The Onboarding Process
The end-to-end onboarding workflow — the phases from source data discovery through production go-live, who owns each, and how they overlap.
Overview
Onboarding a branch into C3 runs as a sequence of phases, from establishing access to the source system through to associations going live in C3 Production. Each phase has a clear owner and set of completion criteria. Some phases happen in this app; others — source data ingestion and the C3 loading pipelines — are run by the Data Platform engineering team and are summarized here so you understand where the app fits in the larger picture.
Who does the work
Responsibilities are assigned by team:
- Engineering — Transformation/Ingestion — transform source data and ingest it into the silver layer and Strata.
- Engineering — App & Schema — build and maintain this app and the Strata schema.
- Engineering — Loading — build the pipelines that load data from Strata into C3.
- Implementation — Associa onboarding specialists responsible for standardization, review, and validation oversight.
- Branch — staff from the acquired company who provide data validation, wave preferences, and source-system knowledge.
Some tasks — GL and charge-type mapping, wave planning — cannot be done by Engineering alone. They depend on source-system knowledge and business decisions, so they require Branch and Implementation working together.
The phases
| Phase | Name | Owner | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data Source Discovery & Acquisition | Transformation/Ingestion + Branch | Pre-app |
| 2 | Field Mapping Analysis | Branch + Implementation | In app |
| 3 | Association Ingestion | Transformation/Ingestion | Engineering |
| 4 | Wave Planning & Association Assignment | Implementation + Branch | In app |
| 5 | Entity Ingestion (incl. configuration entities) | Transformation/Ingestion | Engineering (confirmed in app) |
| 6 | Standardization — Data Mapping | Implementation + Branch | In app |
| 7 | Review & Data Quality Assessment | Implementation (with Branch) | In app |
| 8 | Validation | Branch (execution) + Implementation (oversight) | In app |
| 9 | Migration Tracking & Go-Live Sign-off | Branch + Associa | In app |
| 10 | C3 UAT Loading | Loading | Engineering |
| 11 | C3 UAT Testing | Implementation + Branch | In C3 UAT |
| 12 | Go-Dark | All teams | Mixed |
| 13 | Production Migration & Go-Live | Engineering | Engineering |
How the phases overlap
The phases are a sequence, but several run in parallel:
- Ingestion is branch-wide, not wave-based. Entity ingestion (Phase 5) proceeds for the whole branch as source data becomes available, independent of how associations are grouped into waves.
- Wave planning runs alongside ingestion. Phase 4 only needs associations to exist, so it runs in parallel with Phase 5.
- Field mapping is a living reference. Phase 2 continues alongside ingestion (Phases 3 and 5), informing the transformation logic Engineering writes.
- Review is continuous. Phase 7 begins as soon as entities are ingested and intensifies once standardization is complete.
- Migration tracking is continuous. Entity lifecycle states (Phase 9) advance throughout the process; the two-party go-live sign-off is its final gate.
Where to go next
- Entity Model — how entities depend on one another and the load order the phases follow.
- Roles & Access — what each role can do and how team affiliation drives sign-off.
- Working in the App — step-by-step guidance for the in-app phases.
Associa team members: the complete end-to-end runbook — including the engineering-owned ingestion and C3 loading pipelines — is maintained in Confluence at Data Onboarding App End-to-End Runbook.
Get Started
How the Data Onboarding app moves an acquired management company's data into the TownSq ecosystem via the C3 database, and where to find guidance for each step.
Entity Model
How onboarding entities relate to one another, the order they load in, the source→mapped→standard tiers for mappable entities, and the per-entity migration lifecycle.