Ready
The control is defined, tested and supported by reviewable evidence.
Vendor-neutral decision aid
ERP Decommissioning Readiness Checklist
Use this practical checklist to expose the decisions, dependencies and evidence required before an SAP, Oracle, IBM i or other legacy ERP application can be confidently retired.
How to use it: Bring application, business-process, records, security and infrastructure owners together. Mark each item Ready, Gap or Not applicable. Record the owner and evidence—not only a verbal answer. A system is not retirement-ready merely because data has been copied.
Gap
A decision, dependency, test, owner or evidence item remains unresolved.
Not applicable
The team documented why the control does not apply to this application.
1 · Scope and ownership
Define what is actually being retired.
- Application boundary is documented.
Production, reporting, interfaces, batch jobs, archives, content repositories, custom components and shadow systems are included or explicitly excluded.
- Business and technical owners are named.
Decision rights exist for data scope, validation, retention, access, security, shutdown and final disposition.
- Retirement objectives and constraints are agreed.
The team understands the business case, target dates, contractual limits, dependencies and conditions that could stop shutdown.
2 · Data, documents and context
Preserve complete business meaning—not isolated tables.
- Required business objects and history are inventoried.
Transactions, master data, configuration context, custom fields, status history and cross-object relationships are mapped to an approved scope.
- Documents and attachments are accounted for.
Content repositories, links, versions, renditions, notes and supporting files have a preservation and retrieval path.
- Data quality and exceptions are visible.
Missing relationships, corrupt content, duplicates, orphaned records and extraction exceptions have owners and documented treatment.
3 · Retention, privacy and disposition
Translate policy into enforceable lifecycle rules.
- Retention requirements are approved by record category and purpose.
Rules consider jurisdiction, contract, tax, industry, privacy and legitimate business need rather than applying one blanket duration.
- Legal holds and exceptions can be applied.
Records subject to investigation, dispute or preservation duties can be identified, protected and released through governed action.
- End-of-life disposition is defined.
Authorized destruction, evidence, approvals and residual copies are addressed for both the preserved history and the retired environment.
4 · Historical access and reporting
Prove that users can still answer real questions.
- Named user groups and use cases are documented.
Finance, audit, tax, customer service, legal, operations and other authorized users have defined access needs and service expectations.
- Critical reports and searches are acceptance-tested.
Representative period-end, transaction, document, reconciliation and investigation scenarios work without reopening the legacy application.
- Exports preserve context and controls.
Authorized export formats, metadata, lineage, masking and handling expectations are defined and tested.
5 · Security and operations
Replace legacy risk with governed service.
- Identity and least-privilege access are implemented.
Authentication, authorization, segregation, privileged administration and periodic access review reflect the sensitivity of historical data.
- Logging, monitoring, backup and recovery are tested.
The target service produces usable audit evidence and has defined ownership, incident handling, recovery objectives and restoration tests.
- Service support is ready.
Users know where to request access or help; operating procedures, escalation routes, training and knowledge transfer are complete.
6 · Validation and shutdown evidence
Make shutdown a controlled business decision.
- Technical reconciliation is complete.
Counts, control totals, hashes or equivalent measures demonstrate that the approved scope was preserved and exceptions were resolved or accepted.
- Business validation is signed off.
Named process owners have executed agreed scenarios and approved the results, including documents, relationships and reports.
- The shutdown gate has objective evidence.
Dependencies are removed, fallback and cutover decisions are documented, approvals are recorded, and infrastructure disposal follows the applicable policy.
Decision record
Summarize the readiness decision.
Application: ____________________________________
Target retirement date: ________________________
Ready: ______ Gaps: ______ Not applicable: ______
Decision owner: _________________________________
Next review: ____________________________________
Recommended gate: Do not authorize final shutdown while a gap could materially affect required access, legal preservation, security, reconciliation, recovery or business validation. Treat the checklist as a decision aid, not legal advice or a guarantee of compliance.
Turn the checklist into an evidence-based retirement plan.
ArchiveHub can help assess one candidate application, identify the gaps and define the evidence required for a confident shutdown decision.