Why Move to Dynamics 365 Business Central Online?

The numerous reasons why every company should look to move their ERP on-premise solutions to the Cloud has been laid out within our ‘Why Move to the Cloud?’ resource that can be accessed here. Additionally, for Dynamics 365 Business Central there are further incentives and benefits for companies to move to the Cloud, such as:

Incentivised licencing from Microsoft
  • For existing perpetual licence customers with valid BREP, for every licence you currently have, Microsoft will allow you 40% discount on all licences up to the number of users you have multiplied by three. In the future, if you grow to a size where you exceed that limit, your licences above the limit are charged at full price. For example, if you currently have a 10-user perpetual licence you will be entitled to 40% discount up to your first 30 CSP subscription licences; this discounted price carries on indefinitely.

  •  For existing on-premise subscription licences, as these are currently named users on-premise, customers will benefit from the 40% discount indefinitely up to the same quantity as your current on-premise subscription.
Benefit from the Power Platform by being in the Cloud
  • Extend Dynamics 365 Business Central by creating low code/no code Power Apps that can be accessed from any device.

  • Automate actions or integrations with Dynamics 365 Business Central by creating Power Automate flows.

  • Create and embed rich Power BI reports.

Dynamics NAV Support Ending Overview

In addition to the functionality and integration benefits gained from moving to D365 Business Central, you will also continue to benefit from Microsoft’s product support offerings as you will always be on the latest version. Microsoft will no longer be supporting the older, on-premise versions of Dynamics NAV, in line with their product lifecycle, as follows:

ProductMainstream support end dateExtended support end date
Dynamics NAV 2013 and 2013 R209/01/201810/01/2023
Dynamics NAV 201514/01/202014/01/2025
Dynamics NAV 201613/04/202114/04/2026
Dynamics NAV 201711/01/202211/01/2027
Dynamics NAV 201810/01/202311/01/2028

*The extended support period allows customers to continue to submit support incidents, but only security-related fixes will be released during this period i.e. product-related hotfixes will not be developed.

Please note: if you are on an older version of NAV such as NAV 2009, you are on an unsupported and vulnerable system with no access to security updates. Please contact Tisski as we can provide you an upgrade path to move you on to a supported version or, better yet, move you to the online version of Business Central so you’ll always remain on a supported version.

Our Dynamics 365 Business Central Upgrade Approach

Analysis and redesign

Over the last two years we have seen a huge game changer in how we, as partners, can develop and customise your Dynamics NAV/Business Central solutions. Gone are the days of C/AL coding where we can modify the out-of-the-box objects. All development, since the version of Business Central released on 15 October 2019 must now be done as AL extensions, which is applied on top of the out-of-the-box objects.

The first stage of any upgrade is to carry out analysis of your NAV or Business Central on-premise solution and identify what modifications you have. We then:

  • Discuss each modification with you to see whether it is still relevant
  • If still relevant, is the functionality available as standard in the current release? 
  • Of the relevant modifications, what can simply upgrade to AL and what modifications cannot upgrade and need to be redesigned?
  • We then work with you to document and agree how the redesign can work for you

Convert and build

Now that we know what modifications are still required and we’ve identified the design of the modifications that need developing, we carry out the following:

  • Convert modifications from C/AL to AL extensions
  • Add the redesigned development to the AL extension
  • Develop the migration tool to migrate your custom data from the C/AL custom tables and fields to AL Extensions

Upgrade

Now that we have the required modifications as an AL extension and we have the tool to migrate custom data from your old database, we are ready to commence the upgrade. We will:

  • Use a Virtual Machine either hosted by yourself or Tisski to upgrade your database either directly to the latest version of Business Central on-premise or through older versions if need be. Some of the older versions of NAV may require a two-stage upgrade.
  • Once upgraded to the latest version of Business Central on-premise, use the Microsoft Cloud Intelligent Tool to push your data to Business Central online.

Testing

We will fully system test the Business Central online modifications. Once completed and evidenced, we will release the system to you, providing training to the UAT users in advance of UAT and offering support throughout UAT and Data Assurance, dealing with any issues that arise.

Go-live

When you are happy and have signed off both UAT and data assurance, we commence go-live. The remaining users are trained up and we carry out the upgrade stage from above for the final time completing your journey to the Cloud.

Get in touch with one of our experts today to start your journey to the Cloud

Get in touch with one of our experts today to start your journey to the Cloud

There really is no better time to carry out what would be your last ever upgrade project!

Contact Us

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