2013 Upgrade - SO CONFUSED

os2013

What does it take to upgrade a 5.01 SQL to 2013R2? It seems like there's a different opinion for each person I ask. Hopefully you mibuser's can clarify.
As I understand it the actual data must be parsed via conversion tools to fit the structure of a 2009R2 and from that converted into the 2013R2 structure. So far so good. But what about the objects. Forms have been replaced completely by pages and there's a tool to convert forms. Left are standard plus custom tables and code units. (Reports - another nightmare for later) must these objects be fit to 2009R2 before moving them onto 2013R2? Can anyone please tell me which is it - with / without 2009R2 as a stepstone? Also 2013R2 will not even import code units saved as text even from a 2009R2 so a solution is creating a new code unit in 2013R2 and copying functions one by one from i.e. the 2009R2.

Does this really have to be so cumbersome? Any advice is deeply appreciated :-D

DenSter

The reason for the extra step to 2009 is because they provided tools to convert forms to pages for that version, that's not because of data. Once you have page objects in 2009 format, converting those to 2013 format is relatively easy. Although, they introduced unicode in 2013, so maybe that's why the data has to be converted too. I haven't done an upgrade in a long time, so I can't speak to the reason why codeunits are so difficult, that's a surprise to me.

There's a huge technology leap between 5.0 and 2013, it's just not an easy thing to do. I'm sure for companies that do these things all the time, they will have experience and because of the added skill level they get the job done more efficiently. My advice to you is if this is the only upgrade you do, then you'd be smart to get one of those companies involved. If you are planning to do a bunch of them, then roll up your sleeves and get busy

davmac1

After you have performed update step 1, then you need to bring your database up in NAV 2013.
Step 1 includes delete all objects except tables, but if you want to convert reports, you can leave them in place so you can upgrade them, and similarly codeunits.

What I do, is make a copy of my 2009R2 database, so I can fix reports that will not compile in 2013 (form references will prevent compiling in 2013).
Then complete step 1 by deleting all dataports and forms.
Convert any reports I want converted - mainly processing reports and custom reports.

All my merged changes go directly into a 2013R2 database, so the 2013 database is just there for using the NAV upgrade reports tool, when it makes sense to use.

Unless it is a very simple layout, you are best off redoing it from scratch in 2013R2.
If it is a standard NAV report with customizations, then apply the customizations to the standard version in 2013R2.
And start off with the current NAV 2013R2 rollup.

The NAV team is coming up with a tool to simplify upgrades - maybe it will....