Upgrade Microsoft Dynamics NAV to D365 Business Central
- Cloud or On-Premise?
- With full data or opening balances?
- Migrate all customization or selected?
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Alletec has invested significant time and effort to define optimal upgrade methodology. To achieve scale and minimize human error we have created tools to detect customizations, conversion of code, data migration, and testing.
Upgrade is a specialized service managed by a team of experts who have rich experience in code conversion, code refactoring, data migration, and testing.
| Comparison of Deployment Options | BC Online by Microsoft | Public Cloud - BC on Prem License but Hosted on Azure or AWS or Google | Public Cloud - BC on Subscription License but Hosted on Azure or AWS or Google | Private - BC on Prem License and Hosted internally | Private - BC on Subscription License and Hosted internally |
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| User License Required |  |
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| BREP Required |  |
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| Cost of Objects for Cstomization | |
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| Infrastructure | Included - Uptime Guaranteed by MS and Backed By a Finacial Guarantee | Hosting Charges + Managed Services | Hosting Charges + Managed Services | Hardware Cost Maintenance, Obsolescence in 3 Years | Hardware Cost Maintenance, Obsolescence in 3 Years |
| Security | Included - World class security provided and managed by MS, Provision of Active Directory (AD), and best safety against ransomware | Cost of Security software and highly skilled resources for regular surveillance | Cost of Security software and highly skilled resources for regular surveillance | Cost of Security software and highly skilled resources for regular surveillance | Cost of Security software and highly skilled resources for regular surveillance |
| Managed Services - Backups, Manage Performance Parameters through Advanced Telemetry | Included - Managed by Highly Skilled resources and cutting-edge technology of Microsoft | Cost of Managed Services, Taking regular backups, storing them safely, and checking them regularly, is costly and Risk prone | Cost of Managed Services, Taking regular backups, storing them safely, checking them regularly is costly and Risk prone | Cost of Managed Services, Taking regular backups, storing them safely, checking them regularly is costly and Risk prone | Cost of Managed Services, Taking regular backups, storing them safely, checking them regularly is costly and Risk prone |
| Updates & Upgrades - Change is the only constant | Included - Updates and Upgrades are managed by Microsoft | Requires services from ERP partner and would cost approx 2 lacs per year when all customizations are created as extensions | Requires services from ERP partner and would cost approx 2 lacs per year when all customizations are created as extensions | Requires services from ERP partner and would cost approx 2 lacs per year when all customizations are created as extensions | Requires services from ERP partner and would cost approx 2 lacs per year when all customizations are created as extensions |
| Disaster Recovery | Included - World class DR | Software Cost and need for skilled resource | Software Cost and need for skilled resource | Software Cost and need for skilled resource | Software Cost and need for skilled resource |
| Database | Included - No separate cost of Azure SQL | Cost of SQL server license every 2 years | Cost of SQL server license every 2 years | Cost of SQL server license every 2 years | Cost of SQL server license every 2 years |
| Storage | Included - 80 Gb Default + 3 GB per user for a premium user and 2 GB for an essential user. Extra storage of 100 GB costs 36k | Cost of Storage and managed services | Cost of Storage and managed services | Cost of Storage and managed services | Cost of Storage and managed services |
| Development, Test & Training Environments | Included - 3 Sandboxes | Hosting charges + Managed Services | Hosting charges + Managed Services | Hardware cost, maintenance, Obscelance in 3 years | Hardware cost, maintenance, Obscelance in 3 years |
| 3 License for Auditors | Included | Extra Cost | Extra Cost | Extra Cost | Extra Cost |
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a complete ERP from Microsoft for SMB segment. The product is part of the Microsoft Dynamics family, and is the successor product to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The ERP is available in a SAS and On-Premises model.
Business Central comes with a very impressive Web And Mobile client. Its features and functionalities range from the basic to advanced capabilities in modules – Finance (G&A, Fixed Assets, AR, AP, Bank and Cash, Taxation, Inventory), Sales & Marketing, Purchase, Inventory and Warehouse, Manufacturing, Post Sales Service Management, Jobs and Resources for Project accounting.
Microsoft has planned to release new features in Business Central from April 2020 through September 2020. MS has recently released Business Central Release Wave 1 with improved usability, Better tools for admins and partners, enhanced application features. Microsoft plans to release 2 major updates each year with increased features and capabilities. The latest released version available is BC 2020 Wave 1.
