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Risk Management: Tips and Tricks to Mitigate Risk During an Audited Upgrade with Microsoft Dynamics GP - Part 4

by Gloria Braunschweig
President, Dorian Enterprises, Computeration, Inc.

This series of Risk Management Tips and Tricks chronicles the two large change management projects we undertook for the same client this year.

In the previous installments you saw the 26 steps involved, followed by the goals, developing prototype criteria, testing criteria and the fall-back position  and laying the groundwork for moving the hosting center. Here we'll look at Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the migration, which involved the hardware selection and delivery, hosting center selection, and the server configuration in the hosting center. And, of course, taking steps to keep the process transparent for the auditors.

First, let's recap the client's situation: the first project upgraded Microsoft Dynamics GP version 10.0 to 2010 and the second project migrated their entire network infrastructure from one hosting center to another. The information we learned from the upgrade assisted in estimating the scope of the network migration project. We recognized that the significantly more complex network migration with numerous vendors and participants would take many more hours of work for communication, scheduling, contract negotiations, and documentation.

Phase 1

Our window of opportunity was either the month of May or August, with a drop-dead date of August 31, 2011 when the old hosting center contract expired.  We opted for May in the event of unforeseen challenges so we could slide into August if necessary. Our project plan was developed to span four months. The first major phase involved:

  • Hardware--specified, approved, negotiated, and ordered by February 1st.
  • Contracts were negotiated with the new hosting center, telecommunications carriers, network infrastructure provider, Oracle ...

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Auditing Dynamics GP
About Gloria Braunschweig

Gloria has experience across the full spectrum of business operations and management. Decades of experience are documented in the book Rapid Implementation, establishing Gloria as a specialists using Microsoft SQL tools for implementation, integration, and business intelligence related to Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Gloria writes and presents on lean implementation concepts and business management systems for small and mid-size businesses. 

More about Gloria Braunschweig