Upgrading from 4 to 5SP1...2300+ companies

jackies

...and I read the steps upgrading the databases will need several steps taken for each company!!!

Is there a consolidated tool that runs these procedures at a database level??? That would help....A LOT!!!!

Thanks

garak

No.

Did you really have 2300 Companyies in the database????

jackies

Heh..not in one database but around 60-70 databases.

Arg...this will be a nightmare...

garak

database step by step :-)

you can build your own procedur which called the update procedurs step by step without user interaction.
But don't forgett the scenario when a error pops up ;-)

jackies

2300+ companies error free with a large number of customized objects...hmmm

Sorry if this is a newbie question but how do you build these procedures. Is it a build-in macro like tool?

Thanks for the quick replies

garak

is ther no senior developer on your site for a bette help and upgrade?

jackies

Well...I just received the upgrade steps sent by our partner and my immediate response was to check here if there is way to speed up this process. If not, then we will negotiate with our partner how to carry out this process and who.

Ideally, this would be better if I could run this since it's at a company level but also time consuming (rough estimate 250 hours...)

garak

your partner should also do the update or has he tested the upgradeprocess x times on a testsystem.
Also, before you run the upgrade job(s) test it before on a testsystem and check the datas after the upgrade.If you say there are a lot of customized code / datas, u could not sure if the partner has customized the upgrades processes correct ;-)

Belias

this is a quite difficult work for a newbie...it's not as straight as it seems from the whitepaper.

Just a curiosity: 2300 companies / 70 Databases means that you have 32-33 companies for each database... :shock:

Moreover...each database can have different customizations and you can encounter different problems for each database...i think that this job should be carried out manually by a bunch of average/senior developers, not only one junior(i think) one.
Morale: my suggestion is to do it manually

P.S.: i could not understand if you are a partner or a customer or a "middle-tier"

matttrax

Yeah, at the very least you should sit with your partner and walk through upgrading one database. There's a lot of prep work that goes into it, so they could potentially do that and you could do the actual upgrade on go-live weekend(s) to save money.

Of course if you have 60 databases you've already paid a ton in licensing costs (you do have 60 licenses don't you? ) so upgrading them should cost nothing in comparison.

jackies

Thanks for all the info guys...much appreciated.

garak, that's exactly what we have agreed to do. Work together on a database just for testing and then see what will be our next step.

Belias, we are a customer but with a lot of users and...companies
However, we are a team dedicated for all appications used by our line of service, and Navision is on top of that list.
We have a lot of customized objects but most of them are common in all databases with the excemption of some extra for Euro conversions (local currency CYP changed to EUR in 01-01-2008)

matttrax, rest assured we have enough licences to cover our needs.

Also a note that 95% of the companies only use Financial Management module.

P.S: it still sucks this process has to be done for all companies one by one.... ](*,)

ara3n

You can change the process as mentioned so that it loops through all companies and does it at once.
It'll require to add changeCompany to all variables in Step 1 CU and Step 2 CU.

David_Singleton

jackies wrote:

Also a note that 95% of the companies only use Financial Management module.

If this is correct, then my recommendation would be to take Rashed's advise:

ara3n wrote:

You can change the process as mentioned so that it loops through all companies and does it at once.
It'll require to add changeCompany to all variables in Step 1 CU and Step 2 CU.

for those 2,185 companies, and then you are only left with 115 to do manually. Finance is pretty simple to upgrade, and your partner can optimize this by removing all the complex stuff like inventory form the conversion tools.

jackies

Just to note that our partner has developed a tool to loop the per company process in the upgrade

The only problem is the testing phase we find errors we don't want for the actual upgrade....

DenSter

jackies wrote:

The only problem is the testing phase we find errors we don't want for the actual upgrade....

That's why you do testing, to get rid of the errors. With that many companies though, you're sure to get errors during actual go live. Have you considered a phased approach and do some of the companies in parts instead of the whole thing in one effort?

ara3n

you could use webservices and call it for all companies. and run the cu.

jackies

DenSter wrote:

jackies wrote:

The only problem is the testing phase we find errors we don't want for the actual upgrade....

That's why you do testing, to get rid of the errors. With that many companies though, you're sure to get errors during actual go live. Have you considered a phased approach and do some of the companies in parts instead of the whole thing in one effort?

Errors are expected. What I'm worried is like the one found today saying the general ledger setup has no primary key. The rest are easy to spot.

ara3n

general ledger setup has a primary key. The field is called "Primary key"

If you are getting an error that the record doesn't exists, that's just data/setup issue.

jackies

Yeah I know. However, I can't trace what process has to be carried in this(ese) company to prevent it from reccurring to other databases. I want to contact the users with precise guidelines what to do and what not do to avoid this from happening when the actual upgrade takes place.

I thought this was an error with a company with no G/L setup, chart of accounts. However, I know a company in the same database that didn't have this setup did not gave an error during that process. And you know I can't see the primary key value in the table to know which companies in the rest of the databases have this problem. :?

ara3n

you can write a report that will loop through companies and see if glsetup exists for that company and print a yes or no for every company.