Modernizing federal HCM – data fast track to SaaS

Data is central to the successful execution of any mission. Data can be leveraged to deliver invaluable insights that accelerate innovation and drive efficiencies. But it can also hinder program performance when it’s incomplete, lacks integrity, or is simply outdated.

Legacy HR ecosystems often hold agencies back. These fragmented, siloed environments are commonly built on highly customized ERP systems, and can contain decades of modifications that do not map easily to modern SaaS models.

Consequently, migrating and integrating setup or master data and transaction data into a modern SaaS environment is often the single greatest hurdle to modernization. Data quality directly impacts cost and schedule, and the ability to cleanly convert data significantly reduces program risk.

Federal agencies are under tremendous pressure to modernize HR systems in unprecedented timelines through shared services, standardized data models, and modernization initiatives led by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). These efforts heighten the need for early understanding of data quality and data transparency to inform realistic migration planning, well before agencies commit to full-scale SaaS transformation.

CACI’s HCMigrate Data Accelerator delivers the efficiency needed to support federal HR modernization by transforming and standardizing data from legacy HCM environments into Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, a leading SaaS platform. Purpose-built for Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, HCMigrate enables agencies to gain early insight into data readiness, migration complexity, and risk, while accelerating the consolidation and subsumption of legacy HR systems.

“HCMigrate gives agencies early visibility into their data readiness and migration complexity using real or sample data sets, without requiring a large upfront investment,” said Mary Pollard, CACI vice president, human capital management solutions. “That insight helps teams plan realistically and reduce risk before modernization efforts are fully underway.”

*Illustrative results from recent federal HCM modernization efforts.

Accelerating data transformation

While PeopleSoft has long supported federal missions, many implementations predate modern SaaS data models and were extended over time to meet unique federal requirements. This led to customizations, which reflect decades of evolving laws, policies, requirements, and workforce agreements that federal HR organizations were required to support.

“You want to minimize customizations to reduce maintenance required across your data life cycle,” Pollard said. “If customizations ‘break’ with new software updates, a retrofitting task must happen. You want to have as few customizations as possible so it simplifies the SaaS adoption path, eases the quarterly update process, and facilitates fast adoption of new capabilities ‘out-of-the-box.’”

HCMigrate bridges the legacy-to-SaaS gap by automating the most time-consuming parts of migration:

• Ingesting PeopleSoft data, standardizing and transforming it using tools like Alteryx, and mapping it to the Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM model.
• Automating data conversion and validation to quickly identify gaps, issues, and required remediations.
• Providing a realistic assessment of a migration roadmap, using an agency’s live data.
• Reducing reliance on manual mapping and scripting, which often consumes valuable time and resources.
• Enabling rapid proof-of-concept ingestion, demonstrating form, fit, and function, possibly even before procurement decisions are made.

“HCMigrate is not a magic button to move everything to Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM seamlessly, rather, it is a force multiplier to help our nation’s agencies gain early insight, data clarity, and momentum needed for modernization, especially at speed,” Pollard said.

Why SaaS migration no longer must be hard

Traditional migrations require manual evaluation and rewriting of custom fields, introducing risk during vendor-managed update cycles that extend timelines. HCMigrate enables agencies to surface these issues early, reducing rework and disruption during implementation.

With sample data alone, the accelerator can be installed, configured, and launched in just two weeks, enabling immediate ingestion into Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, and reducing prototype development timelines from months to weeks.

“Nothing builds confidence like a user seeing their data in a new system and “working” within weeks of a project start,” Pollard said.

The imperative to modernize HCM systems

HR modernization is at an inflection point. Workforce demands are changing. Cybersecurity expectations are evolving. AI is becoming common place. Success requires that we accelerate innovation to drive efficiency that exceeds the possibilities of outdated, legacy systems. Modern, reliable HCM systems also play a critical role in employee experience, directly affecting onboarding, retention, and workforce readiness.

“An incomplete or disruptive HCM system can leave a lasting impression on the end user,” Pollard said. “Onboarding, personnel actions, record-keeping, all of those housekeeping actions rely on data. HR teams can spend less time fixing errors and more time supporting mission outcomes when that data is accurate, usable, and the system is scalable.”

CACI’s tools and team of experts expedite migration activities through proven data mapping and migration capabilities. By providing a shared baseline for technical and functional teams early, HCMigrate improves data visibility and implementation planning, and enhances user adoption by accelerating the timeline for legacy system subsumption.

CACI is making bold investments in the people who keep the government running. With HCMigrate, we deliver positive outcomes and empower our customers to quickly see their data in action, facilitating modernization with the confidence that they can transform the way they work.