1. Upgrade Utility/PassThru Beta
Jennifer Lisser – Dorner Manufacturing
Bob Herold – Bruno Independent Living Aids

2. Outline PassThru Beta Program Background Upgrade Utility
Software released GA
New options to get upgraded to Epicor 9.05.X
Hardware, OS, SQL Server, Progress and Epicor 9.05 options
Pre/Post Upgrade process checklists
Recommendations
Why do it?
Additional Discussion or Questions

3. PassThru Beta Program
Epicor was interested in getting existing customers involved with the program
Program began in Fall of 2010 and had about 15 customers participating
Program went through several updates to overcome problems
Hardware Requirements
Run time to complete upgrade
UOM Conversion issues
GL Conversion issues
Epicor closed Beta prior to an existing customer successfully going live on 9.05

4. Upgrade Utility GA release date was end of August 2011
Available to current users with support contracts
Talk with your CAM to get download information
Product is being supported under standard support

5. Data Migration Options
Epicor Data Conversion:
Send Database for test upgrade
Send Database for final upgrade
Manual Conversion:
Upgrade to latest 8.03 (409c)
Upgrade to latest 9.04
Upgrade to latest 9.05
Epicor Data Conversion
– only get the 2 conversions, not that you’d need more than 1 test… but…
Manual Conversion:
Possibly run 9.04 and 9.05 conversion on same server with Progress workaround
Direct Upgrade
Still need to be on the latest 8.03 version
Runs the conversion multi-threaded, should be much faster than the manual conversion (had given up on ours, so don’t have stats)
The Direct Upgrade Utility should synch up with the latest service pack eventually; currently it is behind (604a vs 606)
Direct Upgrade Utility:
Upgrade to latest 8.03 (409c)
Direct Upgrade Utility ( a)
Upgrade to required 9.05 (607a)

6. Dorner Environment 409C Data Upgrade Test Environment 2003 R2 64-bit
SQL bit
Vantage C 32-bit
Progress 10.1b 32-bit
Data Upgrade
2008 R2 64-bit
SQL bit
SQL2008 R2 64-bit
Epicor a 32-bit
Progress 10.2a 32 bit
Test Environment
SQL 2008 R2 64-bit
Epicor bit
Progress 10.2a 64-bit
Dorner Environment
409C data conversion
904 schema update
904 data conversion (multithread)
905 schema update
905 data conversion
GL conversions
conversion

7. Bruno Environment Epicor 9.05.606 409C Server
VMware 3.5 ESX Server
2003 R2 32-bit
SQL bit
Progress and Vantage 32-bit
Low end system to get current version to 409c and run Part 1 of UOM conversion
Epicor
Dell Precision Workstation
Dual Quad Core Pentium
32 GB Memory
2 Raid GB SSD drives
2008 R2 and SQL 2008 R2 64-bit
Progress and Epicor bit

8. Sample Checklist – Upgrade process
Restore live database to 409c conversion box
Remove any SQL custom items
Run 409c data conversion
Run UOM scan
Backup MfgSys & UOM databases
Install pass thru, DBs restored in install
Run fix programs
Run 904 schema
Run 904 data
Run 905 schema
Run 905 data
Import posting rules
Run GL Conversion *
Can run GL Conversion after cutover, need to maintain 9.04 version of database.
Only days are mapped, data is all there though.
Dorner GL conversion is around 30 hours per fiscal year.

9. Sample Checklist – Post Upgrade
Reimport custom SQL items
Transfer SQL security
Run post upgrade programs (e.g. bit flag)
Fix menus
Fix default report styles
Purge personalizations
Validate customizations
Import solutions (fixed customizations)
Check UOM codes
Fix new functionality data (e.g. packaging defaults)
Run mass changes (e.g. all parts flagged buy to order)

10. Recommendations SSD!!! Lots of hard drive space
Remove custom SQL objects
Screen capture software – Set at 15 minute captures
Count on plenty of time for fixing customizations. What we saw:
Custom tabs “gone”
BPM methods change
BAQ field formatting
Menus orphaned
Default report styles lost
SSD
- Epicor saw 20 hours for conversion of 65GB ; we were over 100 hours and our DB is almost 80GB now
Hard Drive
Database and log files will bloat (100GB wasn’t enough for a 74GB db plus log)
SQL Objects
Triggers cause conversion to fail
UOM scan reads custom views, stored procedures – removing them saved ~40 hours (use TSql scan)
Screen capture software
- Capture screen shots to assist in determining long process or points that the conversion requires user input
Customizations
Custom “Dorner” tab wiped out of every screen leaving all the UD fields abandoned, cheater work around
Epicor tweaked screen performance by using new methods, old ones are still there just not called, BPM validation doesn’t error on these. In general, plan on touching every BPM in Method Directive maintenance as well as testing
Fields defined as numeric 9.99 crashed a BAQ if the number was greater than 9.99 in E9; worked fine in V8

11. Why Upgrade?
Currently on Vantage A – Epicor Support tests on C
The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be
They are getting to a stable point
Functionality available in 9.05 that we want

12. Why Upgrade? continued Features
Package customization pieces as a “Solution”
Same table called twice in BAQs
BPMs separate between environments
Alt Bill To on RMAs and Service Calls
Buy to Sales Order
Paving the road for Business Intelligence tools

13. Resources on EpicWeb
Epicor 905 Feature Summaries
Epicor 9.05 eBook Guides
Epicor 9 Performance Tuning Guide (Virtual Environment)
Performance Tuning Guide (SQL)
Schema Changes v to Epicor 9

14. Additional Discussion or Questions