Upgrade Ax 2009 To 365 Cost

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Microsoft is offering upgrade incentives until 2019 to encourage on-premise users to switch. Customers who use Dynamics CRM, AX, GP, NAV, or SL, and are currently enrolled in a Software Assurance or Enhancement Plan, may be eligible for a 40% discount on Dynamics 365 license prices when they switch from on-premise Dynamics software.

Hi Folks,

I am here to share my Latest upgrade experience in AX2009 to Dynamics 365 For Finance and Operations.

Let’s have a quick overview in upgrading AX2009 to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.As we all know that there is no direct way to upgrade the Code from AX2009 to Dynamics365.

It involves two Step processes,

  1. For current Microsoft Dynamics AX technical users and developers though, the question of how to upgrade Dynamics AX code to Dynamics 365 for Operations has many people pondering. The process is really a matter of understanding how your business uses the system now– and that’s where an implementation partner comes in.
  2. For current Microsoft Dynamics AX technical users and developers though, the question of how to upgrade Dynamics AX code to Dynamics 365 for Operations has many people pondering. But the process isn’t as complicated as some people think – it’s really a matter of understanding how your business uses the system now.
  • AX2009 to AX2012 (try to keep it minimum AX2012 R3-CU9).
  • AX2012 to Dynamics 365 FO (Any Update).

Code Upgrade

When coming to code upgrade, Microsoft has released a new functionality for upgrading your AX2012 source code to Dynamics 365 Source code through LCS with the help of model Store file.

Converting .aod to .axmodelstore

We always need to upgrade from AX2009 to AX 2012 as LCS doesn’t support .aod file(Model store for AX2009)

High level Overview and flow

Key Points for Consideration

Upgrade ax 2009 to 365 costume
  • If you have less or minor customization's in AX2009, you may think to re-implement every customization in AX2012. A lot of things has changed over time. AX2009 having 2700 tables (almost) turned to a big application called AX2012, having almost 8000 tables – Functional Review and Business Process Mapping
  • Items changed to products and items,warehousing came in, the number of financial dimensions became unlimited from three, MorphX reports to SSRS reports, Address framework has been changed.

My Suggestions

I would prefer you to re-implement each and every framework changes when you upgrade the code from AX2009 to AX2012 because Dynamics 365 is an application which contains all latest standard implementation in source code and of course it becomes difficult when you directly re-implement framework changes in Dynamics 365.

What we did actually,

We directly upgraded from AX2009 to Dynamics 365 following two step process without re-implementing framework changes in AX2012, so before we started code migration we clearly figured out the things that we needed, to complete an successful code migration.

  • Development Environment

Please keep an AX2009 environment which is an exact replica of production environment so that developers can directly cross-check how the functionality or source code works in the environment.

  • Gap Fit

Once you started to move over layering to extensions in Dynamics 365, Functionalities will never work same as you expected in AX2009 because a lot of standard artifacts and features has been changed so it’s better to understand the base functionality and try to develop according to Dynamics 365 standard.

  1. For example, if you have a customization in one of the standard method in AX2009, sometimes you will not find the same standard method in D365.
  2. There might be many reason for this kind of deprecation as the method is no longer used in any other artefact or the functionality of method might be implemented in some other method.
  3. In this scenario we initially need to understand the business logic in AX2009 and try to develop the same in D365 using Extensions.
  • Deprecated Features

Identify replacement processes for deprecated features used in 2009. If deprecated processes are critical to your operations, get comfortable with the replacement processes in D365 before going live. You don’t want to get caught in a tough situation

  1. You can use cross references in AX2009 to find where those artifacts are used and concurrently check the reference in Dynamics 365 environment so that you can find the replacement artifact.




  • Extension Framework

Migrating over layering to extension is not a big deal, but below is the possible approach that needs to be followed,

Resolve all the conflicts

You will face a lot of conflicts in standard objects when you follow two-step process without re-implementing framework changes in AX2012.

Please follow the below process to resolve conflicts,

o Type cf: in the search pane to find the conflicting node in the object,





o Right-click the conflicting node to select Resolve Code Conflict,








o Select the required customization from right side pane and cross check with the bottom pane so that standard code and customization get merged in an appropriate manner and finally click the accept merge as highlighted in screenshot,





  • Independent Package Creation

o when you upgrade from AX2012 to D365 all the custom artifacts will come through new model in Existing package of Application Suite and customization in standard artifacts will also be present in models like Application Platform, Directory,Application Suite.

o So,we might not know how many errors we face while we do an entire full build, it is better to do and entire full build to find how many errors you face in entire models.

o After Finding the errors, try to resolve each error one by one and finally our ultimate goal is to compile all the models successfully.

o After successful compilation now, we can proceed to create an independent package which consist of both Extensions and Custom Artifacts.

  • Model References Incompatibility

o Move all custom artifacts to newly created model and compile the model, you will face lot of errors due to model references.

o Update your newly created model with model parameters in Dynamics 365 Menu and select appropriate models to referenced.

o Now move all the over layering to Extensions using Microsoft preferred approach and try to compile the model successfully.


Upgrade Ax 2009 To 365 Costco


Dynamics 365 Ax Tutorials

Data Migration

Microsoft provides a standard tool for migrating below types of data but it is not yet released publicly till now,

  1. Configuration and setup: ledger,customer groups, vendor groups, etc.
  2. Master data: customer, vendor,project, accounts, etc.
  3. Open documents, pending invoices,etc: sales order, purchase order, AR invoices, etc.
  4. System Configuration: number sequences, users, user groups, security, etc

Basically,anything which has an entity can be migrated to Dynamics 365 with the help of the AX 2009 migration tool. The tool comes in AX2009 and provides several solutions to help you through the process — like the included data migration checklist.

For instance, during the migration you’ll define data conversion rules and consider how that data might need to transform as part of the move due to data model changes.

Sample Flow Diagram

Thanks for Reading and Happy to share more and help you guys, for more details get in touch

Skype Name: live:Sanjay.chandrasekar

Thanks! Sanjay