Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

I would like to invite all of you to brainstorm on the following question and help me out with your inputs on making a huge decision.

"Should a New Project for consolidating more Business Units from legacy ERP System to JDE be launched in JDE E810 (Not currently supported version by Oracle)? or Should the current implemenation of JDE be upgraded to 9.0 prior to having the Business Units converted from legacy system to JDE 9.0?"
I would like to see and discuss the Pros and Cons of each approach. Have other companies faced similar situation where the management had to decide in a short time? The argument for Integrating other business units from legacy system to JDE is that the Business Processes are similar. Is this factor going to guarantee that we will not run in to roadblocks on JDE? I am specifically concerned about lack of support by Oracle on E810, differences in G/L structure between the current Business Unit on JDE vs the Business Units that needs to be integrated from legacy system, EDI module in JDE E810 that would need to be set up for several trading partners mograting from legacy ERP.
Please feel free to go at it based on what you feel should be the right and safe approach.

Thanks for your inputs in advance.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

cyberg,

By "business units" I will assume that these are organisational as opposed to the JDE Term. It also appears from your post that the business processes used by the these business units may require customisation of JDE.

It would generally be better to upgrade to E9 first and then integrate/convert the business units from the legacy system. This would avoid an complications arising from customisation.

Custom objects are generally not a problem when upgrading. However, custom objects which are modified clones of standard JDE objects may need reworking, especially if the original standard object has changed, or the processes that use it or it uses have changed. Modifications to standard JDE objects will need to be retrofitted after the upgrade.

Another thing to consider is the data associated with the legacy system business units. If the data is substantial, there may be 'gains' to be had in the upgrade by not increasing the amount of data to upgrade.

That's my AUD 0.02 worth. I hope it helps.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

I would agree with Peter. I would upgrade your current version to EnterpriseOne 9.0 and then migrate, one-on-one, your other remote sites currently on legacy systems, facilitating each as new installations.

When I was performing global implementations for sister sites of a past employer, we found that starting from a stable configuration resulted in each new install being easier or more streamlined as you move forward. Each new install has the benefits of being able to copy objects, set-ups, etc. from the previous install working with standard configurations that you have already tested and implemented in your initial base location. This is really the way to go. This stepping stone approach also nets you excellent testing criteria based on prior CRP's; as well as, you will discover that you have nurtured some great power users along the way that will give the foundation for building an inhouse implementation team for your remote sites.

The downside of migrating all of your remote legacy system sites into 8.10 and then upgrading to 9.0 is that you will have to tackle site specific problems during your upgrades that could be totally different site to site. And when you are migrating from various sites on various legacy system, your team needs to be enpowered with expertise in system functionalities where numerous business processes in these remote sites will be impacted by this new system.

With my experience, I would estimate that you would be able to perform the upgrade to 9.0 in your base location, and then the systematic migration of remote legacy system sites one-by-one in one third of the time it would take you to mass migrate all of your remote legacy system sites into EnterpriseOne 8.10 and then upgrade to EnterpriseOne 9.0 for all sites at one time.

I hope that this helps.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Peter - Thanks for your Valualable input. Yes, by Business Unit I was referring to Sister Companies with Legacy System ERP. When we integrate the different sister companies in to JDE, we would like to possibly treat them as Business Units instead of seperate companies because multiple sister companies currently utilize the same operational infrastructure such as Warehouse facilites and WMS. This would still need to decided upon internally based on some of the detailed requirements.
The EDI documents that needs to be implemented in JDE during migration are given below. I would also like to find out if anyone ran in to any significant issues implementing these EDI Document Types, either in E810 or E9.0
180,
211,
810,
812,
816,
820,
824,
832,
846,
850,
852,
855,
856,
860,
864,
865,
869,
870

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Terry
Thanks a lot of your inputs. Very useful points.
I have a question on the single install versus multiple installs. With our Business looking to be more tightly integrated on the operations side across the different companies, would it be more beneficial to have a single installation of JDE, where the different companies are treated as Business Units, so we can have crossover functionalities such as shipping different company's products on the same shipment, yet capturing the Sales numbers in different G/L Accounts under different organizational units. The Objective is to have the Sales Reporting, P&L, IS, BS, Trial Balance etc be seperated out by Organizational Units, with the capability to Roll up in to a Single Parent Company (Single Organizational Unit). I understand this would require the redesign of current company set up, G/L etc on the current JDE install. If we do redesign with the approach that all Organizational Units (sister companies) are on a single JDE Install, would you chime in on any significant Pros and Cons of this approach?
Thanks again for your valued inputs.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Cyberg,

I would do the Consolidations 'after' the migration.... Your organization may go ahead with the Consolidations before the migration so they can validate results... but I would, under NO CONSIDERATION do the consolidation DURING the migration. The Consolidation project needs to be either Before or After.

Pros for After the Migration to 9.0:
- VALIDATION against Legacy.
- No Confusion between what Was and What IS in Reporting
- VALIDATION....

I try to be black and white, when it comes to Migrations. If I run a report on the Legacy System at Cut-Over, that report better match the same report on Day-One at Go-Live. If you put any other changes into the mix (Consolidations) - you append the risk to both projects, exponentially.

Peter and Terry bring forward some very GREAT points!

