back to the main page

Top 10 Best Practices for Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12

1. Determine Your Upgrade Path
   More recent releases have a direct upgrade path to the latest release.



2. Treat Your Upgrade Activity as a Formal Company Project
   Taking a structured approach to managing tasks, resolving issues, and measuring progress is critical. Build a team with broad, comprehensive skills, composed of functional experts, technical experts, and representation from the business.
   
   Focus on reporting with a direction that is geared toward a business intelligence publishing solution.



3. Prepare the Organization
   Proactively engage stakeholders to help prepare for the project and the changes that will be experienced once deployed.
   
   Emphasize repeated testing.
   
   Focus on pre- and post-upgrade requirements.



4. Understand and Mitigate Project Risks
   Specific mitigation plans should be developed for high-probability, high-impact risks.
   
   Keep your team together for the first financial close.



5. Inventory Your System
   Examine current business requirements and inventory modifications and determine what is still needed.



6. Plan for Upgrade Architecture
   Accurate sizing information will help guide decisions to reuse existing hardware and resources.



7. Identify Custom Code and Scripting
   Identify customized interfaces, forms, and reports that will require additional testing through the upgrade process.



8. Optimize Training Processes
   Ensure project and support teams are proficient in the new technology.
   
   Training users at an optimal timeframe will help resolve most issues early. Most users prefer training proximate to going live on the new system.



9. Secure User Buy-In
   End users must have good information about how the resulting solution will impact their roles, and whether the changes are functional, user interface, or technical in nature.



10. Go Live
    A go-live checklist created earlier in the upgrade process should be leveraged to verify that the success criteria have been achieved.
    
    Set up sufficient support mechanisms to optimize early rollout experience.

back to the top

Streamlining the Federal Government's IT Strategy with Hosted Solutions

Data Sheet: Oracle On Demand Lifecycle Data Services

White Paper: Application Outsourcing Strategies in an Economic Crisis
Download a free IDC white paper on driving down business expenses with application outsourcing.

Webinar: Best-of-Breed Outsourcing to Achieve Business Results
View a Webinar on the benefits of successful multisourcing strategies and the latest trends in IT outsourcing strategy.