I whole heartedly concur about a test server. I also set it up the test server in our training room after I am done with it and users can come in and look at the new version. This disables a lot of fears. What user wants to come into a Monday morning to "change".
The problems I have had are when I need to increase the -L on the server because we stop on the m's when running payroll. Or when the server would crash when everyone would clock out a noon. I had miss typed an entry in the Progress Explorer tool at 3am. When we went from 4 to 5.2 we had to run the data conversion on my test server the "real" server never finished. I scrambled like mad to get things back to 4.0 and tried the test server the next weekend. No matter how hard you plan something unexpected will happen.
Good Luck
Juliet
-----Original Message-----
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf
Of Todd Caughey
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 4:55 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Questions for those who converted from 5.2 to 6.2
Another advantage to running through the whole conversion on a test server is the ability to benchmark times for each phase. Granted a small test server might not be as fast as the production server but the differences would not be large. This is invaluable for planning the conversion "weekend". A HUGE reason too is the availability of Epicor Support incase something goes wrong. Last I heard they were not doing "upgrade weekends" any longer in favor of supporting 8.0. Nothing worse than sitting around at 10pm some Saturday in a live conversion and hitting an error with no one to call (I will be forever grateful to Ted Kitch for being there at 11pm on a Friday night on our 4.0 to 5.0 conversion - not only monitoring this list but emailing me a link to the right version of MDAC! to fix the error) . You don't need to run completely parallel but just enough to prove out some jobs, orders, invoicing, etc.... Plus the ability to upgrade any customizations to crystal forms. There are a few field name changes that affect RB too which need to be fixed in advance and not on the production server. All of these should be reason enough for your Controller to concede.
-Todd C.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Schmuck [mailto:
rschmuck@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 4:41 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Questions for those who converted from 5.2 to 6.2
Todd,
I'm so glad to know you came from Classic, too! It's always nice to share
pain. Lol. Seriously, that's some of our biggest concerns: the pain from
the last conversion. I am hopeful that it won't be the same type of
conversion, but reassurance is good. My controller doesn't want to run
parallel because of the "time" involved in doing everything twice, but I
think it's critical, too. We have VERY change sensitive users, and I'm the
only IT person, so I want to run parallel for sure. I think a month would
be fair. What do you think? Also, we don't use Sales Territories, but we
do use Sales Reps, so thanks for the heads up!
Rebecca
-----Original Message-----
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Todd Caughey
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 2:53 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Questions for those who converted from 5.2 to 6.2
Absolutely to a test conversion on a test server and get users involved in
trying a few things out in this "sandbox". There are some minor UI changes
that will irk the more change sensitive users if they are not aware in
advance. There are pluses and minuses for one big change versus many little
ones and stoping at each rev. Probably more change between 5.2 and 6.0 than
form there to 6.2. If you move up go all the way to 6.2 as a resting place
before 8.0. Support and patches will be better and the eventual move to
8.0 will be totally geared to going from 6.2. The 6.x versions introduce a
switch away from "Vantage" in file and folder names to MFGSYS and there are
some options for having multiple mapped drives in order to keep the 9.1D
Progress in the current Epic52 folder. Doing a test server will help
evaluate how you want to do the live setup.
We too converted from Classic (to 4.0) and have "conversion" data stubs. No
such thing after that. All the data has been retained except for a couple
table structure changes here and there related to sales territories and
sales reps that drug up some old Classic conversion issues. Yet one more
reason for a test server.
-Todd C.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Schmuck [mailto:
rschmuck@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 2:24 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Questions for those who converted from 5.2 to 6.2
Hello! We have decided to convert from 5.2 to 6.1/6.2 (instead of going to
8 right now).
For those of you who converted, did you run parallel for awhile between the
two? If so, did you find it useful? If you didn't, do you wish you had?
Also, when data converted, did you lose details? For example, when we
converted from Classic to Vantage our invoice history became sketchy. In
place of details the system will show the word "CONVERTED." I want to avoid
as much of that as possible, or at least be prepared for it!
Thank you for your feedback.
Rebecca
P-K Tool
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Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
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* To visit your group on the web, go to:
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* To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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* Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
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