we have a customer who wants to migrate from b2 to c4. They have lots of customizations (no source code customizations mostly reports) and I feel that there might have been some big changes in the table structure of baan standard tables and domains (between b2 and c4). So I apprehend lot of problems if I take these sessions to c4. For example in c3 there is a domain tccntr which doesn't exist in c4.

Do I need to manually look at all those scripts and modify accordinly? Anyone has ever faced such a situation before? Company's data etc can be taken care by BaaN but what abt the scripts in customized reports etc? They might give domain not found, query not correct etc errors.

Pls. share your experience.

Regards,
Srinivas

I have done some of these in the past. You have to bring all the customizations over to the new environment, compile. If they don't compile, fix it. The others can be checked by the users.

You can probably save a lot of work if you first check if the reports are still used.

Hope that you don't have reports that have update statements...

Han

Srinivas -
This is an age old problem. You need to be careful, but it's doable and not the end of the world.

You do need to check all the customized components for the changes from base b2 to base c4. There are tools for this: Under Utilities you can run a session called "Compare Package VRC's" to check what differences are between the 2 versions. For this you need the 2 copies (base b2 and base c4) on the same bshell (you can't really do that). I suggest a holding VRC to import the b2 base code into for comparison with c4.

Once you know the differences between the versions, you can approach each component the following ways:
1. There are no changes from base b2 to c4. Or..there are changes but you do not want or need them:
- Copy your custom report to custom c4 VRC and you should be able to compile fine.
2. There are changes from base b2 to c4, and your modifications are minimal:
- Copy the base c4 version into your custom c4 VRC and re-apply your changes.
3. There are minimal changes from base b2 to base c4, and your custom version has extensive changes:
- Copy your custom report to custom c4 VRC and add the changes from base b2 to c4 into it.
4. There are a LOT of changes from b2 to c4 and a lot of custom changes:
- Your call - usually copy the base c4 version into your custom c4 VRC and reapply your customizations. At this point, you should run a difference check from base b2 to customized b2 to be sure you re-apply all your changes. If the changes no longer make sense, you will need to use some judgement here.

It is a lot of work, but you get quicker at them as you go along. Mostly you should be hitting options 1 and 2. There were SOME major changes between b2 and c4, but not as much as from c4 to ERP. Be happy you don't have to do that one!

Lisa,

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. Ultimately it looks like I have to look at each one of these reports closely and make modifications if any are reqd.

Regards,
Srinivas

Srini

We did such migrations. Following might be of some help to you.

Software or DD :
============
1) in "td" sls/pur 040 to 051 there are table definitions different.

2) c4 "tf" integration tables are split (tfgld418 is added); you have to populate the tfgld418.

3) I dont know the changes in "ti"

4) so dont take table definitions from b2 in your S/W export; make the changes in table def if required over c4 tables. Simply bcos c4 objects will look for c4 table/fields.

5) Reports should not have any problem, because there are fields added to c4; nothing seems removed.

6) In Export DD(may be tools bug) you end up getting objects exported in dump that you dont want. After the export from b2 import over c4, we got all b2 objects sitting over the new c4 ?????? like mintain customers / suppliers, caculate cost price / sales orders ====ONLY the OBJECTS==== you might like to carefully check and remove b2 obects sitting on .

7) Data migration we did using Exchange.

Its easy. Goodluck

Vish

Wasn't there pre-written conversion programs for upgrading 4b to 4c? I am pretty sure there was one for Triton to Baan IV. Does anyone know how to find them?

Basically we are upgrading from BaanIVc2 to BaanIVc4 with the above mentioned extensions (ags Automotive Global Solution). Last week we had a demo from Baan Sales team here in our company. They are talking about the tools named 'Discovery tool' and 'Data Dictionary Comparision tool'. They will do the following:
Discovery Tool
- Database Size Review
- Environment Setting Details
- Packages – Table Definition, File Definition, Audit etc.
- Localizations
- Extension
Oracle set up related to Baan
Data Dictionary Comparison Tool
- Copy Data Dictionary from Baan system to Desktop
- Compares Current System and Target - Data Model Changes

These tools sit in the client machine. I have not yet worked with these tools. I will update this link once I know more about this.

Together with the Baan IVc software you will receive a description how to migrate from standard b2 to standard c4. Because they use the same tools version it basicly just a change package combination for the company.....

However you have to split tfgld410 into different tables (is nicely described in the same guide).

I only problem I had once was that my customer had changed the domain definition of the items, but the domains is something you have to check together with all your customisations.

Han