Four Steps to Planning Your Microsoft Dynamics NAV Upgrade
If you are a user of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the impending arrival of NAV 7 (currently scheduled for late-2012) may inspire excitement, or it may inspire dread. Either way, it is inevitable; you have to start planning for a transition.
As Microsoft's Todd Bergeson, senior product marketing manager, told a room full of NAV users at NAVUG in Las Vegas on Nov. 8, "To get to (NAV) 7, you have to go through 2009." Those still on version 4 or 5, can't jump, Bergeson added, because of release 7's SQL server requirement and its switch from the Classic Client to the Role Tailored Client. The upgrade may be done all at once, but a transition through 2009 is unavoidable.
To help you prepare, we spoke to three people with some relevant experience. Brent Fisher, NAV practice manager for Microsoft partner Tribridge, has already started helping some of his clients make the transition. Nicki Stewart, sales and marketing director for Microsoft partner TVision, recently wrote a blog outlining clients' three options for upgrading. And James Everett Kochheiser, CIO and senior operations manager at Otis McAllister, recently completed an upgrade to NAV 5, and is currently planning his next move with his vendor. Highlights of their advice follow.
- Find the right
partner. An initial failed implementation (followed by a successful
one with his current reseller) taught Kochheiser the importance of
thoroughly vetting potential partners. "Dynamics is not an off-the-shelf
piece of software. For most companies, it has to be customized," he says.
"You can't just have some jack-of-all-trades walk in and tell you it's
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