If you’re stretched on the support of your JD Edwards systems, “upgrade” can quickly become a four-letter word. The uncertainty associated with upgrades is intimidating and stressful, to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be. A fear of upgrading keeps you from experiencing the increased functionality, support, performance, and advantages that it can offer.

Following this years INFOCUS Conference by JDE, we felt that Quest put out a great blog post which summarized Manish Somani’s presentation at the conference. The presentation was helpful in laying out the key 6 steps to a healthy and updated JD Edwards system.

Planning

Before your upgrade even begins, it’s essential to have a game plan for your team to keep you on track. Documenting any current processes, understanding the basic features and advantages of the upgrade, and including a testing or training schedule can help you avoid running into any insurmountable obstacles during the upgrade process.

Customizations

Although customizations can be extremely beneficial and necessary for an ERP system, they can also be difficult to handle and manage during an upgrade. So avoiding customizations when possible will help you avoid making the upgrade more expensive and complicated.

Integrations

Integrations = complications where upgrades are concerned. So, ask yourself, “Do I still need this integration?” and if the answer isn’t an immediate and emphatic yes, don’t be afraid to lose it. This is also where understanding what the update includes can come in handy, as there might be a new feature included in the upgrade that does the same job.

Data

Before an upgrade, it’s beneficial (and worth it in the long run) to repeat data migrations until there are no hiccups. If possible, archiving or purging large portions of data can eliminate data migration time (and keep your upgrade process shorter and sweeter).

Testing

“Practice makes perfect” is true in life and in JDE upgrades. It’s crucial to perform all tests (and several times) as it will ensure a ready-to-go system by your go-live date.

Training

JD Edwards upgrades are beneficial in more ways than one, however, if end-users aren’t familiar with the newly upgraded system, it’s a failed project. Be sure users are trained and have a comprehensive understanding to ensure all is good-to-go by the go-live date.

Bonus Tip: Tackling smaller JDE releases more frequently will help you avoid hefty costs and timely projects.

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It’s no secret, upgrades are not anyone’s favorite thing, but by following these six steps, you can get ahead of these challenges for less business disruption and a more proactive way to manage your JD Edwards upgrades.

We’d love to learn more about your JD Edwards upgrade challenges. Contact us here to start the conversation.