Basic Principles of the Migration Process

The following list describes basic principles for the migration process from Laserfiche 6 or 7 to Laserfiche 11.:

Important: It is not necessary to perform a migration if you are updating from Laserfiche 8 or later to Laserfiche 11. See Updating to Laserfiche 11 from Prior Versions for more information.

  1. The migration utility creates a new database using the Laserfiche 11 schema.

    Note: Although the initial steps of the migration process create a Laserfiche 10 database, the update to Laserfiche 11 will occur at the end of the process.

  2. The utility transfers data from your Laserfiche 6 or 7 database to the Laserfiche 11 database created in the previous step. The utility does not modify your original Laserfiche 6 or 7 database in any way. During this transfer process, the SQL data transfer from your original database to the new database is all done through the DBMS. The Laserfiche Server itself is not involved during the data transfer.

    3. Note: After the SQL data transfer successfully completes, you now have a valid Laserfiche 11 SQL database. The following steps do not need to be performed from the migration utility.

  3. After the SQL data transfer, you have the option of registering a new repository with the Laserfiche 11 Server.
  4. Once the repository has been registered to a Laserfiche 11 Server, the Server will perform an in-place update to it. See Updating to Laserfiche 11 from Prior Versions for more information.
  5. After the SQL data migration is complete and you have registered your new repository with the Laserfiche 11 Server, you must make sure that your new repository uses the correct volume paths. The SQL data transfer process does not perform any actions involving your Laserfiche 6 or 7 repository's volume files.
  6. The SQL data transfer process also does not perform any actions involving your search index files. At the end of the migration, the utility gives you the option of running a separate utility to reindex your new repository.

You may want to install Laserfiche Server 11 prior to starting the migration utility. This allows you to perform steps 3-5 from within the migration utility. However, you do not explicitly have to perform these steps from within the migration utility.

Note: When updating from Laserfiche 7 to Laserfiche 11, any user-specific settings that were stored in the registry will be copied to the user's attributes in Laserfiche, and then removed from the registry to avoid any future potential conflicts. See the trustee attributes section for more information. Registry information that is machine-specific rather than user-specific (such as the list of attached repositories) will not be copied to user attributes, as it may not be relevant for any given user on all computers.

For more information on a specific upgrade or migration topic, return to the upgrade and migration home page.