(db)

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

[ QUOTE ]
Terry
Thanks a lot of your inputs. Very useful points.
I have a question on the single install versus multiple installs. With our Business looking to be more tightly integrated on the operations side across the different companies, would it be more beneficial to have a single installation of JDE, where the different companies are treated as Business Units, so we can have crossover functionalities such as shipping different company's products on the same shipment, yet capturing the Sales numbers in different G/L Accounts under different organizational units.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually Cyberg when I was referring to different installs, I was already assuming that all of your BU's would be brought up in one system when you referred to consolidation. I was recommending that each BU be handled individually in seperate implementation CRP's/Go-Lives, one business unit at a time because like Daniel mentioned, you are going to need to match up ending data in legacy systems to beginning data in new system. Unless you have sufficient resources in each of the remote BU's to be a part of your Migration/Implementation team, you will be hard pressed to pull off all concurrently.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Here's my 2 cents:

Since 8.10 is unsupported, I think it would be unwise to add any new business units onto such a platform. What happens if you run into problems if you attempt this? You would have no support from Oracle other than maybe for existing bug fixes. And then you would still have to turn around and upgrade these business units to 9.0 in fairly short order, to get onto a supported version.

I would strongly advise you to upgrade your system to 9.0, get it stabilized, and then roll 9.0 out to other business units separately.

Good luck!

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Daniel

Thanks for your points. One of the additional things that would add complexity to the Consolidation is that we intend to keep BOSS - a WMS from legacy system for the Business Units coming over from legacy system over to JDE. The Business Unit currently on JDE will not have to interface with BOSS, however the additional Business Units being integrated in to JDE will have to interface with BOSS. This would cause different setups on the Order to Cash and Purchase to Pay cycles.
Any thoughts on that scenario?
Thanks

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Don - thanks for your support on the Upgrade First approach. It looks like the general consensus so far is to do the upgrade first as a safer approach, and save the consolidation to be done on the supported version.

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Cyberg,

On a 'simple' upgrade, where you aren't changing the in(s)/out(s) of the system - just doing the E1 upgrade - you can 'usually' keep your interface issues to a low roar.

If you don't plan on changing your interface technologies and/or upgrading the interface points - BOSS/WMS may need very little re-integration. However - Each third-party vendor should be included in the upgrade conversations, as they may require corresponding upgrade and maintenance for the target version of E1. For example - if your current third-party interfaces use the F0301 (legacy Customer Master) - that file goes obsolete in later versions of E1.

Not knowing the specifics of BOSS/WMS - here are a few gotcha's to look out for:
- Unicode (and MORE UNICODE)
- Hardwired Server Names (old Production vs New Production)
- Table Changes (New, Obsolete and Altered)
- Anything Hardwired (Environments, IP Addresses, Dates, Shares...)
- Logic Changes (BSFNs that either have new Data Structures, Obsoleted or work completely different)

This list is minuscule (would take more than five minutes to generate)!

(db)

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Hi Everyone - Thanks for all of your inputs so far on this topic. Please feel free to continue sending your inputs regarding this topic. I still have not seen an input from the "devil's advocate" perspective, someone who would strongly recommend to go ahead with the Consolidation prior to the Upgrade. Does that mean this approach (consolidate now.Upgrade Can Wait) is NOT REALISTIC? Would this slow down the True Consolidation from a Business Standpoint or possibly result in being a More Expensive approach in the end? In other words,on a scale of 0 to 5, what would be the confidence level to go ahead with a Consolidation on JDE E810, instead of upgrading to 9.0 first and then consolidating other business? Any thoughts on this are most welcome.
Thanks

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Upgrade to 9.0 first. Get it stable, then bring in the other business units. Don't bring business units into an unsupported configuration.

My soon to be former employer is doing that exact process. We have one region on 9.0. We are going to upgrade two more regions into that instance. At the same time, we will migrate a large business unit from a legacy app into JDE 9.0.

- Gregg Larkin

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

"My soon to be former employer " ??

You leaving Praxair?

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Yup

I'll update my profile next week when I start work for my new employer. I'm changing teams and moving into the consulting world for a world class JDE consulting firm.

- Gregg

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

It all depends on timelines and when it is desired to integrate the new business units.

Although 8.10 is unsupported it still works and runs many businesses. All of the past software updates are still available under Oracle's Lifetime Support policy. Also you are supported up to tools 8.98.1 (or 8.98.2 .........can't remember).

Also consider that your company is not in the "IT Business" but in some other dicipline and the business goals out weight the IT goals. So while all us propleer heads will scream "it's not supported" the essential question is "will it work" and the answer is undoubtly "yes".

If you have the time, money, appetite and collective buy in then by all means go ahead and upgrade first but more than likely there is a rapid timeline that someone upstairs wants to see happen.

Likely better to be the "IT hero" here and point out ALL the pro's and con's of the 8.10 and the 9.0 option. Or perhaps even bring the new companies in now and upgrade to 9.1 year.


Colin

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

[ QUOTE ]
Yup

I'll update my profile next week when I start work for my new employer. I'm changing teams and moving into the consulting world for a world class JDE consulting firm.

- Gregg

[/ QUOTE ]


you going to work for Colin

Re: Decision - JDE Enterprise One E810 Upgrade to 9.0 Vs Feasibility of a New Projects in E810

Thanks Greg; and Congratulations on the new gig.

Decision - JDE Xe Upgrade to 9.1

Hi - We have ton of apps and reports developed in Xe as part of our business. Folks are planning for an upgrade to 9.1 and would like to know if we could convert all custom programs into newer version easily. Please any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Sai

Re: Decision - JDE Xe Upgrade to 9.1

JDEERPDEV,

It appears you are hijacking an existing (and somewhat different) post... consider creating a new post ~ specific to your question?

Generally, most custom reports / applications / and other works migrate with few issues.
- there are some file changes (some missing, completely...)
- All custom C Functions will have to be adjusted for Unicode Syntax
- From a Tools Perspective, you won't really see that much difference (Same tools, not a lot of changes)

You may consider partnering with an Independent or few ~ that have done multiple migrations. They can show you some of the 'tricks', at a more-fair rate

Enjoy

(db)