How Does a Microsoft Dynamics GP Upgrade Work?

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Microsoft Dynamics GP Upgrade Methodology

There’s a reason why our clients trust Crestwood Associates to upgrade their Dynamics GP systems to the latest version.  It’s a complicated process and we’ve done hundreds of them.  Upgrades can take anywhere from 30 to over 100 hours depending on the complexity of your system.

So what are we doing in all that time?

  1. Back up all of your GP data. Safety first!
  2. Move your database to a new SQL environment
  3. Run a number of scripts to check the database integrity, make sure permissions are accurate, and transfer all the SQL logins over from the old server to the new server
  4. Install the new version of GP, making sure the same modules currently being used are installed
  5. Run GP Utilities to upgrade the system database
    • Check to be sure the upgrade path is supported (2010 can upgrade to 2013 for example, but can’t jump to 2016 version in a single hop)
    • Update the table structure, renaming any tables that need to be updated, dropping any indexes, stored procedures, views, triggers, etc., creating the new table structure, and then copying the data back in so that no data is lost
  6. Repeat step #5 for each Company database
  7. After the system database is upgraded, the same process is done for each company databases
  8. The duration of the conversion process varies greatly from hours to days and depends on system hardware, number of GP companies, and size of the databases for each company
  9. If the upgrade is across multiple versions, often times a second hop is required.  The process is the same, but before moving from the incremental version to the next or to the final GP version, we take backups at each step along the way
  10. If any errors occur further along in the process, we can roll back to an incremental step rather than starting over at the very beginning
  11. When the primary GP upgrade process is completed, we login to the application and update registration keys
  12. Transfer all customizations
  13. Reset user passwords (this needs to be done anytime you move to a different SQL server)
  14. Install and upgrade all 3rd party ISV products
  15. Work with the client to do validation of the test environment, the data, reports, and all functionality through a User Acceptance Testing (UAT) process
  16. Testing should occur for at least a week
  17. When the UAT has been approved – all procedures functioning properly within the test environment, the live upgrade is scheduled
  18. Disable access to the old version, to prevent users from making accidental changes in the wrong version of GP
  19. Take more backups
  20. Move the databases to the new server and follow back through the upgrade steps
  21. If issues were discovered during testing, the resolution for those issues are documented so as to be resolved when we do the live upgrade
  22. The test upgrade also gives us a good estimate for how much downtime to expect for the live upgrade
  23. Provide training on new features
  24. Set our happy client loose with their brand new version of Dynamics GP!

 

Read more on things to consider and planning tips for your upgrade.

If you have further questions, or want to schedule your upgrade, contact us at sales@crestwood.com

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