An implementation project can take over six months from the first meeting with a new client until the day of go live. It is also an involved process, which requires clients to learn about Dynamics NAV and consultants to learn about the client’s business to ensure that NAV can add the most value to their processes and goals and objectives.
After this initial learning phase and the transfer of information, the project team configures, customises, builds and tests the system. Users process hundreds of transactions through test environments and check the results – this phase is generally a simulation of the live environment and by this time, everyone knows things inside out.
When the project is nearing cut over, I can’t help but feel a certain degree of ownership over the system that has been built. This is also the time when the balances from the old legacy system are brought over to the new system. Throughout the cut over phase, we generally double check every transaction, help reconcile all the figures and make sure that everything is balancing and adding up to the old system’s figures – each journal has to be just right.
Then comes one of the hardest moments of the project… letting go!
It’s the time when the training wheels have to come off, and the users begin putting transactions through the system without anyone looking over their shoulders. It’s the time when we – the consultants – have to place our trust that it is no longer ‘our’ system, and that all will work out. While it is hard to let go, seeing the system running smoothly and watching as users gain more and more understanding is always the most rewarding part of the project.
