We have decided to upgrade to the “current version” of Epicor from Vista 8.03.
I’d really like some feedback on the upgrade process from folks who have done similar work - what method did you use to migrate, did you do it independently of the support options available, or were those critical/required, etc.
Any and all information is appreciated. My personal view (which does not match our company’s view) is that a self-migration is possible with the right skillset. Is this idea out in left field, or would that approach actually work?
Thanks in advance, this forum is a powerful group, with a ton of expertise. It would be great if I could use some of that expertise to take what sounds like a large task and make it manageable.
aidacra
(Nathan your friendly neighborhood Support Engineer)
2
Full disclosure: I am an Epicor employee working within Support and am very biased towards solutions that take Support out of the equation. Any time someone doesn’t need to call in Support, that’s a win win for everyone. Migrations have many points where problems could present…UOM, codepages, UD fields, data corruption that could need to be addressed at V904 (in the middle of the process), different data fixes that need to be run at a different point, whether or not you need historical financial data (the ol’ 10080 conversion), etc.
Talk to your CAM about using Epicor Cloud services to complete an V803 to E10.2.200.x migration using our Cloud infrastructure. It is priced as a loss leader and we basically give the service away. That team automatically addresses whatever data related issues that could appear as part of the service so you don’t have to worry about it. Performance is much better than anything one could do on premise including upload / download time of the database to/from our Cloud storage location. Anything they do to address issues like data corruption/etc in the first pass migration get automatically applied every other pass without human intervention.
There is also the ERP Analyzer which is part of this offering (though, one can use it without a formal engagement to use the migration service) which allows you to see the modifications made to your system (BAQs, dashboards, BPMs, custom reports, etc), data distribution, and a lot of other detail. If nothing else, call your CAM(salesperson) and ask them to enroll you so you can use the ERP Analyzer which is free to use, to get an idea of how much work may be needed to uplift the modifications.
That said, I have an earlier post where I mention the process if one wanted to do this in-house. Just substitute references to 10.1.500 with the current release, which as of today is 10.2.200.
With the proper skillset, yes, you can do most of it yourself with cuatomization code conversion ok n, report conversions, forms, etc etc.
Where I think you should, despite internal capabilities, look for help is with training on the new system, installation, and database conversion.
Install… epicor does this every day and they are actually good at it. Let them do the install so there is no debating on whether the install was done correctly during testing. It’s a cheap insurance policy.
Database conversion. Same as install. They have the tools to do this and they are not expensive. Let them do it and save you the headache of trying to learn how yourself.
Training… there are many new features and functionality in 10.2 vs. 8. Let somebody with the experience train your team on these new features. Even something like the parent child baq is not self explanatory, and a little guidance goes a long ways.
Even doing all of the coding updates is cumbersome, but if you have the right skill sets, then perhaps bandwidth is the only concern here.
I’d like to add to the other thoughts with a few of my own.,
If you are doing the work, who is coordinating with your internal departments. If you are discussing 5 users and no customizations, maybe go for it. But if any complexity, be cautious you don’t over extend yourself or your team.
I like the other comment on the Cloud Upgrade Services and ERP Analyzer. Look at what you need to do. That’s free. Opt in to what you want to outsource and what you want to do yourself after you get an idea of the scope of work.
We just purchased the Cirrus Cloud Database Upgrade tool and I’m happily leaving Vantage 8.03.410 behind.
I was initially planning on performing a new implementation of 10.x and using DMT to bring in the master tables. It seemed cleaner and easier until I heard about Epicor having this tool and I was sold. I’m going the self-serve route - they give you 3 passes for about $3,500. I think it’s completely worth it especially since DMT is more expensive.
I have already ran the DB Analyzer tool and it really gives you some great insight into your data. I don’t have a ton of customizations and BPMs (and some of our customizations were to fix a bug, so we won’t need them anyway); My Progress DB size is only 6GB and most of its size is from the Product Configurator tables (which I will not be migrating up). I’m sure my environment is less complex than others, so take that into account.
Epicor also offers a “package” deal with this Cirrus product where they toss in X amount of hours for consulting to do the heavy lifting for you and help guide you along the way. Somewhat of a hybrid offering and it wasn’t a horrible cost, IIRC.