NOS PRESTATIONS
YOU'RE COMING FROM →
FileMaker Excel AtoM Omeka Encyclia S-Museum Flora Micromusée Pallas Dublin Core
05b Service · Migration
FROM TABLEUR

Excel

WE MIGRATE YOUR DATA TO

CollectiveAccess

Your collections live in Excel spreadsheets that have grown year after year — multiple tabs, duplicates, broken formulas, and nobody really knows which is the latest version anymore. We structure that data, normalise the vocabularies, repatriate the media, and install a relational, web-based, multi-user platform.

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LOCK · USERS OPEN
Excel ×subscriptions
∞
CONCURRENT USERS
With CollectiveAccess, only the server's capacity matters. No per-user licence, no workstation to provision.
BEFORE
Installed application
1 PC = 1 LICENCE
→
AFTER
Web platform — accessible everywhere
BROWSER ONLY·OPEN SOURCE·API REST
— Process
01

A migration guided, never endured.

5 steps · 8 to 16 weeks
STEP 01 · 1 TO 2 WKS

Audit

We study your data: volume, custom fields, hierarchies, linked media, access rights. Delivered as a report and a target mapping.

DELIVERABLES
  • ↳ Field inventory
  • ↳ Data mapping
  • ↳ Migration plan
STEP 02 · 1 TO 3 WKS

Mapping

Design of the target CollectiveAccess structure — projection of your spreadsheet tabs into CA record types and relations, validated with your scholarly teams.

DELIVERABLES
  • ↳ Customised CA profile
  • ↳ Reference lists
  • ↳ Correspondence tables
STEP 03 · 2 TO 6 WKS

Migration

Extraction from Excel (XLSX parsing, CSV exports, linked-media path resolution), transformations (deduplication, vocabulary normalisation, date parsing, relation reconstruction), import into CollectiveAccess. HD media re-linked, copied and re-indexed.

DELIVERABLES
  • ↳ Acceptance-ready database
  • ↳ Migrated media
  • ↳ Quality report
STEP 04 · 2 TO 4 WKS

Acceptance

Cross-checks: your reference users validate the migrated records, we adjust, we document. Iterations on a pre-production environment.

DELIVERABLES
  • ↳ Test plan
  • ↳ Issue tracking
  • ↳ Acceptance report
STEP 05 · 1 WK

Training & switch-over

Team training on their own migrated database. Switch to production, support during the first days, managed hosting included.

DELIVERABLES
  • ↳ Training sessions
  • ↳ Production rollout
  • ↳ 30-day follow-up
— Comparison
02

Eleven concrete reasons to migrate.

Excel → CollectiveAccess
AXIS
EXCEL
COLLECTIVEACCESS
Relational model
Flat sheets, made-up IDs, places/people/exhibitions copied by hand from one tab to another
★
Linked tables and typed relations (object ↔ place ↔ person ↔ exhibition ↔ media) with cardinalities and facets
Concurrent editing
One file locked at a time — OneDrive « currently being edited by X », merge conflicts on every open
★
Native multi-user, per-record locking, field- and role-level permissions
Single source of truth
inventory_v3_FINAL_REALLY_2024.xlsx in seven versions across four different desktops
✓
A single versioned base, per-record history, point-in-time restore
Controlled vocabularies
Free-text fields — « oil on canvas », « Oil/canvas », « oil paint » coexist without speaking to each other
✓
Internal hierarchical lists, aligned with AAT, Joconde, Geonames, RAMEAU — auto-completion and redirects
Media linked to records
Absolute paths D:\photos\IMG_… that break the first time a workstation is moved
✓
Media managed inside the base: thumbnails, HD derivatives, EXIF, IIIF, inline playback
Musées de France compliance
No native regulatory trace — inventory check, inventory number, deposit register all to be built by hand
★
Official SMF plugin: compliant register, locked three-segment numbering, ten-yearly inventory check, generated minutes
Input controls
No constraints — dates as text, duplicate inventory numbers, mandatory fields unchecked
✓
Type validation, ranges, masks, required fields, uniqueness constraints
Advanced search
Single-criterion Ctrl-F, filters limited to one sheet at a time
✓
Full-text + facets + typed fields + boolean operators, saved queries
Change history
No per-field versioning; Office « Track Changes » verbose and fragile
✓
Granular audit log (who, when, previous value) on every field
Volume
Slows down past 30,000 rows, crashes around 100,000
✓
Hundreds of thousands of records with no degradation, Elasticsearch indexing
HD multimedia, video, audio, 3D
No viewer — linked files opened in an external app when the path still holds
✓
Native HD, RAW, video streaming, audio, 3D OBJ/glTF, IIIF, interactive annotations

★ Three gains change the game: a typed relational model, native concurrent editing and Musées de France compliance. Everything else — durability, openness, interoperability — flows from there.

— Guarantees
03

Four safety nets.

Included
01 INTEGRITY

Data preserved

No loss. Every Micromusée field finds its equivalent — including hierarchies, controlled vocabularies and media links.

02 ACCEPTANCE

Tested round-trip

Before going live, you work on a copy of your real database, in pre-production. Adjustments are free of charge.

03 SOVEREIGNTY

You stay in control

The server is hosted by us, but the database and the media belong to you. Full export available at any time, in an open format.

04 COST

No hidden licence

Once migrated, no more purchase or extension fees. You pay for hosting and support, that's it.

— FIRST STEP IS FREE

Send us a Excel export.
We send back a costed migration plan.

Launch an audit
— Coming from somewhere else?

We can migrate your data.

DESKTOP →

FileMaker Pro / Server

Bases relationnelles propriétaires Claris/Apple
WEB →

AtoM open source

Access to Memory — archives ICA
WEB →

Omeka Classic / S

Plateforme web de publication patrimoniale
DESKTOP →

Encyclia

Logiciel de gestion documentaire
DESKTOP →

S-Museum Skinsoft

Solution propriétaire pour collections (Skinsoft Museum)
DESKTOP →

Flora

Suite de gestion documentaire et archives
DESKTOP →

Micromusée v6 / v7

Logiciel propriétaire historique des musées de France
WEB →

Pallas BruDISC

Logiciel documentaire conçu au CegeSoma, maintenu par l'asbl BruDISC (ULB/VUB)
STANDARD →

Dublin Core standard

Dump générique Dublin Core (XML / CSV / OAI-PMH)
— Continuer la visite

Les autres métiers d'idéesculture.

01 →

Formation

Prise en main, autonomie, montée en compétence
03 →

Hébergement

Serveurs dédiés, infogérance, sauvegardes
04 →

Musées de France

Inventaire, récolement, export Joconde
05 →

Développement

Plugins, intégrations, sur-mesure

Our specialised sites