Data upgrade from Dynamics AX 2012 to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is a big undertake. The nature of the upgrade projects is very different from the re-implementation or master data migration approach projects. The first challenge the implementation team is going to face is the lack of community support. Reason – not many AX2012 customers are migrating their data. Most of the customers are just doing the re-implementation.

In this blog post, I am going to talk about the three things the implementation team should always take care of.

#1 Mock cutover.

Mock cutover is a recommended step in the success by design Dynamics applications implementation process. It becomes more important if the project also involves the data upgrade. At-least one successful mock cutover should be completed before the actual go live.

Do multiple mock cutovers if there is a version change of the Dynamics 365 application.

#2 Start the data replication one or two weeks before the go live date.

Depending on the size of the database, replicating the data takes time. It is the second most time-consuming step out of all the data migration steps. Setup and start it as early as possible. This is going to save precious time.

#3 Attachments should be considered early and properly plan.

If the customer is planning to carry over the file attachments and product images, it is required to move them to the AX2012 DB first. Microsoft FastTrack team has developed a community tool to do this. You definitely need to modify it to make it work for your specific needs. You can find it from GitHub under this repository.

I am going to share more experiences about the data upgrade in future. Have queries and questions? Please feel to contact us using any of the provided method.