Independent quality assurance ensures smooth system upgrade for SPF Beheer
The challenge
When SPF Beheer planned a major upgrade of its portfolio and treasury management system, the Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management quickly recognized the scale and criticality of the project — especially given the need to maintain business-as-usual operations throughout.
The upgrade involved a significant functional leap from the previous version to the latest release.
In addition to ensuring business continuity, SPF saw the opportunity to address several long-standing improvement goals: removing workarounds in instrument set-ups, enhancing audit functionality, improving performance in the accounting interface, and cleaning legacy static data and transactions.
To achieve these objectives, the team decided to migrate data and configurations to a clean, “factory-settings” version of the new system.
Recognizing the complexity of this undertaking, the Manager sought a partner able to contribute specialist testing and migration expertise — and an independent quality-assurance perspective.
“We had experienced and knowledgeable consultants from SkySparc who worked with us throughout the project as part of our core team.” – Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, SPF Beheer
The solution
Following a competitive selection process, SkySparc was chosen for its proven methodology and track record in quality-assurance and migration projects.
SkySparc was assigned two key responsibilities:
- Testing and quality assurance across all upgrade phases.
- Data and transaction migration from the legacy to the new production environment.
SkySparc consultants not only planned and managed these activities but also executed them alongside SPF’s internal team.
Although the client initially intended to handle much of the testing internally, workload pressures made SkySparc’s hands-on involvement essential — a decision later described as pivotal to the project’s success.
For migration, SkySparc proposed the overall strategy and oversaw its execution: first cleansing data, then migrating static and market data, and finally active trades.
OmniFi was used to map and export data between environments, greatly accelerating the process and ensuring accuracy.
System configuration and data cleansing ran in parallel workstreams, while unit testing and reconciliation of static data and transactions provided early validation.
Subsequent integration, migration, and user-acceptance testing were thoroughly executed, supported by a library of client-specific test cases and automated regression testing in OmniFi.
“Using OmniFi meant SkySparc could perform large volumes of testing in a short time. It really helped us meet the project deadline.” – Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, SPF Beheer
The result
The project — completed on time and within budget — delivered a stable, high-performance production environment and cleaner data foundation.
Careful preparation, disciplined project management, and clearly defined responsibilities were key to this outcome.
“We had a strong internal team, and SkySparc’s contribution was very important. Their consultants brought a quality-driven, proactive approach that really showed through.” – Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, SPF Beheer
Using OmniFi to automate testing and migration ensured comprehensive validation and faster execution cycles.
SPF now benefits from a robust library of reusable test cases and continues to leverage OmniFi for ongoing quality assurance and operational efficiency in future upgrade initiatives.