Business Central helps the business to streamline their processes and enable the business to make smarter decisions. It helps in improving forecast accuracy while maintaining compliance and security.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is a direct for SMB organizations and has been able to address the business requirements, preferences and expectations for small and medium-sized businesses in the trading, manufacturing, eCommerce, Services & Projects business domain.
It works well in organizations with as low as 3 users ranging up to 500 users.
Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises works in a 3 Tier architecture. There are at least 3 components for Setup: 1. A SQL Db Server which shall hold the Business Central Database 2. An Application Server to set up the Application Services for BC (these could be more than 1 Server depending on the user base and the transactional volume) 3. IIS which is required to host the Web Client for Business Central. The users are supposed to access BC either on a Web Browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome etc.) or else through its universal Tablet/Mobile client.
Financial Management – Finance module provides accounting and finance solutions. With the help of this module, organizations can conveniently manage payables, general ledger, inventory, receivables, fixed assets, cash flow and many more.
Sales & Marketing – In Sales & Marketing, this term is mainly used for successful business growth. Making sales, it consists of telephone calls, one-on-one interaction meetings, etc. for building customer relationship.
Service Management – In which organizations handle profitable decisions such as quickly responds to service requests, response times, schedules, pricing and customer preferences. It manages all aspects of service orders.
Supply chain management – It manages the flow of goods and services. It shows the comprehensive process of goods from manufacturers to wholesaler to the consumer.
Manufacturing – With the help of manufacturing organizations can boost their efficiencies and manage production, bills of materials, capacity requirement planning, work orders and supply planning.
Project Management – In which, enterprises manage projects from start to completion for budgeting, resource planning and billing. Also handles the cost estimation and expenses of the projects.
Latest features added in BC 2020 Release Wave 1
Use resources in purchase documents
Receive more goods than you ordered
Undo shipment or receipt lines for non-items
Search for features in the role explorer
Enable non-interactive printing
Import profiles and UI customizations
Bookmark Reports
Enter data more easily & Filter data and create views
Sync users with Microsoft 365 admin center
View data size per table
Cancel Sessions
Use Al interface objects
Dynamics 365 Business Central is licensed on a per named user basis. Depending on whether the solution is taken in a SAS model or else On-Premises model the licensing differs. In case of SAS Online licensing, there is a per named user cost to be paid per month, on the other hand in case of -On-Premises model the licensing is perpetual and requires paying 1 time license cost on a per named user basis however a certain annual fee is to be paid to Microsoft to keep the account active and keep receiving the hotfixes and the upgraded licenses.
Business Central is purchased through a Microsoft authorised CSP or reseller.
The Essentials version of Business Central, you get stable business functionality across finance, supply chain management, CRM, HR and much more. For using the Manufacturing and a few other advanced features require a Premium user license. Team Member User license is useful when the users need read-only access with limited write/edit access. Below is the license cost for an Online subscription. The cost of the perpetual license varies in each country
Team Member $8 Per user per month
Essentials $70 Per user per month
Premium $100 Per user per month
Microsoft releases a minor release on a monthly basis and 1 Major update every 6 months. Its Online instance gets updated automatically on each release however customers need to plan the updates themselves in case of the On-Premises deployment
Yes, in case of Online SAS model
It is notified in Admin Central of Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises works in a 3 Tier architecture. There are at least 3 components for Setup: 1. A SQL Db Server which shall hold the Business Central Database 2. An Application Server to setup the Application Services for BC (these could be more than 1 Server depending on the user base and the transactional volume) 3. IIS which is required to host the Web Client for Business Central. The users are supposed to access BC either on a Web Browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome etc) or else through its universal Tablet/Mobile client.
Business Central Setup can be installed in a demonstration as well as production environment using a standard available wizard.
One needs to be active with their BC license by paying the annual BREP to Microsoft. The support is provided through the re-seller.
Yes, through reseller.
BC provides out of the box connectors with D365 Customer Engagement, Office 365 application like Outlook, with Power BI, PowerApps, CDS and Automate. It also comes with a standard set of APIs which makes any 3rd party integration quick and easy.
Microsoft recommends using Office 365 for email and office applications due to its great compatibility with BC. However BC doesn’t restrict organizations from using other email providers.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is quite flexible and can be customized by trained/certified developers to address business needs.
By stop paying for the monthly subscription.
A well trained BC consultant can configure the various modules of BC basis the user requirements.
One of the advantages of Dynamics 365 is dual use rights. This allows customers the option to deploy the server software either in Microsoft’s cloud or in a private on-premises or partner-hosted cloud
Both versions of Business Central (cloud and on-premise) have the same features and functions—the big difference is the platform. Business Central On-Premise is built for on-premise deployment. It can also be hosted in the cloud, but it can’t offer the same seamless experience as a fully managed cloud-based solution
Dynamics 365 Business Central comes with out of the box integration / plugin / configuration for O365 Outlook.
