5 Tips While Moving from On-Premises Dynamics CRM to the D365 Cloud

Why Microsoft Dynamics 365 is so popular?

With the cloud-first approach of Microsoft, CRM customers are increasingly adopting the cloud and moving from their current On-premises CRM system to the cloud. The reason is simple – when you are on-premises, you spend more time and money on maintaining the software. You will need more resources to stay up and running and to have a scalable solution for your changing business needs. In long-term, it is not going to help.

Why businesses feel reluctant in moving to cloud?

The other side of picture says that businesses had already invested a lot of money to have on-premises Dynamics CRM solution and now they are being influenced to migrate to cloud by spending more money. The move is not so easy and it will pose a number of challenges as well. Businesses will have less control over their servers and the data import performance may get affected due to the cloud environment.

What should be considered while moving from On-premise to Cloud?

The benefits of moving to cloud subsides all the hassles and provide great functionalities to manage business in the most efficient and cost effective ways. Here are few important tips for making the transition easier:

• The first step is to start by upgrading the existing Dynamics CRM on-premises to the most recent version. A smoother transition by skipping versions is not possible, as you will need to upgrade each of the successive versions or considering starting fresh on Dynamics 365 and migrate only your data.
• Next you will need to upgrade your Dynamics CRM licenses to the Dynamics 365 subscription model. Good news, Microsoft allows you to run on-premises with your cloud subscription. This means there is no reason to wait and no need to buy duplicate licenses/subscriptions for your users. Before you go live, it’s better to practice the process of promoting your solution on different environment with the help of production and non-production instances of Dynamics 365. Moreover, take a look at the storage requirements and archive data to avoid paying for additional storage space of data you are not using.
• An important point to consider is to put a hold on all development activities of your solution until the move is complete. Focus on moving to the new environment after upgrading to the latest version of Dynamics 365. If you keep doing the changes to the solution, you may fall behind your deadline.
• During the move from Dynamics CRM On-premises to Dynamics 365 Cloud, consider using a data migration tool, as it will save many hours of development and testing time.
• If your business is not using Microsoft Office 365 now, this is the right time to start and take advantages of the integrated features and single sign on O365. Dynamics 365 is administered from the Office 365 management console.

Play your part in facilitating the move

The points mentioned above should be given due consideration for letting your on-premises solutions move to the cloud smoothly. Remember that the move might take longer than expected and your part is to avoid disruptions and downtime during the process.

Conclusion

There are many benefits to start this digital transformation so don’t wait. Another important thing to know is Microsoft is releasing many online-only features for Dynamics 365 in the future. Don’t be left behind!