Make Your Upgrade

Painless:
Best Practices from
FOH®
KARINA DA COSTA
IT Senior Manager - FOH,Inc
SAP Business One Certified Consultant v9.0

Karina@foh.cc
www.linkedin.com/in/karina-dacosta
Who is FOH,inc?
FOH®, Inc. designs and manufactures products (Front of the House® & room360° by
FOH®) are foodservice & hospitality industry authorities on tabletop and
hotel trends.
www.Frontofthehouse.com and www.roomthreesixty.com
SAP infrastructure
• Implemented SAP B1 in 2015. Has gone through three upgrade process
(8.82 →9.1→9.2→9.3)
• FOH® has five add-ons and up to ten other process connected to SAP
(Business Intelligence, portals, BPA/Task Center, Point of sales)
• We have another 6 companies implemented in SAP Business One
• We have 118 SAP B1 users + 20 warehouse handheld users
• Our beloved SAP B1 Partner is
Agenda

GOAL Make Your SAP Upgrade Painless

• Why do we need to upgrade SAP versions

• SAP Business One Support Lifecycle
• Where do I start?
• I have a plan, now what?
• Testing Phase
• Upgrade process
• Summary
• Questions
SAP Business One Support Lifecycle

Benefits:
- Fixes
- Enhances
- Included in your maintenance payment
- Compliance
- Support
 SAP Business One Support Lifecycle
End of Mainstream Maintenance

9.0 May, 31th 2015

PL 05

9.1 July, 31th 2016 9.3 June, 30th 2020

PL 05 PL 03

9.2 June, 30th 2018

PL 03

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/528296
SAP Business One Support Lifecycle

• SAP Business One direct upgrade supported

between version families
• Check with you Add-on vendors the right
patch level.
• Don’t be a Guinea Pig ☺ Choose stable
patches instead of latest patches
 Where do I start?

Contact your SAP partner and Add-On Vendors

List add-ons and Categorize all processes

Choose the right date

Determine Key Users

Propose to your team,

let them decide. Consider lessons learned
Communication is Key!
 List and identify all your process
Critical

Medium

WMS - Resolv Commissions

Low
Tax - Avatax

Automation Identify all processes

Credit - Task
Card - Ebiz Center/BPA Categorize the processes
Inv.
HANA Forecast- Magento
Valogix MAG B1 Contingency Plan
Analytics

Critical
Plan for a roll back
Medium/Low
Negotiate with your Team the
“acceptable” down time
FOH®, Inc SAP Environment
Initial Team Member’s meeting
Choose the right date

- Avoid Important dates: End of Quarter, End of Month, First Week of

the Month
- Choose two possible dates + Agree on Cut-Off Time
- Indicate when the Freeze Time starts: No New Implementations

Select Key Users

- The less key users the better
- Pick the most knowledgeable users
- Add the most complicated scenarios
- Check for vacations and time off

Consider lessons learned

SAP Business One upgrade process

After this Team Member meeting you will be able to

✓Have an estimated date for the upgrade

✓Confirm the upgrade date with your
vendors
✓Start the User Test Script. Consider:
✓Prints
✓Reports
✓Void/Cancelations
 Design your test script and assign
1
it to your Key Users

Sort the tasks based on the

2
timing of the workflow

Freeze time: No new

3
implementations
Prepare your Test Environment

⁻ You can’t upgrade your current production environment

⁻ Make sure the upgrade was successful and it didn’t
require SAP intervention
⁻ Make a copy in Excel with the Licenses assigned per
user

- Measure the time per database to be upgraded

- Contact your Add-On Vendors to install their add-ons
in your test environment
 Testing Phase: User Testing
• Prepare two stations
• Set up a good environment for less stress

Test script
Key User Mgr.
• Use the Key User’s SAP credentials
• Ask your partner for extra (temporary) licensing

• Document how to replicate the issues

 Testing Phase: User Testing Script
Example
Test
Process Test Case Document Number Test Procedure Test Owner Status Remarks Test Date
No.

1 Cycle Count

Process a Cycle Count on an item

Item Count for: Inventory Counting Process a cycle count
located in more than 3 BINs and John Smith Accepted 7/27/2018
DAP014WHP23 5305 on the Emulator
found less items

Inventory Posting with

(Using Emulator)
the adjustment: 11887

Processed the
Process a Cycle Count on an item Inventory decrease
Item Count for: Inventory Posting: Process a cycle count
and found more items than the John Smith Accepted using the cost assigned 7/27/2018
AST001NAB83 11808 on the Emulator
current stocl to the Last Evaluated
Price Listprice

Send the test results in an Email

listing the issues pending
 Issue Log: List of issues and their status
Workaround or
Issue Program Check before User Notified to the Related to Pending/Resol Date of this
Issue Description troubleshooting Priority FOH Key User Comments
Number Involved live Acceptance vendor upgrade ved notification
script
V.93.008.05180 /
Install this on
1 Resolv Emulator version needs Low x Karina Yes No Yes Resolved
production
to be updated
V 93.008.05.180 /
Install this on
2 Resolv Handheld version needs Low x Karina Yes No Yes Resolved
production
to be updated
Check the
Processed the Inventory
handheld
decrease using the cost
3 Resolv settings for Low x Karina Yes Yes No Resolved
assigned to the Last
assigning the
Evaluated Price Listprice
correct PriceList
When processing the
receipt of a container, we
Sent a video on
got an error related to
07/30/2018
batches-
and the
Cannot add row without
database copy
complete selection of
on
4 Resolv batch/serial numbers. None High John Smith Pending Yes Yes Pending 7/27/2018
07/31/2018. I
Received the Container
sent the
#826, The status was
Achieve
changed to Whs received.
database on
08/02/18
 Some Statistics from our Issue Log
Issue Type

Critical
14

Medium 12

Low 10

13
6
10
Timing 4 8
One week to solve the
issues
2
1
0

Another week to re-test Not Related to Low Medium Critical

the issues the upgrade
 Ready,
Set,
Upgrade
 Friday – 6pm
Day - Closed the SAP sessions
- Start Upgrade Wizard + databases
1 - Start to uninstall the SAP Local Installations on clients

Saturday – 9am - ?pm

Day - Install Add-Ons (Critical and Medium)
- Test without entering transactions
2 - Apply troubleshoots identified on Issue Log
- Apply licenses to users

Sunday – 9am - 1pm

Day - Finished uninstall process
- Reinstalled updated SAP Version in Clients. You can also
3 run the upgrade wizard per computer.
 Summary
Choose and validate the Schedule the time on
Team Member
version you want to Set up the project plan the vendor and Key
meeting for agreements
with dates User’s agenda – Get
upgrade to & engagement
their commitment

Monitor and Fix issues

Budget estimated Re-testing issues and
Test Phase
reported in the Issue
and approved user acceptance
Log

Communicate Stabilization Phase:

Upgrade Upgrade Support Onsite
Questions?
Important information
• SAP Support Portal:
https://support.sap.com/en/index.html
Important information
Important information
• SAP Support Portal:
https://support.sap.com/en/index.html
• SAP Business One Upgrade Strategy:
https://help.sap.com/doc/011000358700001396142012e/9.3/en-US/B1_Upgrade_Strategy.pdf
• 2267770 - Patch Delivery Schedule for Components Related to SAP Business One
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2267770
• To download patches related to SAP Business one:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter
• 528296 - General Overview Note for SAP Business One Releases and Related Products
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/528296
THANK YOU