How to Prepare for Implementing a New Collections Management System (CMS)

Implementing a new collections management system (CMS) is a significant project for any gallery, library, archive, museum, or performing arts (GLAMP) institution.

But with the right planning and vendor partnership, the process is far more manageable. A thoughtful approach can help your implementation run smoothly—and start benefitting your teams and stakeholders sooner.

Let’s explore reasons to migrate to a new CMS, how to confidently tackle the transition, and a step-by-step guide to make your implementation a success.

Key takeaways

• Migrating to a new CMS is manageable when you approach it in structured phases, rather than treating it as one large project.
  
  

• Choosing the right vendor matters as much as choosing the right software—a good implementation partner guides you through the common pitfalls and lighten the lift for your internal team.
  
  

• Post-launch success depends on ongoing habits, such as maintaining clean data, documenting workflows, and checking in regularly with staff to catch issues early.

Implementing a collections management system with confidence

A CMS implementation involves installing a collections management system and integrating it into your institution’s workflows and technical infrastructure. This process typically includes data preparation, interface configuration, user training, and testing prior and after launch.

Moving from your legacy system to a modern platform can be complex—but it doesn’t need to overwhelm your team or budget. Use the following tips to approach migration with confidence.

“We need a new CMS”: The scariest sentence in the GLAMP world?

It’s true that implementing a collections management system has earned a reputation for a long, complex process. Data cleanup is real work. So is getting budget approval, convincing stakeholders of the need for change, and finding enough resources to manage the transition.

These challenges cause many collections professionals to postpone implementation altogether, leaving them stuck with legacy platforms that don’t meet their needs.

But here’s what makes a real difference: choosing a supportive vendor who has guided many institutions through successful CMS migrations.

An experienced vendor becomes your partner throughout implementation, helping you navigate obstacles and avoid common pitfalls. This support can be your greatest asset during the transition.

Why do institutions migrate to a new CMS?

Every GLAMP institution has its reasons for seeking a new collections management system, but the underlying challenge is often the same: instead of supporting staff, the current CMS has become an obstacle to managing collections.

These warning signs often signal it’s time for a new system:

• Outdated features or functionality: Your legacy CMS can’t adapt to your institution’s processes and frustrates its users daily. Modern platforms offer a better user experience via features like configurable interfaces, AI-powered tools, and cloud-native architecture. These CMS also resemble the software and applications staff use in their daily lives, reducing the learning curve.
  
  

• CMS won’t integrate with other technology: Staff may have resorted to inefficient workarounds as your solutions don’t work well together. With Terentia, this friction is eliminated. Collections and digital asset management are combined in a single, unified platform—no integration required. Need to connect Terentia to your other software? You can via its robust APIs.
  
  

• Your vendor has discontinued support: If your vendor has declared your collections management system end-of-life, they will no longer provide assistance or updates after a certain date. You’ll need to migrate to a new system—whether you’d like to or not.
  
  

• Costs keep adding up: Paying for maintenance, training, user licenses, and support services has left your institution financially drained. Every time you need help or troubleshooting, another bill arrives from your vendor.
  
  

• Frustrated team members: Collections staff report that your CMS is difficult to use or can’t be configured to match their workflows. As a result, training new staff also takes much longer than it should, impacting productivity.

Glossary of CMS implementation terms

You deeply understand the intricacies of collections management. But if this is your first implementation project, or you haven’t completed one recently, the process can introduce a whole new set of vocabulary.

These CMS-specific definitions will help you ensure clear communication between your institution and vendor throughout the process.

Steps for implementing a collections management system

After researching your options, attending demos, and purchasing the best CMS for your institution, you’re ready to start the implementation process.

From now until launch day, you’ll work closely with your vendor to ensure a successful migration. Strong collaboration and communication will help you stay aligned with the vendor’s team and ensure everything runs smoothly.

Ready to get started? Follow these steps to ace your implementation.

Step 1: Create a governance document for your CMS implementation

Kick off the implementation process by creating a governance document. This document helps keep your institution and vendor aligned throughout migration by clarifying how your CMS will be set up and each user and team’s permissions.

Before developing the document, work with your implementation team through a discovery process to understand your configuration needs. Rather than exploring the out-of-the-box system first, you'll collaborate with your vendor to identify your requirements, which will inform how your CMS is configured.

This typically involves reviewing your metadata standards (or analyzing samples of your data if you're not following established standards), defining the fields and functionality you need and determining how different teams will use the system.

To provide helpful guidance, your governance document should include:

• Objectives: Define the goals of implementing a new CMS and the metrics you’ll use to measure your post-implementation results. These ROI metrics define what your migration must achieve to be considered successful.
  
  

• Roles and responsibilities: List all users who need access to the collections management system. Terentia enables you to assign team- or role-based user permissions, or permissions for specific individuals.
  
  

• Standards: Outline the standards your institution uses to manage its collections. Your vendor will need this information to configure your CMS interface and its data fields.
  
  

• Workflows: Summarize the processes that your new system will support. You could include diagrams that explain each workflow, or simply write up a list of steps.

Step 2: Prepare a communications plan for your staff

Creating a communications plan can keep staff informed throughout the CMS implementation. Your plan should include key messages, who will deliver and receive the information, and the channels to be used.

