Student Information System migrations are among the most complex initiatives a higher ed institution can undertake. A modern SIS touches nearly every department and functional area on campus from the registrar, admissions, financial aid, advising, IT, faculty, staff, and ultimately the student body.
When a SIS migration fails the implications go far beyond technology. The institution will experience operational delays, unreliable reporting, frustrated staff, compliance risk, and even an unpleasant student experience. Despite careful planning and significant investment, many higher education SIS migrations struggle to deliver on their promise.
In most cases, the issue isn’t necessarily the SIS platform. It’s how institutions approach migration itself.
Here are the real reasons SIS migrations fail:
While IT plays a critical role in SIS implementation, problems arise when IT is expected to own the migration in isolation. Key decisions about workflows, configuration, and data structures are made without input from the functional teams who rely on the SIS daily to drive success. The result is a system that may be technically sound but operationally misaligned.
What successful institutions do differently:
They treat the SIS as a shared institutional system and understand it is a resource that goes beyond their department. Registrars, admissions leaders, financial aid teams, advisors, and academic leadership are involved early in the process, and they remain engaged during requirements gathering, design, testing, and validation periods. IT enables the work, but the functional stakeholder ultimately defines success.
Data is one of the most underestimated risks in any SIS migration. Legacy systems often contain decades of inconsistent, incomplete, and poorly documented data. Even basic concepts like student status, academic terms, or programs can be defined differently across departments.
Assuming a new SIS will automatically resolve these issues is a costly mistake.
What successful institutions do differently:
They begin with a realistic assessment of data quality and complexity. Data cleanup initiatives need to start early, and ownership and standards must be clearly defined across the board. Testing includes real, imperfect data rather than idealized samples. Institutions that invest early in SIS data readiness see far fewer issues after they go live.
One of the most common hidden risks in SIS migrations is assuming that every enhancement, workflow, and integration must be perfect before go-live. In reality, a cloud-based SIS gives institutions the flexibility to iterate, refine, and expand long after the initial launch. When teams expect perfection on day one, migrations stall, timelines expand, and frustrations increase.
What successful institutions do differently:
They clearly define the minimum functionality required to go live. What must be operational versus what can be phased in afterward. This approach keeps the project moving and prevents good from becoming the enemy of great. With a modern cloud platform, improvement is continuous, not a one-time event.
Without governance, SIS migrations lose momentum. Decisions are delayed or revisited repeatedly. Scope creep expands timelines and will your budget. Teams grow frustrated when it’s unclear who has authority to make final calls. When everyone weighs in but no one owns decisions, risk increases.
What successful institutions do differently:
They establish formal SIS governance early in the implementation project. Decision rights are clearly documented, and escalation paths are defined. Governance provides structure, not rigidity, and ensures the migration continues moving forward even when touch decisions arise.
Institutions often attempt to replicate existing workflows in a new SIS to minimize disruption. While understandable, this approach frequently recreates legacy problems and undermines the value of the new system. Excessive customization will increase costs, complicate upgrades, and ultimately limit future flexibility.
What successful institutions do differently:
The most successful institutions look at SIS migration as the opportunity to modernize. Instead of asking how to make the new SIS behave like the old one, they evaluate the processes that need changing. Customization should be applied strategically and only when it delivers clear institutional value.
Go-live is often treated as the end of SIS migration rather than the beginning of adoption. One-time training sessions delivered months in advance don’t prepare your institution’s users for real-world scenarios. When your staff feels unprepared, workarounds emerge and trust in the new SIS erodes.
What successful institutions do differently:
They invest in ongoing role-based training aligned to actual academic and administrative cycles. They maintain consistent and transparent communication. Support needs to continue well beyond the initial go-live date so that end-users can build confidence and proficiency over time.
Across institutions of different sizes and missions, successful SIS migrations consistently share several characteristics:
Partners who understand higher education operations, not just SIS software
Many smaller institutions operate without large project teams dedicated solely to SIS implementation. Expecting internal staff to run the migration “off the side of their desks” without adjusting timeline or workload leads to burnout and missed milestones. A successful migration requires institutions to be honest about internal capacity and to pace the project accordingly.
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day … and neither should your SIS. Recognizing the realities of staffing, seasonal workloads, and competing priorities allows institutions to create timelines that are achievable, humane, and sustainable.
At Thesis Elements, we see firsthand that institutions are most successful when SIS decisions are grounded on how campuses operate, not just how systems are configured.
Before launching into a SIS migration, institutional leadership should ask:
Addressing these questions early can prevent many of the issues that derail SIS migrations later. Before beginning any SIS migration, institutions benefit from a clear, realistic understanding of their readiness across data, governance, staff, expectations, and more.
If you're preparing for a SIS migration and want expert guidance, reach out to our team. We'd love to start a conversation and learn more about your institutional goals.