"Cleaning" Microsoft Dynamics NAV makes for a faster, less costly upgrade

A clean Microsoft Dynamics NAV environment is essential for a smooth and worry-free upgrade. Also, a less costly one.

So says Scott Brennan, a partner at Sikich, who will describe in his NAVUG Summit 2017 session Looking for Quicker Upgrades? Clean Up Your Dynamics NAV Today! why cleaning house before upgrades becomes necessary.

"We have a large core of installations that we did between 2008 and 2012. So, a lot of our customers are [becoming] ready to upgrade again; they have been waiting five years or so in between versions."

What goes into cleaning a Dynamics NAV installation?

From a data standpoint, "We have clients that have been on the NAV product for 20 years, and we'll look at not so much cleaning data, but at archiving or compressing to fine-tune or streamline the database," says Brennan. "The fewer the records, the better the performance as far as reporting."

Of course Microsoft has evolved the product technically as well as functionally. "So when we talk about cleaning or fine-tuning during an upgrade, we talk about diving into the modifications that have been done in the system. We identify whether or not they're still used or can be replaced by new functionality." Dynamics NAV's native ability to export to Excel or Word, for example, can eliminate the need for custom reports. 

Brennan advises Dynamics NAV users to view an upgrade as an "opportunity for value and return on investment in your system."

"I would look at the ...