Hello, I am trying to upgrade from 2.5 to 3.70… The manual on CD, tells me to import the 2.5 backup into 3.70, but this doesnot start any conversion… Running the reports in the conversion fob, gives error messages that tables are missing… I am lost here, and have the idea i am missing something
Look in the manuell wether the backup has to be with objects or not. It is depending on the step you do.In the beginning you use 3.70 executebles, 3.70 blank database, import the 2.50 objects and data. So you make first a technical update.
The people you see performing these conversions are professionals, please do not try this at at home. You need an NSC to be involved in an upgrade.
What a bull****… You should know better David… What is the use of this forum anyway if you reply like this. Keep you mouth shut if you have nothing usefull to say!!! I am an ERP professional, since 15 years, have only limited Navision experience, and i am project manager, where an NSC is involved, however, these guys dont know either how to do things. I have worked with other NSCs as well, which were much worse, so dont tell me that i have to work with the right NSC. It seems that documentation is not complete, and there are many ways, which will eventually lead to rome… i am trying to understand how an upgrade like this, should work. Therefore asking questions like this… if you dont mind!
Hans, please try to be polite and change your tone of posting. David is one of the most respected and active users of these forums and has helped many of us out with his usefull tips. What David is saying is, as you know as you state your worked with several NSC’s, that NSC’s have other resources which a customer doesn’t have. And this will not be the last thing you will be confronted with. If I read your comments, I think untill now you don’t have met the right NSC’s because we and some other NSC’s I know have performed many succesfull upgrades (some NSC’s I know have delivered some serious failures).
Ouups… I think it got a little hot here.[;)] But You can’t expect a conversion to start by restoring a backup. Then You havn’t read the documentation. Last time I upgraded (2.0 to 3.60) I found the documentation quite well written. Moving modifications is an other issue. For that You need a lot of experience of the product. You need to have a deep knowledge of the existing base version, the customers mods and the new base version to do it. You don’t do this successfully unless You have a couple of years programming in Navision behind You. I think this is what David meant. I found Developers Toolkit good for analyzing differences and existing modifications. But I never use it to merge modifications into a new modified version. That’s best done manually. - First analyze the existing database. Look at all fields between 50000 and 99999 in standard tables. Analyze how these fields are used in Dev. Toolkit. - Then do the same with added tables between 50000 and 99999. - Document all changes made, and for each one of them, decide how to handle it. To do this You probably have gone trough the workflows in the organization in the very beginneing to understand the company and to see if requirements has changed since last implementation (they allways do). - After the above is done the client and the NSC have a somewhat common understanding what the upgrade sis about and the work can begin. - Move each modification that should be moved manually. You probably need to do it differently anyway since there has been a lot of changes in standard Navision since version 2.50. - Use the previously made documentation for testing. - The users must understand that it’s a new product they will be using. Some features they had before will most certainly be made differently after the upgrade.
Hans I can only sat RTFM. I believe you have encountered one of the Navision end user errors commonly refered to as the “Id-ten-T” error. I needn’t comment on your tone, it clearly reflects your level of professionality. The Navision tools are very well documented, but they are not designed for a Navision beginner to use. and … It is not just a case of Navision experience, but also there are Navision license issues, have you paid for the development license, and purchased upgrade tools? I understand your frustration, but not the tone of it. Let me give you an analogy- Years ago you could buy a car, and fix it yourself. With modern cars you could theoretically fix it youself, but you would need to purchase a lot of specialist tools, computer software, and you would still need some level of training. All this would cost more than the cost of going to a service center and having them do it. Of course they plan to do it many times over, so can justify the expense. And believe me it costs a lot to become a good NSC. I believe that you are frustrated with your NSC, so please work it out with them. If you can’t, it may be time to look for a new NSC, though if as you say, they are all bad, maybe you need to take a close look in the mirror before blaming every one else.
quote:
Originally posted by Hansssssssss
What a bull****… You should know better David… What is the use of this forum anyway if you reply like this. Keep you mouth shut if you have nothing usefull to say!!! I am an ERP professional, since 15 years, have only limited Navision experience, and i am project manager, where an NSC is involved, however, these guys dont know either how to do things. I have worked with other NSCs as well, which were much worse, so dont tell me that i have to work with the right NSC. It seems that documentation is not complete, and there are many ways, which will eventually lead to rome… i am trying to understand how an upgrade like this, should work. Therefore asking questions like this… if you dont mind!
PS just a little joke to try and lighten things up. This guy gets in the shower, and finds there is no hot water. After some time trying to fix the water heater, he calls a plumber. The plumber arrives, and spends 15 min tapping the heater and listening, but does no work. Finally he opens his tool box, which consists of a large selection of hammers. The plumber selects one marked #7, takes it a slams it into the side of the heater, where by hot water starts to come out the tap. He writes an invoice for the client. "Repairs to water heater" - $350.00.The client is very angry and refuses to pay in his words, $350 to hit a heater with a hammer. Where in the plumber re-writes the invoice to read- "Hitting heater with #7 hammer" - $25.00 "Renting of #7 hammer" - $25.00 "Knowing _**where**_ to hit heater with #7 hammer" - $300.00 Total -$350.00 I think you get the point. Life is to short to waste it on silly things like this.
btw, had you posted this to a technical forum or the developer forum, you would expect technical answers. since you posted it to the general form, the basic assumption must be that you are asking for a general answer of how to go about upgrading. Peter, thanks for the kind words[:I]
Hi, all He David, i am not mad about you,… i was just mad about your answer. So dont feel too much attacked. As for Peter, after evaluating several (larger) NSC, we have picked the, what we believe best NSC for this job. I am not frustrated by their work (sofar), i am just frustrated by the fact, that things a conversion document (which i have read btw), is not clear as water. Not to me, (which is not important, since i am not, or intent to become a navision technical wizard) , but also not clear to consultants of my NSC. To me, the reply of Lars is much more helpful, since it helps me to validate what the NSC is doing, and how these things work in ‘the Navision world’. Sofar, it seems we have taken the right approach. We exported al ‘standard’ tables and fields from the customized environement, and succesfully imported them into a clean 2.5 environment. All customizations are gone. (Later on, we will have to add a few things form these mods. directly into 3.70. ). The problem we ran into, was in the place where i thought things would be easy, and idiot-proof: converting a clean 2.5 to 3.70. With a 50page cookbook. And there, after importing the 2.5database into 3.70, the first step gives an error.