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Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012 upgrade – Part 1


Few weeks ago I took over an upgrade project from Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012. In the beginning my biggest task was to get an oversight over the project and to figure out the overall status. The code upgrade was somewhat done but only a small portion of the code was lifted to the 2012 version. To complicate the project even more I had to upgrade and install horizontal modules from Axdata, my employer.

In this first post I would like to mention few things to have in mind before you begin the upgrade process.

Read these documents
·         AX 2012 Upgrade Guide.pdf
·         AX2012SystemRequirements.pdf
·         Code Upgrade Overview AX2012.pdf
·         How to Write Data Upgrade Scripts for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.pdf
·         Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Data Upgrade Best Practices.pdf

More resources on Dynamics Ax 2012 can be found on TechNet, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh272863

One thing that I would like to point out to begin with is my blog post about the collation of the two databases that we work with during the upgrade. Both the source and target databases need to have the same collation so the bulk copy function works. This is due to the SQL class library in the .NET framework only can copy data between two identical databases and when you think of it that is quite normal.
I have as well received some good advises from other Dynamics Ax professionals:

 Eduardo Arias, http://axwonders.blogspot.com
·         Clean the source data base before bulk copy
·         Make sure that the shadow tables are created correctly before the upgrade process
·         Consider the performance and the power required to perform the data upgrade. Setting up an replication server might be needed not to disturb the live system.

Brandon George, http://dynamics-ax.blogspot.com
·         Use the Security Upgrade Tool - Security Upgrade Advisor Tool User Guide [AX 2012] , http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh394895.aspx

Jeremy Parr-Morley, LinkedIn profile
·         Syssetuplogtable needs 'version no' set to your version of AX4. It was blank on ours.
·         You may find some deleted users need to be reinstated.
·         The upgrade docs suggest to write code to transfer custom fields across, I found it easier to just add them to the 2012 database. The migration tool will find them and move the field content.
·         The AX2012 user running the migration needs to be admin on the AX4 database.
·         The code upgrade is somewhat a straightforward process

With that said I say to you, “Happy upgrade planning” and more information to become later in part 2. 

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