Data Export From Great Plains And Migration Into Dynamics Ax

This data conversion path is popular, especially when you are on older versions of Great Plains Dynamics on Pervasive SQL Server 2000 or GPA for DOS and experienced high growth in recent years and need something more flexible. In this scenario you typically check on the Great Plains to Dynamics GP upgrade software and consulting hours cost and realize that you have to pay penalty for expired annual contract. And instead of repurchasing GP you decide to take upscale solution and switch to AX. The idea is great and former Axapta is open to programming in MorphX X++, which is very close by its syntax to C++ or C#. However data export, cleansing and import into your new Corporate ERP application requires some planning and budget. Lets look at these processes one by one:

1.GP releases and DB review. Here you have to first understand what are your GP version and its database platform. Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Mac was Btrieve application with popular versions still running across the country were 9.5 and 9.2. In late 1990th Pervasive Software acquired Btrieve and since then most of GPA customers redeployed this accounting system on Pervasive SQL. Great Plains Software Dynamics was introduced in the earlier 1990th as one of the first true ERP systems with genuine graphical user interface on Btrieve, Ctree and later on Microsoft SQL Server platforms. Popular versions were 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 4.0. Beginning with release 8.0 renamed into Microsoft Dynamics GP it is available on MS SQL Server exclusively. There is also scaled down version of Microsoft Small Business Financials with popular releases of 9.0, 8.0, 7.5. This line was terminated and customers on 9.0 are recommended to migrate to GP Business Ready. Here DB platform is MSDE and SQL Server

2.Exporting. Here you need to know table structure and how to connect to the database. The first part is easy (except GPA for DOS): Tools -> Resource Descriptions -> Tables. Second part has nuances. Typically nobody ask the question of exporting from SQL Server use Query Analyzer (2000 and 7.0) or Management Studio (2008 and 2005). Pervasive/Btrive requires additional steps to be open for querying Data Definition Files (DDF). They could be produced by capturing, dragging and dropping GenDDF.set file on Dynamics.exe. If you do not see GenDDF then you should install it from CD#1. In order to generate DDF files for GPA DOS please read your ODBC manual available in PDF format on installation CD. When you got DDF generated we recommend you to use either Pervasive Control Center or ODBC compliant instruments such as Microsoft Access. In MS Access you use linked tables and specify ODBC DSN, where you need to load Pervasive ODBC driver in order to produce DSN

3.Cleansing. As you typically use Excel Import templates to move documents to Axapta and the process should be expected to be repeated as many times as it will be needed to get satisfied with the quality we recommend you importing text files (Pervasive SQL Select statement results or MS Access table export into CSV) into custom SQL Server tables. Here you can deploy intuitive data import wizard or more sophisticated SSIS package. Cleansing itself is very efficient in custom SQL View. If you do it that way new set of Excel worksheets do not require starting from scratch. You simply make change in the view and export its result into CSV which is ready for being open in Excel

4.Import. It is recommended to do it first and until results are good in test environment with roll back option always available. Be ready as programmer or SQL DBA to do it over and over again until your management is approving the results. There are known issues about data type conversions, but we rather think that these are working routines for your technical consultant

5.Special Notes on Great Plains Accounting. Data connection and export are more challenging as you may initially expect. The table structure architecture allows host several sibling tables in the same Btrieve file. This is why when you are seeing Select statement results large percentage of lines looks like non recognizable and filled with strange characters. These lines do not belong to the table that you are trying to export

6.Data Migration Scope recommendations. If you are business owner or IT manager with broad education and optimistic behavior, you may suggest something like that Lets bring over everything! Fair enough, however this approach often leads to frustrating implementation problems and even failures. Each accounting application is different in its business logic and data structure. Also if your organization was using old accounting system numerous historical years you may have millions of posted sales invoices and payments. Excel is not designed to handle such volume of rows. If your historical conversion has such huge number of documents you have to appeal to other import tools, such as SSIS, where business logic validation is not really strong. Importing via SSIS package your historical legacy documents dozens or hundreds of times often results in project going into limbo phase

7.Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representative pick up the phone in St. Joseph, MI call center). help@efaru.com We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese. We invite AX technical consulting and programming teams from India, Russia or Philippines for strategic partnership to serve customers in the United States