Migrate FileCabinet CS data in less than 15 minutes of work
Thomson Reuters is sunsetting FileCabinet CS in 2027. Getting your data out can take months. We do it all for you fast. Backup your data, send it to us, we do the rest.
No hourly billing. No staff hours. You choose where you go. We get you discounts.
The software is going away. Thomson Reuters wants you to stay.
Most firms discover the real problem after they've already picked a new platform.
FileCabinet CS was never built to let data out in bulk. Thomson Reuters makes data migration intentionally difficult to try and get you to stay in their ecosystem. Exporting drawers one at a time is the only supported path.
Even if you decide “you know what, I like doing mundane tasks for hours on end”, drawer exports lose their folder structure which must be recreated. On top of that, Filecabinet can have loud and silent export errors. “Did everything come across from that drawer? I’m not really sure”. All of that just to get data back into a native file format so that you can then send it somewhere else (more work).
On a firm with hundreds of drawers, that's not a weekend project, it's months of somebody's time, done by hand, during a year you're already trying to change platforms.
The situations we see most
"We're switching platforms and the migration quote didn't cover the archive." The new vendor handles active clients. The historical drawers are your problem.
"We already switched. The old data is on a machine in the closet." The license is expired, nobody wants to touch it, and every year it sits there is a year closer to the hardware failing.
"We're being acquired and diligence wants clean records." Hard deadline, real money, and no room for "we think it's all there."
Everything out. Everything accounted for.
3 months free at your new home - We have partnerships with most document & practice management companies outside of the Thomson Reuters ecosystem. You need to move, we do the work, our partners love to work with you. Everyone wins.
Complete document extraction - Every drawer, every folder, every document with the original structure and filing dates preserved, not flattened into one directory.
Verification report - You get a written record showing that what went in came out, file for file.
Chain of custody documentation - Who handled your client data, when, and how it was secured at each step. The document you hand your insurer or your acquirer.
Certificate of Destruction - Written confirmation that our working copies are gone when the engagement closes.
The Process
Our goal is to make migrating as easy as possible. Almost all engagements require less than 15 minutes of work for you or a member of your team.
Free Assesment
We take a look at your environment to get a few key pieces of information.
What format of Filecabinet are you using? Default installs are usually local, but Filecabinet can be configured to run with a SQL server.
Number of Drawers / Size of Data - Converting the data out of its proprietary format (extraction) takes time and is directly correlated to this info. Extracting 500GB of data will always take 5x more time than 100GB.
Location - Is the data hosted locally or with a cloud provider? This affects how we will receive a copy of your Filecabinet backup (more on that in step 3)
Extraction
Create document manifests
Extract data back to its native file format
Recreate folder hierarchy
Audit the restored folders against the manifests
Spot check drawers to ensure that the extraction is complete.
Backup
We only work off of backups of your data and we never touch your environment unless specifically requested to. This ensures your data is never at risk of being corrupted or deleted.
In a worst case scenario, only a little time is lost.
Migration
We work with your chosen provider to migrate your data onto their platform.
You sit back and we handle all the logistics.
Transfer Backup Data
We take possesion of your Filecabinet data. All work is performed inside of a virtual environment in an encrypted workstation dedicated to migration. These machines are not used for any other purpose and are wiped clean after every engagement.
After this step is complete your job is done.
Data Destruction & Closeout
We hold your data for an agreed upon period (usually 30 days) just incase something comes up.
After that time we completely destroy all copies of your data and the virtual environment that was used perform the work. We then issue you a Certificate of Destruction which outlines these steps.
Why not just do it yourself?
The truth is you absolutely can. The manual path works. Somebody on your staff opens FileCabinet CS, selects a drawer, exports it, waits, confirms it landed, checks the contents to ensure everything was successfully exported and repeats.
For a small firm with 300-500 drawers you might assume that process would take around 5 minutes a drawer (assuming you built your own tool to recreate the folder hierarchy). If there are no stops/breaks/delays/pauses you would be looking at around 25-40 hours of work. Not great, but not terrible either.
The problem that most people forget, is that the file conversion process itself can be quite lengthy. When you Export a client drawer Filecabinet runs a proprietary conversion tool that transforms your documents back into their native file formats. The conversion process itself can take over an hour for a single drawer with a long history.
And here is a fun Filecabinet wrinkle. Your drawer export crashes midway through an hour long run. You go to re-export thinking… “I’ll just skip over everything I already exported and get the rest” Filecabinet hits you with this fun warning.
This file already exists. Do you want to overwrite?
[Yes to All] [No]
Guess what option is not there? NO TO ALL. So you have to re-export everything again or manually select the documents that didnt make it in the first run. Redo that hour of work… what joy!
If you budget 30 minutes of conversion time per GB of data that same 300 drawer Filecabinet could have an aditional 50 hours of conversion time. That brings the total time up to around 80 hours of work assuming perfect use of time with no downtime or breaks. In reality this type of job is likely going to take at least a month of work for someone to complete. If you have a good worker willing to do that at minimum wage that comes out to $1,160. If you are in Florida that would come out to $2,240. New York $2,560. California you’re looking at $2,704.
You get the picture. There is a cost any way you slice it.
And all that is just the easy part. Confirming that all 300,000 documents actually made it, with nothing silently dropped, is the next step. Then you need to recreate the folder structure and reorganize all the documents. You can choose to not do this step or do a limited version of it, but then you need to make sure to keep the environment that runs your Filecabinet accessible for as long as you have retention obligations.
After that you need to upload everything to your destination system.
If you've got the hours and someone patient, do it yourself. We'd rather tell you that than sell you something you don't need. If you don't, that's what we're here for.
Get a Free Assessment
We would be happy to take a look at your environment and help you out with the process. Even if you aren’t ready to migrate today.
If you know your stats and just want a fixed price quote fill out the info below and let us know in the notes section.