The University of Michigan reported that Admissions went live in October 1998. In Academic Units a different support mechanism is needed. Each department doing graduate admissions, for example, needs to understand how to use the various panels to accommodate their process. Additional staff have been hired to do the data entry. The way each panel submits the data takes time.
Values are pulled from drop down menus, the process requires many panel to panel iterations.
Syracuse reported that they put legacy systems on hold as much as possible. Contractors were hired to support the legacy systems at the minimal level necessary. Utah has purchased Convoy, a visual data mapping tool that generates SQRs. Georgia State and University of Michigan also use Convoy. Another institution indicated that you cannot do an end-around on data conversion, it is necessary to understand how the product works.