Driving User Adoption: A Key to Successful Dynamics NAV to Business Central Migration

Whether you choose a staged transition, direct upgrade, or reimplementation, you should not treat migrating from Dynamics NAV to Business Central as a purely technical IT initiative. Like any organization-wide transition from one ERP system to another, such projects can only succeed if end-users utilize the new solution as intended. This makes a change management plan aimed to enhance user adoption a critical part of the broader NAV to Business Central migration strategy.

Below, we explore the importance of user adoption in the Dynamics NAV to Business Central migration and provide practices you can apply to ensure more efficient change management.

How user adoption impacts the success of Dynamics NAV to Business Central migrations

Although Business Central is a modern successor of NAV, both systems have major differences across their core capabilities, user interfaces, and navigation, which become especially clear when Business Central is compared to older NAV versions. For instance, while the classic NAV interface has a complex folder-tree navigation and overlapping pop-up windows, Business Central features a web-based UI with context-sensitive menus and a tabbed browser layout. Business Central also has many functionalities that are missing in classic NAV.

Delivering an ERP system with such a different look and feel can complicate the adoption for long-term NAV users. For example, Business Central's navigation can feel too unfamiliar, causing cognitive overload and adding unnecessary friction to operational workflows. As a result, the productivity dip normally seen in migration projects can extend significantly, slowing the new solution’s time-to-value. Another potential issue is the lack of necessary Business Central skills (statistical accounts management, AI prompting, workspace personalization, etc.), which can prevent employees from using the new system’s capabilities efficiently and hinder the delivery of the expected efficiency gains and financial returns.

How to enhance user adoption during Dynamics NAV to Business Central migrations

1. Building tailored, role-based training programs

Providing end-users with training tailored to their specific roles is key to closing skills gaps and preventing issues they can cause. Here’s how to build an effective employee training program:

• Start by mapping existing user roles in NAV to the roles end-users will have in Business Central (e.g., warehouse operator, accounts receivable manager, etc.).
• Identify the changes that each user group will face (the introduction of new Business Central capabilities into their workflows, changes to the user interface, etc.) and determine the competencies and skills they will need to start using the new ERP system properly.
• Develop relevant training materials for each role. These may include articles or videos demonstrating how to perform tasks in Business Central, PDF guides providing a visual comparison between NAV and Business Central navigation, and other resources.
• Schedule role-specific training in alignment with the Business Central deployment timeline, ensuring that the sessions begin before the final go-live phase so that employees have enough time to prepare.

2. Establishing a champion user network

In addition to formal training, give employees opportunities to learn from their peers, as this can accelerate skill development and, in turn, drive user adoption. Implementing a champions program is a great way to enable peer-to-peer learning.

• First, ask heads of departments that will use Business Central to nominate prospective champions. Specify that these employees should be experienced NAV users who have a positive attitude toward Business Central, strong communication skills, and are respected by their colleagues.
• Start training these champions earlier than regular business users and actively involve them in user acceptance testing to let them gain deeper knowledge of the updated ERP system.
• Establish a feedback mechanism that would allow champions to provide regular reports on the issues faced by end-users and the progress of Business Central adoption within their respective departments.

3. Implementing in-app guidance

Another method for improving user adoption is to embed contextual assistance, such as teaching tips, pop-up help panels, or product tours, directly into the ERP system’s interface. With these tools, employees can learn how to use Business Central while doing their work, which can further accelerate user adoption. The easiest way to leverage in-app guidance is to use Business Central’s native Teaching Tips feature which lets you create pop-up bubbles that explain how to use each action button or data field. You can additionally enhance user onboarding experience by using more advanced and interactive forms of in-app guidance, but this can only be done through coding in the AL programming language.

4. Hiring an experienced migration partner

Since most companies, especially SMBs, rarely employ dedicated change management experts in-house, turning to external Dynamics NAV to Business Central partners for migration guidance and support has become a common industry practice. Depending on a client’s needs, a partner can design an actionable, role-based training program, help efficiently identify and coach internal champion users, and guide the company on implementing digital onboarding tools of any complexity inside the user interface.

How to choose the right Dynamics NAV to Business Central migration partner

If you plan involving a Dynamics 365 partner in a project, you should consider several partner selection and evaluation criteria to find the most suitable IT provider.

• Ensure that the partner holds valid Microsoft certifications, specifically Microsoft Solutions Partner designations, to validate their overall expertise in the Microsoft ecosystem technology.
• Prioritize partners that have delivered similar projects in your specific business domain.
• Look for a partner with a structured, proven NAV to Business Central migration methodology that covers change management alongside technical implementation.

Final thoughts

While successfully executing technical activities like data schema conversion, data migration to the new environment, and legacy code refactoring is vital to ensure the new ERP system works properly, they alone do not guarantee that the Dynamics NAV to Business Central migration delivers the expected business value. Unlocking the migration’s ROI also requires effective Business Central adoption by end-users, and practices listed in this article can help you build a change management plan to achieve it.