Dynamics 365 for Operations – Where to start!

When you plan and make the decision to move to Dynamics 365 for Operations, you have definitely come across two different strategies

• Upgrade the current Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365 or,
• Re-implement the new Dynamics 365

Let’s discuss about these two options in a more pragmatic approach and it may help you make decision. At any point of time, if you feel to get more detailed discussions or have any questions for me, please feel free to reach out to Vishal Kohli (VishalKohli@Live.in) on below contact details.

Do the customers need to panic

Definitely not. Customers who are already on Dynamics AX 2009 or 2012, the mainstream support ends in April 2018 and the extended support is available till 2021. However, it becomes difficult to find the right set of consultants and skilled resources. Hence, if you have not already started thinking about the Dynamics upgrade, this should be right time to start.

What should you be right set of questions for your organization

The main objective of this exercise should be to enable your organization to take right decisions around Dynamics AX upgrade and below are the questions that may help you during the discussions.

Upgrade Vs Re-implementation

In my opinion, the most important question that should be taken care is whether your organization should be going for upgrade path or should be going through re-implementation. There are a lot of factors which can help you decide on this for example

• How old is the current dynamics
• How heavily the system is customized
• Does the data need to be brought forward up to sub ledger transactional level in Dynamics 365
• Has there been major changes in business processes in the organization
• Explore the possibility of removing some unwanted customizations by leveraging the new features of Dynamics 365
• Does Dynamics 365 support existing customization and ISVs

Cloud version Vs On-premise version

The second most important question is whether the Dynamics 365 be hosted On-premise or on Cloud. Again, this question can be handled using many sub questions such as

• Requirement to leverage your existing infrastructure if it is quite new
• Requirement to scale up or scale down
• Maintain in-house team to handle infrastructure
• Good internet and bandwidth
•  Business data handling  

About the author

Vishal is Microsoft Certified Professional and Dynamics AX consultant with 12+ years of product experience in Microsoft Dynamics. Vishal is currently working as Microsoft Dynamics AX Solutions Architect with IBM, New Zealand