Dynamics 365 Online Upgrade
Online versions are the main focus of Microsoft and all the communication it does relating to the Dynamics 365 online Customer Engagement. There may exist several reasons because of which there are a large number of customers are still using the on-premise genre of Dynamics CRM or D365CE.
In a few cases, it can be fixed to regulatory compliance. Some others also think that the system hosted in a private data center is much safer than the online services.
Large complex implementation is another point that holds the customers back as they fear upgrading might take longer time, require excessive finance, risky as well as much complicated.
Here is an example of a study conducted to upgrade a big CRM 2011 system to D365CE Online. The earlier organization ran in the online version, and these are a few takeaways from this project.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
The CRM has a huge database of 300 GB plus data, tables with more than 30 million records, 10 plus integrations, more than 50 custom entities, and 100 plus reports. In the real-time there exist a very few customers with a database of similar size in Dynamics 365 Online.
You need to pay extra money for extra space as compared to what is usually paid for the size of 1TB in the personal OneDrive. It is just like the SSD level SQL database saved in minimum 2 geographical locations, also, it includes the cost of the calculation and the backup (long-term and short-term) features.
Therefore, for being fair, one must test apples with apple. Due to GDPR considerations, customers did not wish to migrate their data. One of the major reasons for customers not opting this technology is accounts to its complex reports.
Dynamics 365 SQL
Earlier, maximum of 4 reports were used by the customers, and now over the time this functionality has expanded and contains Power BI, etc. The customers were excited when the actual requirement for business was understood and a view was created, and for a certain user group, this view along with entity was put in the Modular App.
This is available for real-time now. Other than reports a company may require other things too such as the specific solutions to replace complex SQL reports.
- Precomputing in Dynamics – You need to use a view, chart and a report with FetchXML and SSRS data source.
- View the data via Power BI, agitate and export it to Azure SQL with Data Export Service or similar
- To create more document-based reports, use templates of document for Excel, Word or Document Core Pack from mscrm-addons.com.
The last point is the key cause of not opting cloud as it has many integrations. Integrating Dynamics 365 Online than to on-prem is quite easy and one has to consider a few particulars such as throttling limitations but they are very steep.
Besides this, doing parts for readings from the Azure SQL database by using Data Export Service is much faster and offloads the API. Thus, to update the CRM 2011, the entire code has to be revised and it’s not that large.
Approaching the challenges
In the sessions conducted by Scott Sewell and Joel Lindstrom, the focus should completely be on the upgrade of the system and not just fixing things. This strategy was used which used methods as follows:
- Transporting solution from the CRM 2011
- Upgrading the solution to the latest version (Dynamics 365 (8.2)) by Dynamics CRM 2013 OnPrem
- UI logic for 8.2 and reverse forms
- Eliminating reports and codes
- Upgrade the integrations that are installed in the latest hosting environment
- Upgrade each component of code and add it back in the solution
- Migration can start after the 8.2 solution grips on to the data model perspective
- More fixed based testing
Microsoft launched Dynamics FastTrack program that helps transport the whole database and customizations to the online systems, from the time of implementation. It is used for complex deployments like this one.
Main decisions in the project
While an agile project methodology based on the Kanban was used. Customers faced a few seasonal ups and downs, i.e. they had to do before Christmas or wait till April for another business. Most of the businesses cannot adjust to this type of schedule as the Agile team has “we’ll be done when we’ll be done” type of attitude.
Also, a seasoned SSIS expert skilled in setting up very advanced SSIS flows and utilizing SSIS to a large extent for migrations was used to reduced the actual downtime.
- A bug in the Object type code for custom entities in the CRM 2011 took time to solve. The new system was different and the mapping was used to make sure everything was connected to the right entity.
- Going live is much trickier and there was some non-critical data left which was later solved.
- Tools like Kingswaysoft and SSIS are famous among customer, even after moving to the cloud.
Is cloud right?
The customer had many ideas in mind but the programmers were firm on not adding anything extra. There came many features and capabilities opened up after the online deployment. This also resulted in the implementation of many new ideas such as:
- GDPR features
- BI integrations
- (DotMailer) change of the marketing automation system
- Evaluation of Microsoft Social Engagement
- Evaluation of Dynamics Marketing
- D365CE gamification
- 100+ surveys using Voice of the Customer – many surveys used as customer facing forms
- Sentiment analysis of surveys and other data using Azure Cognitive Services
- Profanity checking of survey responses using Flow and Azure Content Moderation
A small team simultaneously maintaining and supporting the system helped the business achieve its goals. This could not have been achieved without the move to the cloud. As because of the cloud services enable high modularization and decoupling.
Moreover, making it easy to connect very powerful features using often no or low amounts of code. Independent modules and low amounts of code also make for a system that is easy to maintain with fewer dependencies, as long as that is an identified goal of the implementation.
To achieve goals in business a small team maintains and supports the system simultaneously. This is only possible because of moving to the cloud. The services of the cloud enable decoupling and high modularization which makes it easy to connect to the very powerful features.
This usually requires less or no coding and independent modules make the system easy to maintain.
Author Bio:
Johnny Morgan who has worked with Java development outsourcing company. I write an article especially for Java, Big data and other programming languages.