How We Solved SAP’s Strict Validation Rules During Our Data Migration (Part 2)

In Part 1, I walked through the challenges of migrating financial data from PeopleSoft to SAP & Coupa across 14 companies — including poor legacy data quality, unclear scope, and tight timelines.
Now let’s get into one of the trickiest technical hurdles we faced — and how we creatively solved it.

💡 Creative Problem Solving: When Systems Demand Perfection

One of the biggest hurdles was SAP’s strict validation rules — especially around mandatory fields like postal codes.

We encountered many supplier records where postal codes were missing or incorrectly formatted. SAP would simply reject these entries.

The approach taken was to use placeholders like “A” for letters and “N” for numbers to simulate valid postal code patterns. These were then validated against country-specific formats.

If the format didn’t match, we either reformatted dynamically or assigned generic codes based on country standards. For special cases like bank accounts, customer addresses, supplier details, and Coupa-specific file formats, dedicated logic was applied to ensure compliance across systems.

For example:
· Bank account formatting varied by country, so we built conditional logic to meet local requirements.
· Supplier and customer addresses had inconsistent structures — we mapped and standardized them using reference tables.
· Coupa required a very specific file layout — we automated transformations using Power Query to align with their format.

Each challenge demanded precision and creativity, with every solution keeping us aligned to system requirements and timelines. This proactive problem-solving became a consistent theme — helping us resolve issues early and avoid delays to the go-live date.

🏁 Results: On Time, First Time Right

Despite the complexity and compressed timeline, all data was converted and uploaded successfully — no rework required. SAP and Coupa accepted everything on the first try.

More importantly, the migration exposed weaknesses in legacy processes — particularly around supplier and customer creation — and gave us the chance to build stronger governance moving forward.

👥 Teamwork Made It Possible

This was a cross-functional effort involving teams across R2R, O2C, procurement, IT, and more. Weekly global calls kept everyone aligned, and strong collaboration ensured we overcame roadblocks together.

As the central point for all data migration, I had the privilege of working closely with each stream — gathering inputs, solving problems, and delivering results.

If you're currently going through or planning an ERP migration, I'd love to hear about your journey — or if you'd like to learn more about some of the tools or techniques we used, feel free to reach out. Happy to share insights or collaborate.

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