SMB companies are steadily embracing the digital transformation and are looking to Dynamics 365 Business Central to serve as the core of their business management technology solution. During the 2019 Directions conference, Brian Meier and Jennifer Ranz from Microsoft presented on data migration options to get businesses up and running on Business Central.
No matter which ERP system you’re currently using – whether that be Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Quickbooks, or a different system – there’s a migration path to move your current data into Business Central. There are several different options for migrating data: Use RapidStart Services A company can be easily set up in Business Central leveraging Configuration Packages which connect Microsoft Excel files to tables in Business Central through RapidStart Services. RapidStart in Business Central has been improved to get businesses up and running faster with higher quality implementations, through Microsoft investments in speed, multi-table concurrent processing and improvements to error handling. RapidStart Configuration packages can be created by you or your partner to migrate data for Customers, Vendors, Items and more, as well as beginning & historical financial transactions. With training from our team members, and our support through the process, information from many different ERP applications can seamlessly be pulled into Business Central. This solution is recommended for most of our clients transitioning master records, historical data and financial data. Importing Data from Excel Information about Customers, Vendors, Inventory, and Bank Accounts can be transferred into Business Central leveraging the Edit in Excel. The type of files that are compatible with Business Central depends on available extensions. Learning the mandatory fields and the information that is available to be imported on each master record is available through the application, or with help from our experts. This solution is ideal for companies with a lower number of accounts and fewer historical data. Data Migration Extension from Dynamics GP Intelligent Edge, a tool that replicates data from GP 2018 to Dynamics 365 Business Central, makes it easy to duplicate the information from your on-premise GP database to the cloud. Tables replicated include: customers, vendors, inventory items, general ledger accounts, open payables and open receivables transactions from Dynamics GP. For all other versions of GP, there is a data migration tool which has been expanded since the initial release of Business Central. It now allows for more information to be imported into Business Central from GP. Additionally, the migration wizard allows users to choose how to migrate the Dynamics GP chart of accounts. The existing chart of accounts can be imported into the system or a new chart of accounts can be created based on the existing chart of accounts. If the existing chart of accounts is migrated, the accounts will be set up as the main account segment from Dynamics GP and the additional segments will be set up as dimensions within Business Central. If a new chart of accounts is created, an additional account information page in the wizard is shown that allows users to download the workbook, make the relevant changes, and then import the workbook again to change accounts. These solutions are ideal for any current Dynamics GP user. Our trusted experts are happy to answer questions or provide guidance on the best solution for your organization. Upgrade from Dynamics NAV to Business Central online Current Dynamics NAV on-premise users that have customizations handled by extensions can easily upgrade to Business Central. However, Dynamics NAV clients with C-Side or C/AL code customizations first need to transition these customizations to extensions. Data from tables with code customizations cannot be migrated from Dynamics NAV at this time. The first step that current Dynamics NAV 2018 R2 users can do to transition to the cloud is utilize the Intelligent Cloud. The on-premises deployment remains the primary application, and the cloud tenant is read-only, but offers advanced insights into data through Machine Learning, Power BI and Flow. The Intelligent Cloud can be set up through the assisted setup guide that leads users through product selection, SQL Connection, Self-Hosting Integration Runtime, Company Selection, and Replication. Once on-premise data has been replicated in the Intelligent Cloud, the process to fully transition to Business Central cloud is streamlined. This solution is ideal for any current Dynamics NAV 2018 R2 or Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premise user. For Dynamics NAV clients that are on versions 2017 and prior, solutions are available leveraging RapidStart Services and other tools available via your partner. Let our experts recommend the best path forward based on your current environment configuration and business goals.
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV integration is more art than science, but this tip provides the steps and paths to some readily available tools that can help.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV contain overlapping data. By combining the sales data found in Dynamics CRM with the customer data stored in Dynamics NAV, you can gain advantages and improve operational efficiency. Many organizations initially use Microsoft Dynamics CRM, only to later decide that they want to take advantage of other Microsoft Dynamics products. One popular choice is Microsoft Dynamics NAV, an ERP application. Although Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV are separate applications, there are benefits to integrating the two. Linking Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV together involves establishing data synchronization. This means that CRM data can be accessed through NAV and vice versa. As such, the end users can choose to work primarily in whichever product is best suited to their jobs. Identical data is exposed in both applications, but the data may be exposed in different ways. Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers, for example, typically keep track of sales quotes through the use of accounts. When Dynamics CRM and NAV are integrated, CRM users can use accounts to access customer information associated with NAV. Similarly, NAV users are able to create new customers based on CRM data. NAV users can also access quotes, opportunities and cases within Dynamics CRM without leaving the Dynamics NAV interface. Of course, customer accounts are only one example of areas in which there is overlap between Dynamics CRM and NAV. There is also sharing of data related to users, products, transaction currencies, units of measure and sales orders. How to integrate Dynamics CRM and NAV Microsoft's answer to integration between Dynamics CRM and NAV is the Connector for Microsoft Dynamics. Integration can be established for both the on-premises and cloud-based versions of the software. Integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV is more art than science. At its simplest, integration can be established by installing the Connector for Microsoft Dynamics, turning on integration and importing your data. Each of these processes is relatively simple, requiring only a few steps. Microsoft cautions customers that integration is designed to work without customizations, but for the best results, you must customize it for your business and customer processes. The integration and customization process is based around the concept of entity mapping. Entity mapping is a fancy way of saying that because Dynamics CRM and NAV are two separate products, they do not share a common set of records, and therefore, database fields in one application need to be mapped to a database field in the other application. For example, Microsoft Dynamics NAV uses the concept of customers, while Dynamics CRM uses the concept of accounts. Entity mapping is therefore necessary to tell the software there is a relationship between customers and accounts. For each entity that is mapped, there are four pieces of information required for each entity. The first is the entity name. Second, the connector needs to know the connector source entity -- a NAV customer card, a NAV item card or a NAV resource list, among other things. Third is the synchronization direction. Synchronizations can be bidirectional, but in many cases, data is synchronized only from NAV to CRM, or vice versa. The fourth and final requirement is the connector destination entity. This is the location where the data is being synchronized to. For instance, if the Microsoft Dynamics NAV entity is Customer, the Connector Destination Entity is Account. You can see standard entity mappings and get help with custom entity mappings on Microsoft's Developer Network. Note that entity mapping can be quite granular. For example, Dynamics NAV uses several different fields within a customer record, and these fields need to be mapped to corresponding fields within a Dynamics CRM account. The customer's name, for instance, is mapped to the CRM Account Name field. The NAV customer Phone Number field is mapped to the CRM account's Main Phone field. |