Show staff you’ve thought about how the new CMS will affect them by tailoring your communications to their needs, roles, and responsibilities. Invite them to ask questions and raise concerns. When your personnel feel informed and supported, they’re more likely to embrace the new system.

It’s ideal to reinforce key messages by sharing them with employees five to seven times, according to leading change management firm ProSci. This repetition helps build understanding of why migrating away from your existing CMS is so important.

Poor or insufficient communication can increase the risk of a rocky implementation, including staff resistance to adopting your new solution.

Reinforce the following in your communications plan to deliver clarity:

• Why the existing system is being replaced

• How your institution selected this CMS

• Goals this new software is designed to achieve

• Benefits and impacts on staff’s work

Step 3: Prepare for migration with data cleaning and mapping

Start fresh with your new collections management system by cleaning your data and mapping it to your new platform.

Though data cleaning and mapping are time consuming, they’re absolutely worth it. These processes make sure that incomplete, inconsistent, and duplicate data doesn’t carry over to your new CMS—and that nothing goes missing during migration.

Clean your data by completing the following steps:

• Fill in missing data: Make sure the object records in your legacy system contain all the data they should. If needed, enter data from paper records or other systems into your CMS.
  
  

• Standardize formats: Review your collections data for any differences in formatting. Before migration, standardize the data formats across your object records to ensure consistency.
  
  

• Address inconsistent data: Correct any disparities in your existing CMS data to improve data integrity and discoverability. Spelling errors or typos in object record fields can prevent users from finding collections objects.
  
  

• Delete duplicate records: Your legacy CMS might contain several different records for the same collections object that contain different data. Remove bad data by eliminating duplicate records before migration.

When your data is clean, you’re ready to proceed with mapping, which helps ensure you don’t lose any collections data during your transition. You’ll need to instruct your vendor on which fields in your existing platform correspond to the fields in your new CMS.

Working with Terentia, you can count on our team’s extensive experience in completing data migrations for GLAMP institutions. Benefit from the structured process we’ve developed to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Step 4: Set up user training for staff

Learning a CMS can be nerve-wracking, but the right training will help staff feel supported and get comfortable using the new platform more quickly.

When you built your communications plan (in Step 2), you shared how the new system will benefit team members. Training is your chance to show them firsthand.

Your vendor can help—but their training may come with a hefty price tag. Unless you choose Terentia. Our team provides free user training, so your staff can get the most from your new platform.

Use these training best practices to build staff’s confidence:

• Adapt to your CMS users: Develop a plan that addresses staff’s different needs and skill levels. Power users who need advanced features will need different training than occasional users who only need basic functionality.
  
  

• Allow ample time for training: Schedule teaching sessions well in advance of your go-live date. Multiple rounds of structured learning and hands-on practice will improve staff’s comfort with your new CMS.
  
  

• Provide different training for different roles: Ask your vendor to support you in delivering role-specific training. Each session should explain the workflows and features most relevant to that CMS user group’s daily tasks.

Step 5: Test your new CMS post-implementation

Thorough testing identifies issues before you launch your new collections management system.

And there’s an added bonus. As staff test the CMS, they’ll gain additional familiarity and feel more prepared to use the platform.

Here’s how to use testing to prepare for a successful launch:

• Double check everything: Before going live, make sure user permissions are set up correctly and your new platform connects to your other software as expected. Test all workflows and confirm they’re working properly. Create a feedback document for your vendor that lists any problems.
  
  

• Ask for user feedback: Have different user groups try out the CMS and share feedback on any issues or improvements they’d like to see. Add this information to your vendor feedback document.
  
  

• Collaborate with your vendor to implement fixes: Share your feedback document with your collections management system vendor. Test each fix they implement before going live to make sure the modifications meet your needs.
  
  

• Soft launch your new CMS: Before fully transitioning to your new CMS, provide staff with a soft launch period to build their confidence further. During this time, they can familiarize themselves with the new system, while having access to your legacy CMS if needed.

Step 6: Set yourselves up for long-term success

Implementation is just the beginning of your journey with your new collections management system. Preparing for the future will help ensure the software supports your institution for years to come.

Complete these important post-launch activities to keep your CMS running smoothly:

• Develop user documentation: Make sure staff follow the same best practices by documenting all new procedures, workflows, and standards, and reviewing and updating them once a year. These resources will be helpful if users forget how to use the platform and when onboarding new team members.
  
  

• Implement ongoing maintenance and quality assurance: Keep your data clean and maintain its integrity with regular maintenance and quality assurance testing. Watch for post-implementation issues, so you can address them quickly if they emerge.
  
  

• Check in with staff: Schedule regular meetings with your users to offer support. Use these sessions to answer questions, identify any blockers or pain points, and recommend fixes.

There’s still no denying that implementing a collections management system is hard work. But with careful planning at every stage and an attentive vendor by your side, you can ensure your implementation is successful.

Embark on a CMS implementation with Terentia

Under pressure to make sure your institution’s collections management system implementation pays off? Terentia’s team is here to help you succeed.

We’ve guided GLAMP institutions of all sizes and collections types through successful migrations. And to learn our intuitive platform, you won’t need to take courses or spend hundreds of dollars on staff training either.

Terentia is built to support your institution’s specific needs. Set up collections workflows exactly how you’d like, integrate the CMS into your tech stack with ease, and benefit from our user-friendly software.

Book a personalized demo to see how Terentia can support collections management and implementation at your institution.