Neti carried out upgrade of the ERP system of retail chain stores of Emmezeta

2020: ERP system upgrade

On April 14, 2020 the Neti company announced carrying out migration of the international network of hypermarkets of house goods Emmezeta from the outdated version of Microsoft Axapta 2012 on Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Finance and Operations.

As the ERP system of Emmezeta uses products of Microsoft, and the main business processes were automated based on Microsoft Axapta 2012. However development of ERP solutions of Microsoft towards cloud computing and, in particular, the Dynamics 365 platform demanded review of approach to development of automation systems of business of the retailer.

Customer's tasks:

• Business development required ERP system upgrade
• There were new requests to improvement of processes of Customer Relation
• Change of mechanisms of resource planning was required
• The updated formats of the reporting required completion or upgrade of ERP.

"As the retailer we aim not to create and develop own automation systems of business, and to use the ready-made solutions recognized in retail. Possibility of permanent updating of a system to the current version — a factor, crucial for the company. It allows us to use the latest improvements of standard modules, but not to invest in deep development, especially, in AX2012 system which in 2021 will be removed from support of Microsoft. However Microsoft long did not release necessary for us on-prem the version of D365 FO, and it constrained us from migration. We even intended to implement in AX 2012 several new completions necessary for our business, before transition to upgraded version. But everything developed much more successfully. Microsoft released on-prem the version, and we together with colleagues from Neti estimated labor input of the forthcoming completions (they were not the most trivial). After that it became obvious that it will be optimal to execute at first the project of migration and already on more modern system to solve problems of development. Thanks to operational work of the Neti command, migration of a system was carried out to the shortest possible time and within the approved budget", noted Igor Öhlhofer, CIO at Emmezeta

Experts of Neti were involved to automation of the directions, important for business, as consultants. Audit showed that migration on Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Finance and Operations (D365FO) — more reasonable solution, than completion of AX 2012. And though an outdated system contained a number of necessary functions, further completions of AX2012 would increase complexity of support of a system in the future. Therefore the decision to carry out process of updating using standard tools of Microsoft and also to adapt additional components for work in the implemented system was made.

Process of migration of the client solution on Microsoft Dynamics 365 was entrusted specialists of Neti. During transfer of business processes on D365FO a transfer of the customized and specially developed components was made, adaptation and an inspection of all postponed program code is carried out. In view of the fact that the AIF platform is more unavailable to use, the decision to develop EDI which will allow to implement based on integration D365 FO, existing in AX2012 was made.

At stages of peak load and processing of large volume of the add-on modules created especially for Emmezeta, Neti doubled the number of developers on the project. As a result all process of migration took slightly more than three months. All this time the Neti company worked together with local system integrator which in parallel carried out localization of D365FO for the Balkan region. According to the results of the project all business processes of AX 2012 were transferred to the D365FO platform.

Upgrade of POS became the following task of the customer. Upon termination of work on D365FO of a back office started adaptation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Retail for functioning of the equipment of shops in an ecosystem of Microsoft Dynamics 365. In parallel with it development of the module EDI in D365FO came to an end and development of new business challenges started.