Needing to Decide - GP2013 R2 or Wait for GP2015?

(2) Share

Report

Posted on by Community Member

I am at a crossroads of sorts with my current client. We are needing to make a decision about upgrading from GP2010 to GP2013 R2 or just waiting it out for GP2015. Ideally, we would love to ditch Business Portal (which we use for Timesheets and Purchase Requests and some very minor self-serve HR update functions). I know that part of this retiring of BP happens with GP2013 R2. But from what I have read, GP2015 will cover all the functions and BP will really (finally) "go away" with that release. I have done a lot of my own research but would like to hear from the folks here. I know this is a popular topic and I have seen other threads but felt it was proper to start my own. Looking forward to hearing what the PROs think!

*This post is locked for comments

I have the same question (0)

All responses (11)

Answers (1)

Community Member on at

Like (1)

Report

We just made the leap to GP 2013 R2 from GP 2010. We never setup the business portal so I can not speak to that aspect. One of the biggest deciding factors for me was with a new release comes new bugs. Can your client support any down time if you encounter an issue with GP 2015 that hasn't been discovered? I'm looking forward to getting GP 2015 setup in our dev environment but I will most likely wait 6 months or so after RTM before I even bring the subject up to management.

--Just my .2

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Suggested answer

Redbeard 12,931 on at

Like (1)

Report

Here's my $.02

GP 2013R2 is a mature product, with a very strong feature set. As a rule, I discourage clients from being on the bleeding edge of technology. I won't generally move anyone to a new version of GP until SP1 releases.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

Like (1)

Report

I do believe that this is a controversial topic as opinions about it might differ sharply. For that I believe that the decision to upgrade or not should depend upon the current situation of your client and the associated issues specifically.

For me, I would consider a simple analysis, study, or GAP analysis if you would call it between what your client has currently and what you are planning to give them with the 2013 R2 (on a feature base). Your client must have current issues which they want to get resolved for sure, if the 2013 is the savior you should not wait for the next release. As you know, there are several great features that you will get such as: inventory reason codes, PO prepayments, SOP Suggested items, several enhancement to Fixed Assets, Smart List designer , taking company offline, document attachment features, user security and windows account, and most of all the new requisition management ...etc

In this essence; from a broad perspective, matching your client's current issues against the features should give you a general idea of the added value you will get from the upgrade, of course giving weight to your client issues will help you make a more precise decision.

On the contrary, if the we limit our perspective only to the requisition management, I would not give my vote to the upgrade decision. In my opinion, the current requisition management is a very stable representing a very important improvement in the road map of Dynamics GP, yet not as mature as expected (at least according to my own experience). I would not say that it has issues or problems, rather it is still not covering few business processes requirements which are highly essentials from a business perspective. We have deployed it at one of the site and came across several requirements that were not covered, we had to manually handle these requirements through work around solutions until the new 2015 is introduced. Again, that doesn't mean that it is not stable, it is sharply stable and represent a great platform to be enriched in future releases.

In summary, I believe the decision depends on this such simple analysis which could point you to the right direction.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Suggested answer

Redbeard 12,931 on at

Like (0)

Report

Other things to consider when evaluating any potential upgrade are the compatibility of any third party products as well as any necessary changes to the environment because of system requirements. For instance, GP 2013 eliminated support for:

a. Windows XP all editions

b. Windows Server 2003 all editions

c. Windows Vista all editions

d. Internet Explorer 7.0

e. Microsoft Office 2007

f. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 all editions

g. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

h. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

i. Office Communicator 2007

I couldn't find the an updated System Requirements for Dynamics GP 2015, but I imagine support for older versions of these same apps and operating systems will be curtailed.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Any suggested answers? I am thinking we will wait it out until GP2015 but I was hoping to hear from our GP experts here in the forum...

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Scratch that - when I looked at the questions through "my profile" I couldn't see any responses. I will read what's been written and reply!

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Luckily, we're using newer versions of all the products you've listed above...

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

If we wait, it will be at least 6 months after GP2015 drops...

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

An aside: Why don't these replies come out directly under the person I am clicking "reply" to?

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

Like (0)

Report

Just to keep you posted, GP 2015 is scheduled to be released before the end of this year, possibly in December.

As for tracking the replies, you can consider the "Forum notifications" feature, click on it to be "ON" which will keep you posted by sending e-mail notifications as you receive a reply on your submitted case,

Never hesitate to share any further inquiries,

Was this reply helpful? Yes No