Post-Migration CTMS Maintenance for Your Team

The first few weeks after launch are when you need to lock in expectations. Who owns which parts of the system? Who approves changes? What processes need to be documented? Without clearly assigned roles and responsibilities, it’s easy for the CTMS to become misaligned with your team’s actual needs. 

Create a working group made up of representatives from clinical operations, regulatory, and IT. This team should meet regularly to review issues, approve updates, and track requests from end users. A monthly check-in is usually enough to stay ahead of problems without overloading schedules. 

And don’t forget: even experienced users benefit from a refresher. People forget shortcuts, miss updates, or start using workarounds that don’t match established processes. Consider offering a quarterly mini-session–either live or on-demand—to help reinforce CTMS best practices.

Focus each session on a specific task or role. For example, you might run a 30-minute session just for study coordinators on managing visit logs. The next month, you could offer a targeted update for project managers on pulling enrollment reports. It’s all about identifying what your team needs and how you can support them. 

You didn’t implement your new CTMS just for the sake of having a modern platform—it’s there to improve the way your team works. Now that you’re fully transitioned, it’s time to start measuring impact. 

Did monitoring report turnaround times improve? Are document uploads happening faster? Is study startup moving more quickly? Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and measure them quarterly or monthly. And as new studies are added and old ones close out, these KPIs should change.  

Part of this process is scheduling regular configuration reviews. Twice a year is a good timeframe to confirm that your system still matches your goals and workflows. These might include: 

• Updating templates for new study phases
• Adding or adjusting fields for new data types
• Revising user permissions as teams shift
• Identifying completed and ongoing goals
• Setting new KPIs and charting a plan. 

These meetings not only confirm that your system’s running as it should, but help your team identify future areas of improvement. A clinical team is a dynamic system and a modern CTMS is built to keep up.  

A brand new system won’t stay clean if users enter data in inconsistent ways. Standard naming conventions, required fields, and validation rules are only effective if everyone sticks to them. Just after migration is a good time to create and provide reference guides or in-system tips to help staff follow the correct format every time. 

Ask yourself if a new team member would know how to enter a new site or upload a protocol amendment without asking for help. If not, your data entry standards need clearer documentation. 

This is a part of the ongoing training you should provide to your team. Otherwise, as time goes on, you’ll notice process drift. It starts small: extra spaces in site names, inconsistent document titles, or missing investigator details. But these little errors add up, especially around audit time. 

Tackle drift head on, before it starts: be sure to use real-world examples in your training. Encourage users to flag confusing sections of your documentation and training program so you can adjust guidance or update field labels as needed. Listen to your team and work with them to clarify how the system should look and function.

And that brings us to our last point: your users will have feedback on your new CTMS, and lots of it. Some will want fields renamed. Others might push for additional dropdown options or new reports. As suggestions come from all sides, it’s important to create a structured way to receive, prioritize, and respond to them. Visit the list regularly to close the loop on pending items. 

Remember: a backlog is useful only if it leads to informed decisions. 

Keep a shared log of all feedback, even if some requests can’t be acted on right away. Being transparent about why changes are or aren’t made helps manage expectations. It also builds confidence in the system–and in management. And when future upgrades and configuration changes happen, it’s easier to effectively communicate them to your team—keeping the momentum going for years to come. 

BSI CTMS is top of the line and we have the track record to prove it. Our modern CTMS solutions cover all aspects of your clinical trials and we want you to test them for your team!

BSI’s CTMS is the most innovative, function-complete, and easy-to-use clinical trial management software on the market. It provides CTMS, eTMF, Study Startup and Trial Supply Management in one integrated, unified platform.

Standard interfaces (API) assure complete data oversight and easy integration with the external systems (e.g. EDC and eTMF) of your choice. The BSI CTMS is the central hub for all aspects of your clinical trials. It’s available as SaaS for ease of use, continuous improvement, and simplified infrastructure.

We’re modern, sleek, and designed with the user in mind for intuitive end-to-end clinical trial management. And the best part? We offer updates, upgrades, and scalability in-house with a full client support team for your legacy system migration and beyond. 

There’s never been a better time to embrace a better CTMS. Book a call today!