How the existing data from ERP "MAS500" (SAG MAS 500) can be migrated to MS Dynamics ?

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Posted on by ShivamKotwalia

Hi All,

Well I did a little research and found that "Sage 500" ERP comes with an analytic tool “Business Insights analyser”. The tool can be used to export the data to Microsoft Excel or the Extensible

Markup Language (XML). The excel file then should be converted to an XML file that complies with the field names, character limitations, and other data requirements for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Dynamics AX contains a set of application classes prefixed with Xml, such as XmlDocument and XmlNode which can be used to read and import data from xml file into AX.

However, Business Insights Analyzer from MAS500 is primarily a reporting tool and will not allow you to migrate complete MAS500 data. There is also one tool for migration in MAS500 but that is to get data from other applications to MAS500 and not to get data out of MAS.

I am totally confused now, is there any one who has ever done any migration from "MAS500" to AX 2012 ?

Thanks In Advance !!

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Martin Dráb 237,795 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I can't comment on Sage, nevertheless I wouldn't bother developing my own solution based on Xml* classes in Dynamics AX, since AX contains the Data Import Export Framework (which supports XML, among other formats).

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ShivamKotwalia on at

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Hi Martin,

Thanks for helping :)

I am quite sure how data has to be brought in AX, and aware about the DMF and XML classes.

The only thing that bothers me is SAG MS's Database architecture.

Otherwise the only option i see is SQL to SQL migration.

Thanks again

Shivam

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Martin Dráb 237,795 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Well, then you know that using Xml* classes would be waste of time, because that's what DIXF does for you (among many other things), and that doing it at SQL level is virtually impossible.

If you have questions about Sage's database architecture, I strongly suggest you ask in a Sage forum.

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ShivamKotwalia on at

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Yaa, thinking the same, using XML classes would be very big task. Same for SQL, as using SSIS packages would be great burden.

I have already created the thread at SAG, but I posted here as AX has a much bigger and stronger community than SAG.

I though someone might have done the integration and may give some inputs in it.

Cheers !!!

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Brandon Wiese 17,788 on at

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The problem of data migration between two systems goes far beyond the problem of transport. There are dozens of good, reliable, standardized ways of getting data out one system, and into another, and they all come with their advantages and disadvantages and they can all be made to work just fine.

I did 3 migrations from MAS90 last year. They all took about 2 weeks each. I built tables in the AOT to hold data from the source system, which I fetched directly with SQL using a linked server, and then wrote the entire migration in X++. The problem of transport was solved in half a day, by copying the source tables in their entirety into identical tables in the AOT, and being able to refresh those tables in about 5 minutes with a single click.

But the problem of migration is largely a problem of fitting one schema into another.

For example, customers in MAS have ship-to addresses, and this structure mimics well the order account/invoice account customer structure in AX, i.e. make all "customers" in MAS into invoice accounts in AX, and make all "ship-to addresses" in MAS into order accounts in AX.

Now, when it came to external item numbers, they are stored in MAS against the "customer". If we just copy those external item numbers into AX against the invoice account, that doesn't work. AX doesn't search the invoice account for external item numbers. Instead, you have to create a price/discount group, attach it to all of the order accounts that were mapped from the ship-to addresses, and then import the external item numbers into that price/discount group. Only that produces the same functional result in AX as MAS, without some type of modification. And that's the easiest possible set of data. It's just 3 pieces of information, but even that is not as simple as just copying records from one table into another.

Data migration is about making 2 systems with different schema work the same. Often if requires 1 record in the source system to become 2 or 3 in the target system, or vice versa, and then you have a problem that generic tools often do not solve well at all.

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