Dynamics NAV, GP and SL: Why I Think Customers Should Start Planning Now

Migration from Dynamics NAV, GP, or SL to Business Central should be planned early rather than waiting until lifecycle deadlines. The post emphasizes that successful migration requires assessing the current environment, deciding what to migrate, cleaning up unnecessary complexity, and redesigning processes for Business Central's architecture rather than simply converting everything.

Key points

Start migration planning early even if you don’t migrate immediately, as understanding your current environment takes time
Use migration as an opportunity to evaluate what actually matters versus unnecessary customizations and historical data
Business Central’s different architecture means existing NAV customizations may need redesign rather than conversion
Having migration tools like those for GP cloud migration doesn’t eliminate the need for business decisions about what to migrate
Assessment and preparation activities like data cleanup, testing options, and mock migrations reduce surprises in production

Quotes

“The difficult part is deciding what should be migrated in the first place.” (Identifies that the real migration challenge is business analysis, not technical data movement)

Context

Features: cloud migration capabilities, data migration, historical data migration, customization assessment, integration planning
Versions: NAV 2017, GP 2015 and later, Business Central

Source: Mohana’s Dynamics NAV & BC blog, community blog. Summary, key points and quotes are derived (CONTENT-NOTICE.md); read the original for the full text.