With Intapp announcing the upcoming end of life for its on-premises risk software platform, in favor of a cloud-first, cloud-only delivery model, it’s time for firms to take serious steps to develop and execute their migration plans.

If your firm has adopted Intapp for new business acceptance and conflicts management, it has made a serious investment; not only in software, but also in the work building and executing the complex client evaluation and intake processes underpinning your business. It’s critical that you continue to get the experience and return you expect from those investments.

Doing that means navigating some risk. Recently, Mark Denner, Senior Director, Epiq Advisory for Law Firms, noted some of the “gaps” in cloud migration projects that tend to cause issues. The two most common challenges are navigating limits or shifts in technological pathways for reporting and business intelligence and system integration requirements.

Waiting or delaying migration exposes your organization to unwarranted expense and risk. With only two years left before the end of on-premises product licensing and support and only a select set of experienced technical resources available, firms must act immediately. Put otherwise, when it comes to risk management software, don’t take risks.

New Possibilities, New Potential, New Considerations

Intapp has been telegraphing this end of life for several years. It has slowed and then ceased new functional development on the on-premises platform. That innovation energy shifts focus to the cloud offering, which has now been available for nearly a decade, and has resulted in compelling cloud-only capabilities.

While the cloud offers significant advantages for Intapp clients, moving to the cloud requires careful planning, material investment, and skilled technical execution. Because Intapp cloud solutions offer a more platform-centric architecture (e.g., a common data store) and rely on new integration tools (e.g., IIS/Boomi), it’s essential that firms take a holistic approach to planning and execution when adopting multiple products. As detailed below, the ideal approach involves two phases, readiness and transition, with specific best practices for each.

There Are Best Practices – and It’s Best to Follow Them

The cloud migration process is often seen as a simple and swift “lift and shift” exercise. Most firms using Intapp on-premises have had years to customize, integrate, and extend the solution in their environment and across multiple business processes. The journey between the ground and the cloud involves navigating change management, mapping those processes, and data flows onto a new system.

There are tested and proven best practices specific to Intapp cloud migration that offer firms flexibility on the technical approach they take, the timeframes under which they execute, and the budgetary impact of the overall initiative.

There’s a common misconception that the move to the cloud is an all-or-nothing leap. However, successful migrations are executed in phases, with a significant emphasis on “pre-cloud” preparation. For classification purposes, this preparation can be called “cloud readiness,” and the actual move as “cloud transition.”

By defining these distinct threads, firms establish the timelines, resource allocation, budget impact, and technical approaches that best fit their needs.

Cloud Readiness
Every Intapp cloud migration requires extensive groundwork focused on your existing on-premises environment. The following steps outline the key to building this foundation.

1. Conduct a Cloud Assessment: Every firm must start by engaging a trusted, experienced advisor to review their existing technical installation, integrations, process flows, and project objectives. As part of this exercise, consider changes you may want to make to data and process flows.
   
   Many firms find a “zero change, lift and shift” approach that replicates their existing system to the cloud attractive. Even if you’d like to keep everything you have the same, be aware that new constraints will necessitate some change in workflow and architecture. It can also result in reimplementing sub-optimal workflows and missing out on new capabilities. This is one reason, in practice, that most organizations use the cloud transition as an opportunity to review and refactor policies, processes, workflows, and reports.
   
   By starting with an assessment, organizations gain a more comprehensive view of the pros and cons of the paths they can take, along with advice from seasoned experts.
    
2. Upgrade Your Existing Software in Place: If you’re not already on the last officially supported on-premises version of your Intapp software, you’ll want to be there before transitioning to the cloud. There are tools and capabilities in that “last and latest” version that are critical prerequisites and accelerators. Not the least of which is “data sets.”
    
3. Migrate “Query Integrations” to “Data Sets”: The cloud brings a new approach to integration. It eliminates direct-to-database access. Instead of flexible, structured query language (SQL)-based integrations developed outside the application, Intapp has created a native integration layer called data sets. Data sets provide a graphical, web-based, wizard-driven mechanism for establishing integrations across Intapp and other applications.
   
   And while intuitive and powerful, data sets come with their own language and limitations versus transitional SQL. With this significant change, reevaluating these integrations presents an opportunity to refine and streamline your architecture, thereby significantly improving system performance and user experience.
    
4. Create Virtual Tables and Convert Data: Another key data-related preparation firms must make is creating data abstractions that remove data and data integrations previously hard-coded into forms to an external table. These “virtual” tables are designed to hold custom reference data that Intapp does not manage natively. Examples may include client matter information, office locations, practice-specific details, and other custom data.
   
   While this exercise requires some effort, it yields a cleaner, easier-to-maintain architecture going forward. With abstracted data, organizations make changes or additions more effectively in the future without provider intervention.
   
   The good news about these necessary readiness activities is that while they require time and resources, they can be executed in phases, in parallel, and without disrupting your existing user experience. Even if you’re not ready to “migrate” right now, executing these steps today will make your eventual tomorrow a lot sunnier and smoother.

Cloud Transition
With foundational preparations in place, the next major stage is the actual shift to the cloud. This part follows a traditional software deployment model. Key elements include:

1. Rebuilding Integrations From Integration Builder to Intapp Integration Service: Any remaining data connections managed by Integration Builder (IB) must be replaced by the Intapp Integration Service (IIS), which is Boomi.
    
2. Designing and Configuring Processes: Teams must recreate forms and workflows in the cloud system. This is an opportunity to refine processes by leveraging newer system functionality, adapting to changing firm requirements, and evolving best practices.
    
3. Implementing Reporting: Firms typically must navigate new constraints and opportunities around reporting. With direct database access removed, Intapp opens new avenues to data and reporting, including support for third-party access and tools.
    
4. Testing, Training, and Change Management: As with any software project, organizations will need to carry out prudent testing and develop plans to introduce the system to different types of users (operational risk, finance, lawyers, and others) effectively. In this case, much of the software experience will feel familiar to users rather than a wholesale, net-new product adoption cycle.
    

Resources Matter; Start Now To Avoid the Rush (and Risk)

The legal industry has seen an end of life before. A decade ago, a major financial system supplier announced its own on-premises end of life. What unfolded in that ecosystem and the challenges it created for some organizations offers cautionary guidance for firms today.

As deadlines approach and firms try to engage a limited set of experienced, technical experts, the supply and demand curve shifts in predictable ways. To avoid unnecessary cost, unexpected delays, and unforeseen technical risk, it is recommended that every organization take immediate steps to advance their Intapp cloud journey.

Early action today mitigates risk, cost, and uncertainty tomorrow. That’s because diligent assessment and planning enable organizations to secure necessary consulting resources and work cost-effectively in phases over multiple budget cycles.

Preparing Your Firm for the Future of Intapp Cloud
The transition to Intapp Cloud is more than a response to a product end-of-life announcement. It is a defining moment to evaluate how risk, intake, compliance, and business acceptance processes will support the firm in the years ahead. Reaching the greatest value from this transition requires that firms use the opportunity to align technology decisions with broader business objectives, preparing not only for the move to the cloud, but for what comes next.

Learn more about Epiq Intapp Cloud Migration Assessment and Execution.

Jeff Armbrecht, Senior Director, Business Operations

Jeff Armbrecht leads the expert teams responsible for implementing Intapp Compliance solutions at Epiq. His work spans new business intake, conflicts management, outside counsel guidelines (OCGs), and terms of business initiatives.