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8 Items to Consider for an On-Premise Upgrade to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement v9

Today I’m going to share some of the items that need to be considered for an on-premise upgrade to D365 Customer Engagement v9. Not all items will apply to all instances, but below is a list that you should review prior to beginning your upgrade.

1. Supporting Software

1. 1. D365 CE v9 has requirements for more recent versions of Windows Server and SQL Server. You may need to spin up new servers to accommodate these requirements.
      1. Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter
      2. SQL Server 2016 Enterprise SP2, 2016 Standard SP2, 2017 Standard or 2017 Enterprise

2. Your Current Version of CRM

1. 1. For older versions of CRM, a multi-hop upgrade will have to take place.
      1. Example: You are currently on CRM 2013. The instance will need to be upgraded to CRM 2015 then CRM 2016 before moving on to D365 CE v9.
   2. Upgrading to D365 CE v9 will give you many new features
      1. There are many you’ll want to look at and take advantage of. For a list of on-premises new features, click here.
   3. D365 CE v9 includes the depreciation of many features
      1. A review to see if your organization will have to address these is important. Microsoft has a published list here.

3. Data

1. 1. Security Roles
      1. It is always good practice to review Security Roles and how they are assigned.
   2. Disabled users and record ownership
      1. A review of record owners should be done. This would involve reviewing records owned by disabled users.  Then deciding which current users to reassign them too.  In some cases, you don’t want to reassign them.  Such as to maintain reporting history.
   3. Do you want to keep all data or just a more recent subset?
      1. In this case, the multi-hop can be skipped. A tool, such as KingswaySoft, would be used to migrate the subset of data to the new D365 CE v9 instance.
         1. This would be a good time to look at possible changes to the configuration of D365 CE.

4. Customizations

1. 1. The Software Development Kit (SDK) has changed with each version.  Some minor and some quite major.  The following are components you should evaluate.
      1. JavaScript
      2. Plugins Assemblies
      3. Custom workflow steps
      4. Other web resources

5. ISV Solutions

1. 1. There may be solutions that have been added to your CRM. This is a good time to review their usage and whether to keep them.  Keeping them would require upgraded versions to be compatible with D365 CE v9.  A discussion with the ISV to get the upgrade process for their solution is important.

6. Integrations

1. 1. There are many possible integrations with CRM. This could be as basic as Email or SharePoint.  The more complex integrations need to be closely looked at and documented.  Here are some to look for.
      1. Email
         1. Exchange
         2. Outlook plugin
      2. SharePoint
      3. ERP systems
      4. Accounting Applications
      5. Others that used tools, such as:
         1. Scribe
         2. SSIS
         3. KingswaySoft
         4. CozyRoc

7. User Adoption

1. 1. This is very important as there are many changes to the user interface and functionality.

8. Going Online

1. 1. Most of the previous items still apply.
   2. There are additional discussion points to going online, which will be covered in future blogs.

If you are interested in having Stoneridge do a more detailed upgrade evaluation, please contact us.

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