Dynamics GP 2015R2 to 2018R2 upgrade - Upgrade!

This is part 3 of my journey to upgrade GP.

Let the fun begin!  It is time to do the base upgrade.  We all know how that starts right?

GP Utilities.

As SA, of course.

As this was an existing Dynamics installation upgrade I just had to click a few Next buttons right?

Not so fast!

I didn't even get past the Dynamics database upgrade when I received the nasty message:

"The stored procedure SynchronizeTableData() of form duSQLAccountSynch : 27Pass Through SQL returned the following results: DBMS: 2601, Microsoft Dynamics GP: 0."

Turns out I'm not alone with that one.  Google will return mucho resultso.  However the only one you need is here.  This one goes back quite a few versions, but I don't recall actually seeing it before.  It's apparently not common, but if you modify right Smartlist you get bit (Payroll > Employee?).

The problem lies in the Dynamics table ASIEXP86.  Log story short backup that table then clear it then restart the upgrade.  Do that after restoring the Dynamics database, of course.

That did get me past into the company upgrades.  As we have 7 companies I watched for a while and made sure our primary company database upgraded, then disconnected from the server to let it run to completion.

As that was past quitting time I jumped back in this morning to see how things went.  Oddly when I logged in there was no GP Utilities session waiting for me to click the Finish button.  WTF right?

A check of the Windows logs pointed me to the fellow in IT that pulled a restart on me.  Claims he didn't see anyone logged on.  False!

Ah well, bygones be bygones right?  It's been a while since I had to restart an upgrade and since 3 companies had already completed I just had to clear the Dynamics..DULCK table and restart Utilities to finish the job.

All went well until the last company finished then the GP Utilities window showed blank.  Checking the Task Manager revealed an odd pattern of CPU utilization by the session, indicating that the process was still running - but the blank window was odd.

As I left to come and start this blog I was interrupted regarding a report issue.  As I was rendering assistance I noticed a MAJOR clue - I had folders in SSRS for all my companies.  AHA!!!

I had failed to clear the SSRS setting in the Dynamics database after I had restored it following the first error.  That was in my script but I'd overlooked it on the restore.

Returning to my GP Utilities session revealed the nasty GP Utilities window telling me my "Business Intelligence reports were not deployed."  - Buzz off!

I've got some cleanup to do in my SSRS folders.  We don't bother with GP's standard SSRS reports and this is something that's plagued me for years (none of my clients in my former life as a consultant bothered with them either.)  GP insists on loading these "BI" reports if there is a reference to an SSRS instance.  I think it's time for a suggestion to make this an optional step instead of a default process.

Of course the window is asking me to Retry or Cancel.  I don't want to Retry but Cancel just allows it to keep going - trying to load SSRS reports I don't want.  So it's "Hammer Time" on the program - End Task!

I hate to do that but they leave me no choice.

I was then able to start GP and get my first hands-on with GP 2018.  I see that I've got a new step in my upgrade process right off-the-bat: get rid of "Intelligent Cloud Insights".  Sorry but I don't care!

Another buzz-off!

Dynamics GP 2015R2 to 2018R2 upgrade - Installation

This is the second blog post related to our upgrade of Dynamics GP.

An upgrade would not happen without installing the new software.  We are following the traditional and recommended "best practice" path of provisioning a new server, and updating the underling OS and SQL software.  And, of course, this is an all Microsoft operation.

So once IT handed off the server I logged in and immediately installed my required components from ninite.com.  (If you haven't used this service why not?)  My typical load is:

7-Zip

Notepad+

PDF reader - our company standard is FoxIt, though I've used PDFCreator in the past.

Classic Shell

Apparently IT did not load Chrome so I'll be doing that also.

After that comes the SQL installation.  Just a basic Engine install, but we need the Agent also.  We do not update domain service accounts with each install so I stuck with that.  We do allocate a separate drive for backups so I configured for that, as well the other standard choices for GP (mixed mode, DOCI, etc.)

Then comes SQL Management Studio.  That is now published separate by Microsoft so I downloaded the latest version of that.

And on to the standard GP 2018R2 installer.  We follow the best practice of installing the base version first, updated to the latest SP, and including all required features.  And we do this without any 3rd parties or customizations.

Finally I copied over our GP company databases and restored and readied them for the upgrade.  The two important steps there are to set all databases to Simple Recovery, and bring all to SQL 2016 compatibility.

Next up is the upgrade itself.

Dynamics GP 2015R2 to 2018R2 upgrade - Background

It's a new year and time for a GP upgrade!

We are payroll users here so we have to keep the code base on the latest version.  Plus I needed something meaty to do.  So I got the bosses ok and petitioned IT for the new server and it's off to the races!

Well we have a lot of moving parts to maybe not so fast as a race.  More like a plodding timeline maybe.

So the path is from GP 2015R2 on Server and SQL 2012 to 2018R2 on Server and SQL 2016.  That should keep us for a few years.

Our last upgrade was in October of 2015 from GP 2010 to 2015 R2.  It went fairly well but we had some difficulties with some significant changes to our customization at the same time.  This time there will be no dramatic changes to all should proceed smoothly (I hope.)

IMPORTANT:  No upgrade should be started without a detailed plan.  I'm lacking the prior plan - flat-out don't recall what I did with it.  So new plan is on the table, or in Excel I suppose.  And as I created a tab for every major element of the upgrade (i.e. OS, GP, 3rd parties, etc.) I've already got 10 tabs going!

Step 1 of any upgrade or update is create the plan!

Step 2 was to gather all the components of the new version.  This includes all the GP 2018 R2 software, as well as documentation, third party software, and registration keys.

And yes we pay maintenance on all our software so there's that.

All the subsequent steps will be detailed in future blog posts.

Whooppeee!