Preparing for a Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Upgrade
If you are already planning of upgrading your Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 system to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, know to be successful it first starts with smart planning. And experts believe that the right preparation will usually include creating the right team, potential hardware investments, and an education and adoption plan to make sense of it all.
A good starting point is to determine if you have an in house employee/employees to complete the upgrade or if you need to hire a consultant. Be aware that an outside consultant can add additional costs to the project, but they often have knowledge and expertise that in-house employees don’t have. They can also speed up the process as that will be their only focus, whereas your in house employee will surely have other tasks that they will need to complete while attempting to do an upgrade at the same time. Make sure you do your homework before choosing which path you will take.
The technology assessment of an upgrade plan should address issues such as potentially higher technology requirements for the new Dynamics GP 2013 upgrade. You should ask questions like: Is your current hardware suitable, or will new hardware need to be purchased? Do business requirements necessitate some infrastructure design changes, such as a thin client deployment? Should hosting or virtualization be considered?
Dynamics GP 2013 introduces a web client that eliminates the need for installing the full GP client on workstations and can also eliminate the need for remote desktop or Citrix servers, but it does require a dedicated server to host and manage user sessions. Customers should assess whether this change in technology is of benefit to their business or not.
A Dynamics GP 2013 upgrade also presents a valuable opportunity to review the features and modules used in GP, and to determine if you need additional features or training. Occasionally, certain products and features are replaced by newer products, and you need to prepare for these changes. Customers need to address this change in a considerate way so there is no disruption to their financial reporting capabilities. There may also be third party modules or even custom code that will need to be upgraded, and vendors should be contacted for the appropriate software and upgrade instructions.
Finally, it’s important to produce documentation that details the new configuration of the Dynamics GP application and its environment, procedures for disaster recovery and support, and any relevant changes that were made to the software as part of the upgrade.
