using OfficeConverter 2010.

When comparing OMPM and OfficeConverter, it becomes evident that OfficeConverter offers a

more efficient process since files only need to be scanned once, and remediation takes place

automatically.

About ConverterTechnology

ConverterTechnology provides software and services to help enterprises capitalize on the benefits of the Microsoft

platform without the migration risks of data corruption, reduced employee productivity and critical business application

down time. Founded in 1997, ConverterTechnology has helped more than one million users identify, analyze and fix

compatibility errors before they occur, accelerating time to deployment. ConverterTechnology is headquartered in

Nashua, N.H., with offices in Europe and Australia, visit www.convertertechnology.com.

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