Question

Upgrade from 9.05.702a to latest version of E10 Concerns

  • 22 January 2021
  • 8 replies
  • 229 views
J

We are considering an upgrade to the latest version  E10. but feel rather paralysed by the perceived enormity of the task. mainly as we have a lot of customizations, with poor documentation on them, so feel the conversion and testing effort could be big for that. see below

 

 

Most of the BPMs have ABL code

We are unsure what customisations are still needed or made redundant by new functionality in E10, so may need to go through quite a big analysis effort to work that out.

So my questions

  1. Compared to other people who have upgraded is the number of customisations normal?
  2. How feasible would it be to consider this a more of a reimplementation and just convert the data and then work out where we need to customise and reimplement

Thanks everyone

8 replies

M

We went from Epicor 9.05.702A (Progress) to 10.1.500 about 2 years ago.  We were heavily customized.  Fortunately Epicor provides a Semi-Fixed fee upgrade (Around 15k). This process makes an effort to uplift what it can and make the conversions.  You will also be provided a online tool that will help to convert the ABL to Linq.  In addition you will get 2 versions of the database returned to you.  One will have all your customization (working or not) the other just your data.  You can initially have your users test out the Vanilla (Data Only) and see how much they complain.  Maybe you get lucky and 75% of the customization are NEW added functionality.  The remaining requests maybe simple conversions. Our Canadian facility went Vanilla  and just rebuilt was was needed.

M

We converted from 702A to 10.2.100 back in 2019.  We had some similar numbers with customizations, BPMs and UD table usage.  We had more crystal reports and EDI, but fewer dashboards and BAQs.  There were 3 of us working on the conversion and it took us about 2 years. (it didn’t get our full attention until the last 4 months). We found that most of our customizations were to fit our business process and were still needed. We did eliminate some reports that were no longer used.  Testing was a long process.

G
Userlevel 3

We migrated in Jan 2020 and had smaller numbers of Updateable BAQ’s and Customizations, but similar numbers of other items.  For the most part, the ABL code does migrate, but there are a few “Gottha’s”.

You might have to run a test in an “out of the box” version of Epicor and see how the transactions align to your BPMs and requirements for Updateable BAQs from your E9 version.  We did turn off a few BPMs, which were put in place when we first installed Epicor, that were no longer required.  We grew up a bit over a 6 year period.

Customizations on screens really need to be reviewed, as some new fields from Epicor will overwrite the area/space occupied by your customization or added field.  You may also want to delete User Customizations, where users have moved fields around on screens, specifically grid lists, as we found they caused some issues in the users being able to see newer fields.

In BAQ’s, the progress function @Today is no longer valid in E10, so any BAQ using this as a calculation will error out.  The new @Today function is in the Constants section of the Functions within BAQ calculated field definitions.  The magnitude of our usage of this old Progress function was underestimated in our Dashboards and BAQs.

We also had a BPM that moved data from a 1000 character field into a 50 character UD field.  In E9, the data was simply truncated, but in E10, we encountered a hard error within the BPM, which took us several days to find.

Long and short of your question is simply this.  TEST, TEST, TEST.  When you think you have it figured out, TEST, TEST, and TEST again to confirm you have it figured out.  Then document it.  Always ask the question, Why are we forcing Epicor to do it that way?  Is there a better or more efficient way to do that, maybe the way Epicor does it out of the box is the best way?

Good Luck

Glenn Owers Sr. Business Analyst Safran Electronics & Defense Canada Peterborough, ON Canada Version: 2021.2..23
A

I would suggest you reach out to your CAM to arrange an evaluation using the Analyzer tool which is part of the Epicor Upgrade Services that mgaritta mentioned above. Epicor upgrade program has assisted many customers over the last few years to move from Vantage V8 or ERP 9.05 series up to the E10 series. Key will be the testing of course and reviewing the New functionality where the current capabilities may eliminate the need for many of your existing customizations. Ask the CAM if you can get access to a Demo database of E10 so you can play around and start that evaluation to drop the 1900+ items down to what may be a much more manageable task. UI Customizations and Menu changes with the New Kinetic Forms may drop over 400 from that list and the Epicor Data Discovery (EDD) Home Page dashboards will help further reduce the 200+ dashboards on your list as they are standard ones that many customers start with and have zHome BAQs that can be easily saved and modified as needed. Good Luck.

fred
Userlevel 3

Running the analyzer will get you good information.  Running the upgrade will get your data over.  You’ll want to examine your data after the upgrade so that you know what makes it and what you’ll have to adjust.

 

For your custom items, there are several resources: do it yourself, professional services, go with a consulting group, or a mix of those.  You may also want to look in to some training on the newer technologies like SQL, SSRS, C# to help you convert items.  But I would STRONGLY suggest before you go converting anything, make sure people use the customization, report, baq, etc.  If it’s not used, toss it.  It’s a waste of time to convert.  That may help save efforts too.

 

We have helped several groups through this process.  Let me know if you’d like additional advice or have further questions.

Fred Zelhart, CodaBears, Inc.
S

John-

We did the same upgrade a few years ago.  It’s hard to say if your numbers are high.  Everyone’s businesses and needs are different.  I thought some of your numbers looked a little high, but I checked my records and they were actually very similar to yours.  You’re right - it is a big task, but it does need to get done.  I used Epicor for Project Management and they uplifted my databases for me.  That was helpful.  I did get a quote to have them uplift everything for me, but it was very, very high.  I ended up doing everything myself.  Some things went pretty quickly.  Some things took awhile.  The ABL conversion was slow for me until I figured it out.  We are heavy BPM users and the new development environment is excellent.  There were a lot of changes to calculated fields in BAQs, but, again, once you get the hand of how things are done, it wasn’t too bad.

I did a lot of evaluating of what we had and what we actually needed to bring over.    I got rid of a lot of abandoned BAQs.  I imagine you will find the same thing.  I think a lot of people write ad hoc queries for different things and then forget about them.

In the end, no one knows your business like you do.  If you are the one that handles most of the development yourself, it’s helpful to take care of the uplifts yourself.  That helps you understand the development environment moving forward.  Our whole upgrade process took about 5 months.  I dedicated most (but not all) of my time to the upgrade.

J

Thanks @mgaritta @mismgr @glenn.owers @wnestel @fred @ssearle for your very helpful replies :)

G
Userlevel 3

One other thing that will get you is the following:  If you have UD fields which do not contain any data, the UD fields will not be brought forward into E10, during the data conversion.  This caught us on a few BAQ/Dashboards and customized screens.  We had requests for new fields on the Part Maintenance screen and Part Display, but the requestors’ never entered any data into the fields.  When the data conversion was completed and we started testing, the Part Maintenance screen would produce an error as it could not find the UD field referenced on the screen in the Part table.  We had to modify the screen and remove the unused fields.

Same will happen if you have a BAQ that reads a table and UD field that is no longer in the database.  The BAQ/Dashboard will produce an SQL error as it cannot find the field in the table to display within the dashboard or perform a calculation with.

Glenn

Glenn Owers Sr. Business Analyst Safran Electronics & Defense Canada Peterborough, ON Canada Version: 2021.2..23

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