Data migration FAQ
Explore questions about loading data, migration jobs, mapping, and import failures. Treat each answer as a starting point for checking source data, transformation rules, and the target business operation.
Related learning:
Release note: These answers include IFS Cloud and older IFS Applications topics. Confirm the product and release mentioned in each answer. They are written explanations, not procedures verified in an IFS environment.
Explore other FAQ topics (23)
57 questions · page 1 of 2
Does case sensitivity matter when migrating reference data like units of measure?
A migration job fails with a generic parsing-style error (like an unexpected end of file) on an otherwise valid-looking source file.
How do we migrate a record that has a required parent or serial relationship, like a serialized item tied to a parent object?
How should free-text or long-text content (like notes stored as CLOB data) be handled during migration?
A migration job rejects a field that's fine in the application — the source uses a ROWID or CLOB data type.
An Excel Add-in migration job fails with a generic error like "unexpected end of file" and no further detail.
Is there a built-in list of which IFS Cloud tables or fields contain personal (PII) data?
Inventory balances were migrated and show correctly in stock, but the value never reached the general ledger.
An Excel-based add-in stopped working after Microsoft auto-updated Office, with no change on the IFS Cloud side.
A migration fails validation on a percentage-looking field with a range error, even though the source value looks correct.
A migration project's basic data is marked "Validated, ready for deploy" but validation errors still appear.
Is there a way to export and import many migration jobs together, instead of one at a time?
A Data Migration or Excel Migration job can create new records in a Custom Logical Unit fine, but fails to modify/update existing ones — it can't seem to find the record to update, especially once there's more than one row. What's the fix?
A Data Migration Manager deployment for a specific view fails, and the target table definition shows no value set for the AUTO_GENERATED metadata on a particular column — other views with the same setup deploy fine. What's causing it?
What's the supported way to move a Data Migration job you built in one IFS environment (e.g. DEV) into another (e.g. PROD) for reuse, rather than rebuilding it from scratch?
Creating a new IAL with 'Create IAL for live data only' unticked still results in an IAL that only supports Live Data, with no option to schedule or manually trigger a refresh — even though no error is shown during creation.
A migration job source file with double-quote characters inside a field's own data ends up with extra double quotes inserted around and inside the value after import (or when viewing the raw file) — is there a way to prevent IFS from adding these?
Since new IAL objects can no longer be created from 2020 R1 onward, what happens to existing IAL objects already in use (e.g. for lobbies, quick reports) when upgrading from IFS 10 to IFS Cloud, and how do you handle one that breaks?
A Lobby Data Source built on a SQL/IAL view successfully previews data with no columns added, but adding the actual columns you need makes the preview hang and eventually time out, even though the underlying SQL statement (checked via debug) looks correct.
Building a data warehouse extract process against IFS's fully managed Cloud service, where the customer explicitly doesn't get general database access — what's the actual supported approach for getting data out into an external DWH?
Quick Reports sent by email via a scheduled background job are indistinguishable once a database clone happens (e.g. PROD copied to TEST) and both environments end up emailing the same report — is there a way to tell from the email itself which environment it came from?
Deploying an IAL fails with an error, even though the exact same SQL runs without any problem when executed directly in PL/SQL Developer. What's the likely cause?
An IAL built on a view with TIMESTAMP-typed columns (e.g. from a SYS-owned view like DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS, granted to a read-only integration user) runs fine when queried directly, but fails with 'Cannot convert JDBC type -101 to PlsqlType' when accessed through a Quick Report or the SQL Query Tool.
One user exporting data to Excel from IFS gets a garbled/unusable format, while another user exporting the same kind of data gets it correctly formatted — same IFS environment, same export function.
In a Data Migration job of type MIGRATE_SOURCE_DATA, how do you force a source column's value to uppercase on import, without a separate transformation step?
A Migration Job using a tab-delimited text file (exported from Excel) always wraps text values like a part description in double quotes when the file is loaded — how do you get the imported value without the surrounding quotes?
Is it possible to configure a WHERE clause on a migration task used by the Excel Add-in in IFS Cloud, so that clicking 'Load Data' doesn't always pull every record?
The Excel Add-in returns an internal metadata retrieval error when validating or executing against a migration job that uses both a base view and a custom-field view — is this caused by the custom-field view specifically?
Has the IFS Excel Migration Add-In / IFS Migration (FndMig) been replaced by the Smart Data Tool in IFS Cloud?
A migration job that was previously working stops updating certain custom fields correctly, despite everything in its configuration appearing correct — nothing obviously wrong can be found.
An Excel Migration job that updates a custom field fails with 'savepoint 'NEW_JOB' never established,' even though the same general setup worked without issue on a previous migration job targeting a different view.
Updating a custom field via Excel Migration works fine for plain text custom fields, but fails specifically for a custom field that's linked to a custom list/enumeration (backed by a custom page/custom LU) — entering the display value from the custom list into the migration spreadsheet's mapped column produces an error rather than actually updating the field.
Migrating Arabic (or other non-Latin-script) data into a custom table via a standard migration job results in garbled special characters instead of the correct text.
Installing the Excel Migration Add-In fails with an error — what should be checked beyond the generic ClickOnce-cache-cleanup steps?
A migration job consistently fails with ORA-00904 'invalid identifier' when generating its load, even though the target column names all look correct — what's a commonly overlooked cause?
Removing records via a Migration Job normally uses the Remove__ method, which requires Objkey and ObjVersion values — but when the source data is a plain CSV file, Get_Rowkey can find the Rowkey, while there's no equivalent function to get the current RowVersion for a record to remove. How is this handled?
An Oracle DIRECTORY object already exists (visible in ALL_DIRECTORIES) but doesn't show up as a selectable option in a Migration Job's File Path field on Apps10 — what's missing to make it available there?
A Migration Job fails to start with 'Unit code does not exist or is not enabled for use in the application' — the mandatory fields in the template all appear to have values or defaults set. What's a commonly overlooked cause?
A Migration Job for Order Quotation Line fails with 'ORA-20124: Field [TAX_LIABILITY_TYPE] is mandatory ... and requires a value,' even though the source file clearly has a non-null value for that column (and a default value was also tried) — what's actually wrong?
No questions match. Try a broader term or reset the filters.