Migrating from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 – Keys to a Successful Project

Dynamics 365 Business Central is an option to replace Dynamics GP. Both area suite of operational and accounting business software who was created for growing small and medium-sized businesses. As a Dynamics GP of Micro Force, you probably have been enrolled in a program that can provide you with the licensing for Dynamics 365 Business Central for the same annual maintenance fee that you have been paying for Dynamics GP. If you have met with our team and have decided to plan for a migration to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, what should you keep in mind to assure a successful migration project?

What are the Biggest Hurdles Clients Must Overcome to Successfully Migrate from GP to Dynamics 365?

It’s important to emphasize that the real difference between Dynamics 365 and Dynamics GP is that they’re two distinct products. While Microsoft does offer tools that can help you bring existing data and business processes into the new system, “migrating” from GP to D365 isn’t a true upgrade. GP represents one of many ERP tools in your stack. So, what you’re really looking at is a two-part process.

First you’re consolidating all relevant data and processes. Then from there, you’re migrating what you want to keep to the new system.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges you’ll want to prepare for:

Rethinking Everything About How You Work

Moving to the cloud has a significant impact on how employees work. Understanding the differences between the two systems is important. Business Central is a new system that requires you to rethink your business processes.

This problem can be addressed by removing the features you don’t need and optimizing the ones with the greatest impact on the business. But, it takes a lot of planning and documentation to get this right.

Customizations & 3rd-Party Apps

One of the main benefits of migrating to BC is you’re relying less on ISV solutions and 3rd-party vendors to run simple tasks like cutting a check. At the same time, consolidating all these data sources represents one of the biggest challenges organizations face during the migration process.

With GP, reliance on 3rd-party applications can make migration difficult. In part, because you’ll need to learn the language that different vendors and apps use to describe processes and organize data. That means, you’re adding this extra layer of difficulty to the process. First, you’re decoding the various nuances and terminology from each system to ID gaps and overlapping functionality. Then, you’re making that decision about which processes to migrate, replace, or improve. Beyond the logistical challenges of tracking down processes from disparate systems, clients also struggle to evaluate potential solutions.

You’ll find that within Business Central, most of the functionality you relied on ISVs for is included out of the box. A variety of extensions and application enhancements can be found on AppSource. Your partner can help guide you to choose the best ISVs for your needs.

Migrating Data

Data Migration Wizard

At Micro Force we were not satisfied with the out of the box data migration that Microsoft provides. Based on our extensive knowledge of the GP data model, we created our own data extraction routines. This significantly reduces the amount of data bloat required to move to a new BC system and along with the in the box BC configuration packages (import tool) makes for a much cleaner migration. The Micro Force Extraction routines include :