Business Central offers terrific value by integrating with other Microsoft cloud services, including Office 365 and can be customized or extended for specific industry needs with PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and Power BI. They have standard / out of the box connectors and connections available with BC.
Business Central offers terrific value by integrating with other Microsoft cloud services, including Office 365 and can be customized or extended for specific industry needs with PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and Power BI. They have standard / out of the box connectors and connections available with BC.
BC provides out of the box connectors with Power BI. It also comes with a standard pack of Power BI reports and dashboards for finance and sales.
Microsoft releases a minor release on a monthly basis and 1 Major update every 6 months. Its SAS Online instance gets updated automatically on each release.
Both versions of Business Central (cloud and on-premise) have the same features and functions—the big difference is the platform.
Business Central can be hosted in the private cloud in an On-Premise deployment model.
Microsoft Dynamics Business Central Platform has integrated Sales function with AI and Machine Learning. The two applications are programmed to share insights by Predictive analysis.
Predictive models developed on Azure learning platform can drive Dynamics 365 Business Central options, thereby allowing users to utilize built-in features for late payments or upcoming inventory forecasts. A combination of historical data as well as real-time information generated by the moment serves as the backbone for Business Central intelligent capabilities.
The Cloud Migration Management assisted setup guide in Business Central can help you migrate data from Dynamics GP. You can migrate data from Dynamics GP 2015 and later versions of Dynamics GP to BC SAS
Migration is a one-time data move, once you migrated, BC SaaS will become your primary solution and your existing Dynamics GP system will only be used to search across your historical GP data or for reporting purposes. Microsoft has developed an extension, that make migration process easy. Dynamics GP Data Migration Extension is available for free at AppSource. With this extension you can migrate the following modules: GL Accounts and balances, Customers and Customer Opening, Vendor and Vendor Opening, Item and Inventory Balances.
The essential difference is that Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has a lot more built-in ‘enterprise functionality’ compared with Business Central. While F&O is targeted at Multinational medium to large organisations and groups of enterprises, BC targets Small to mid-size enterprises. While F&O provides multiple country localizations inside of a single instance as out-of-the-box for 37 countries, BC comes with separate localized instances for each country. It provides localization for 19 countries.
Using the AL Language, a custom extension can be designed. Once has to learn working on AL code and BC.
In case of one time migration, BC provides data migration utility called Configuration Packages. For a continuous data transaction between 2 systems, an integration need to be developed either using standard APIs or else through custom APIs.
BC provides standard APIs for an integration for major entities. One can also develop custom APIs.
It refers to integration with O365 applications like Outlook, Excel, Word and OneNote
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new version of NAV however the major difference lies in its advanced platform, cloud compatibility, GUI and integration with O365, D365 Application, AI and Power platform.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the newer version of NAV which has been running in organizations and industries across the globe from more than 2 decades. Microsoft has roadmap defined for Business Central future versions. This clearly signifies that any organization can easily rely on BC & Microsoft for their business application
Dynamics 365 Business Central provides the best tools and effective solutions to manage and comply with the GDPR rules It allows:
1. Easily find and filter data
2. Manage personal data with Dynamics Business Central modules
3. Give security: protect data with integrated tools
4. Analyse and keep records updated.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new version of NAV however the major difference lies in its advanced platform, cloud compatibility, GUI and integration with O365, D365 Application, AI and Power platform.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new version of NAV however the major difference lies in its advanced platform, cloud compatibility, GUI and integration with O365, D365 Application, AI and Power platform.
If you are still on NAV, you should upgrade your NAV to BC without any further delay. Your NAV version might be already out of main stream support.
There might arise some issues related to compatible s/w on the server like .Net framework version or SQL version. Otherwise, the installation shall go smooth.
One can upgrade to BC On Premise using the Upgrade process and the Upgrade toolkit. This activity requires enough technical knowhow of BC, AL code and upgrade process.
Alletec is a Gold partner and prominent name in the MS Dynamics space for Dynamics 365 Business Central solution and services.
Dynamics 365 Business Central comes with standard HR module with basic features to record Employee records. It also provides out of the box feature to maintain Employee Ledger.
AL code is the modern language used in custom Extension development for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Dynamics 365 Business Central provides out of the box feature to configure and run G/L Consolidation to consolidate General Ledger for several related companies.
