SAP Business One 9.2 takes advantage of the latest technologies, software and trends, keeping it at the fore-front of the ERP industry. But, for many businesses, adapting to new technologies, software and trends is often a daunting task and comes with many challenges. To help make the upgrade process as seamless as possible, Vision33 has put together 10 must know upgrade implications for SAP Business One 9.2 that you should consider before moving forward.
1) Risk Management
When it comes time to upgrade to version 9.2 here are some primary risk mitigation factors that every SAP Business One owner must consider:
- Knowledge - It is important that you know how the application is setup to fit your businesses unique processes. This means understanding the functionality, work flow processes, reporting principles, analytics, add-ons, customisations, etc of the application. The more you know about your system and how changes can affect it, the less risk when upgrading. This is very important as it relates to advanced configurations, customised integrations to other applications, highly important customised reports and the add on products in use. It’s not just SAP Business One that’s being upgraded; you must identify all the pieces of the bigger puzzle.
- Testing - Testing is crucial in order to hash out any issues and to become familiar with new features and functions. There are three methods you can use to test the upgrade:
- Upgrade in place: This involves installing the upgrade on your current server and testing with data currently in your system. This method should never be used except in the simplest of deployments, where no add ons or customisations have taken place. SAP Business One is being run as is out-of-the-box.
- Upgrade with a new server (recommended): With this method, you replicate the software on a new server and perform testing in the new environment. This is the recommended testing method because not only are you using test data, but the newer servers run a 64-bit operating system, which makes processing data much faster. Servers and hardware are always moving forward. Our experience tells us that a Server typically has no more than a 3-year lifecycle and that a newer version of SAP Business One will probably require a new and more properly sized system.
- Upgrade your system to the cloud (highly recommended): In today’s competitive business environment there is a massive push to be more and more digital; to run more live and make decisions in real time. Businesses that take these business demands seriously and truly want to stay ahead of the competition are moving to the cloud. An upgrade is your opportunity to do exactly that. The upgrade experience itself in the cloud environment reduces the risk factor dramatically.
- Consulting Experience: You need an experienced consultant to guide you in the right direction. Performing an upgrade without the guidance of a consultant is not advised. If issues arise with a self-upgrade, the time and cost of hiring a consultant would far exceed that of hiring one from the start.
2) Patch Levels (PL)
With older versions of Business One, there may be steps involving Patch Levels that need to be taken before version 9.2 can be installed. This is especially true for older SAP Business One Systems that have gone years since the last upgrade, for instance:
- When upgrading from 2007 to version 9.0 you must first upgrade to version 8.82 with Patch Level 11 as there is no direct path to upgrade to 9.0.
- When upgrading version 8.xx PLxx, you must first upgrade to version 9.0 PL05 before any additional patch levels can be installed.
- Additionally, all add-ons are supported by the latest Patch Level for version 9.0.
- Only after these preliminary steps are taken may the actual upgrade to 9.2 take place
3) Windows Operating Systems
SAP Business One 9.2 runs on Windows Server Operating Systems R2 and 2012. In addition, the application runs on the Windows 8 and Windows 7 Workstation Operating Systems, and Windows 10. Since Windows has halted support for Windows XP, it is no longer certified to work with SAP Business One.
4) Microsoft Office
SAP Business One 9.2 is supported by Office 2013 and 2016 – as well as Office 365. XLReporter is not supported by Office 2013, but may be available in a later Patch Level or version update.
5) Microsoft SQL
Upgrading your current Microsoft SQL server is one of the first steps you should consider when moving to version 9.2. SAP Business One 9.2 is compatible with SQL 2008 R2 and SQL 2012 and SQL 2014 and will not run on older SQL servers. SQL 2014 will be the optimal SQL Server of choice. With each new version of Microsoft SQL Server, users will see an improvement in performance and function.
6) SAP HANA –
Another option to consider, and at a minimum to be aware of, is the option to migrate to SAP’s new HANA in memory database. This database due to being in memory can read data many times faster than a typical Microsoft SQL database operating most often in physical hard drives.
The HANA version of SAP Business One also has an entire suite of Analytical tools and reporting capabilities that do not exist in the SQL version.
There are additional cost considerations to be aware of related to the HANA database.
- HANA software licensing
- Linux Server
- Additional Services for recreation and validation of advanced configurations, reports, queries, formatted searches, integrations, etc.
Moving to HANA from SQL is about 50% upgrade and 50% re-deployment. The benefits however are massive.
7) Crystal Reports
Crystal Reports Designer 2013, Support Pack 5 is the certified version for SAP Business One version 9.2
8) 32 & 64-bit Systems
SAP Business One 9.2 can operate on 32-bit systems, 64-bit systems, or both. You have the option to run some applications in a 32-bit environment and others in a 64-bit environment. This is important to consider because 64-bit environments perform complex processes much faster and provide overall greater system performance.
9) New SAP Business One 9.2 Features
There are a number of new features that are designed to improve the overall user experience with SAP Business One. Here are some of the most important new features in version 9.2:
- Data Ownership Improvements
- Prices Update Wizard
- Inventory Items ID field length increased to 50 characters
- Project Management
- Web Browser Access to SAP Business One
- Relationship Map extension to HR module
- Production Cost Rollup Enhancements
- Approval Procedure is relaunched on document update
- New Job Service (alerts fire without logging in)
- On Premise Support User
- Fixed Assets now has a “virtual item”
- Gross Freight (tax on freight option)
- User Defined Fields (UDFs) can now be linked to system tables
- Remote Support Platform version 3.2
10) Cloud
SAP Business One 9.2 has the option to be hosted on a dedicated web-server through the Amazon Web Service offered by Vision33. This eliminates any need for an on-premise solution, making Business One available to you from anywhere in the world.
With the release of SAP Business One version 9.2, the footprint of the application is larger than it has ever been. To learn more about SAP Business One 9.2, download the Version 9.2 Release Highlights PDF.
