If you're on Dynamics GP and you know the migration is coming to Dynamics three sixty five Business Central, but you don't know what the process will look like, this video is for you. My name is Zach Kerhalis. I'm the Director of Business Development here at Volt Technologies, and I've had this conversation with so many customers in the past. Today, I'm going to walk you through what that process will look like, why projects stall, what we do to make sure they're so successful, and how to ultimately get you from Great Plains to Dynamics three sixty five Business Central. The first thing that I always recommend is to utilize the GP migration assessment tool. This is going to give you a good understanding of where you're at with the data and it give you a good starting place. From there, you really need to be working with your partner to identify what the functional and technical scope for the implementation is going to look like. So on the functional side you're going to identify your process flows whether it's purchasing, sales, financial, getting an understanding for what that will look like. From there you're going to move into your technical or what we like to call our waterfall task. We're going to make sure that our data migration is set up for success. If we have any integrations into our current Great Plains environment, how we're going to replicate those within Business Central, our critical reports, so what types of reports do we run on daily, weekly, monthly basis. And then finally, we're going to have our extensions or our ISPs. So a lot of the times what we have found in these Great Plains migrations is that customers have one extended their environment or they're utilizing independent software vendor extensions on top of their current environment as well. What we do is we identify those processes, we understand what they look like today, and then we see if we can replace those with out of the box Business Central If not, then what we do is we go and look at what types of extensions or what ISVs would be necessary within the system. So to set the set project up for success, we need to make sure that we're all in line with what the functional and the technical scope is going to look like and the workload that's ahead of us. So the data migration for any project within ERP is going to be one of the most important starting places for the actual implementation. So what we'll do is as a first step is we're going to identify what data is going to come over, right? So customers, vendors, items, our chart of accounts, any open transactions. From there we need to identify our historical data. Generally speaking, our recommendation is on the financial side to bring three years of summary level financial data over. That being said, every customer's requirements are different, so we'll work with you to figure out what works best. Additionally, on top of that, something to understand is that this is a great opportunity to cleanse your data. So let's not just bring over every vendor, every customer, every item that you've had in your system for over twenty years. Let's go through the process of bringing over the active vendors, active items, right? So maybe things that we have transacted within the last three to four years or additionally on top of that we can go through processes of changing the numbering sequences on items, customers, vendors, the chart of accounts. That's a great place as well to clean up. Maybe there's accounts that we've been wanting to get rid of, consolidate or eliminate, or even change our numbering sequence. So the data migration is going to be a key aspect of the project and something that we're going to spend a lot of time on since it sets us up ultimately for success. So for this, it really comes down to the planning, just like everything we've talked about. As long as we go into the project with a clear plan, clear milestones, clear dates, deadlines, resource structure, and a budget, we should be able to get to that successful go live. That being said, I've gone through hundreds of these implementations and where I see the most issues arise is the velocity of decision making. When we get into an actual process and we say, okay, how are we going to handle this? How do we want to change the number in sequence for the chart of accounts? How do we actually want to go through purchase orders or sales orders? Where I see hang ups in these implementations is where the customer or our team doesn't have that velocity on the decision making. Something gets held up for a week, two weeks, that starts to delay the project. So our team and your team ultimately need to collaborate together on daily, weekly basis, sure we're on the same page. And that's something that's a really important piece of our methodology. We make sure to meet on a weekly basis, our project manager and your project manager. Additionally, we have our steering committee meetings on monthly between your oversight and our oversight team. This is where we're fully transparent and honest with each other. We discuss key risks, key issues, key decisions. We see where we're at on the milestones as well as our budgets. So as long as we're working together, collaborating, marching towards that successful go live, we shouldn't run into any of these hang ups. So as I mentioned earlier, the data migration is one the most crucial pieces of the implementation. The data is going be the main starting point for our ERP, so we need to make sure that we're validating this data from day one. So an important piece of our methodology is at the beginning of the project we will begin actually migrating your data from Great Plains into Dynamics three sixty five Business Central. What we want to do is identify a repeatable process of exporting the data, transforming and cleansing it, and importing it back into Business Central. Additionally, on top of that, we're going to have our conference room pilots or what I like to refer to as our mock go lives. During each mock go live, we will do a full cutover of all of your data from Great Plains into Dynamics three sixty five Business Central and go through validation processes. We'll look at customers, vendors, items, our chart of accounts. Obviously, we don't look at every record or every field, but we validate key accounts. We make sure that fields are mapped correctly. We do this sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three or four times. It just depends on the complexity of the project. But making sure that we're aligned, all of the data is validated is a crucial piece of the implementation. So in my experience with these implementations, something that I've seen that our customers come unprepared or unplanned for coming into the project is really the work that comes on their side. We all know that the partner is responsible for the actual implementation, the data migration, the design, the testing, the validation, the actual go live, But this is a collaborative effort. We work with your team on daily basis to understand how they currently do their processes, what they like about those processes, what they don't like, actual things that they would like to see work in the future, whether it's automation or new capabilities. This is very much a collaborative effort where we need to understand what the process looks like today and what you would like for it to look in future state. Obviously, we can come in and we can just design the system, build it, you know, how we would like for it to be, but ultimately we want to make sure that your team feels comfortable with it as well. So we will be meeting with your team on daily basis, getting understanding for those processes. We'll be assigning out homework. We'll be creating standard operating procedures for your team to review. This is a crucial piece of the implementation. We have to work together. We have to be aligned on expectations to get to that successful go live. I hope you found this video helpful. Just to recap what we've gone through today, we've got an understanding for how you can handle a Great Plains Dynamics three sixty five Business Central implementation. It's crucial that you scope out the project correctly on the functional and technical side, that you collaborate with your partner, and that you're transparent and honest with each other as you go through these projects. If there's anything that we can ever do to help in the future, please go ahead and reach out to us at Volt Technologies and go ahead and subscribe if you like this content.
Zach Kerhalis from Volt Technologies provides a comprehensive walkthrough of the Dynamics GP to Business Central migration process. He covers the essential steps including using the GP migration assessment tool, defining functional and technical scope, and planning data migration strategies. The video emphasizes the importance of collaboration between partners and customers, proper project planning with clear milestones, and the critical role of data validation through mock go-lives.
Kerhalis highlights common project challenges, particularly around decision-making velocity, and stresses that successful implementations require transparency, regular communication, and active participation from both the implementation partner and the customer’s team throughout the entire process.
