Upgrading to Infor CloudSuite Financials is the perfect opportunity for your organization to transform your business practices with modern technology. But unlike prior upgrades you may have done, the migration to CloudSuite Financials often requires a move from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. In other words, this won’t be your typical upgrade. It will require a higher level of planning and effort to be successful.
While you always have the option of working directly with Infor Professional Services, a third-party Infor project manager (PM) can help set accurate expectations for your upgrade—reducing lost time and money—while foreseeing challenges ahead. Additionally, a third-party PM hand-selected by you can help to ensure that your interests are the ones being protected during the project.
In this article, we’ll explain just a few of the ways that an experienced third-party Infor project manager can fill in the gaps during each phase of your CloudSuite Financials upgrade. Let’s get started.
Infor CloudSuite: Pre-planning
Bringing on a third-party Infor PM before your project starts will set your organization up for a seamless upgrade. Once you’ve brought this project manager aboard, their first step will be to conduct an investment summary of the technology to understand its specific function within your organization.
Next, they’ll determine how to measure the success of the project. This is important, because while everyone wants their project to be successful, not everyone has the same vision of what “success” looks like. This stage involves meeting with the sponsors to find out what the end goal is, so that the PM can build a plan to get there. That leads us to the development of the project scope, a document that outlines general timelines and priorities for the project overall. Once the planning phase is complete, it’s time to get to work on the actual upgrade.
Infor CloudSuite: During the Upgrade
When moving to the cloud, the first step is to review the technical aspects of your project. Your third-party Infor PM will closely examine the current environment, active directory, network connections, user roles, and more. Once the project manager collects that information, they’ll start looking for what they call the “dirty laundry.” In other words, they’ll be on the lookout for data that’s being converted, how many years of data needs to be brought over, and the condition of that data. (For example, if you have a vendor master list that hasn’t been cleaned in 15 years, some data cleanup will be required.)
During the upgrade itself, the project manager constantly looks for “what’s under the rocks.” A client-side project manager is there to protect the client from unforeseen events that could delay the project or increase costs. That’s why a good project manager always has their eyes open for discoveries. For example, they’ll be looking at things like policy procedures, application versions, what interfaces need to be built, and so on.
The project manager will also conduct recurring meetings with everyone on the project team and ask them how they want their status reports delivered, helping to keep everyone on the same page both literally and figuratively.
Infor CloudSuite: Go-live Planning
Before flipping the switch, an experienced PM will going through a go-live checklist with the team. This includes all the technical and functional aspects. They will also develop a fallback plan in case issues come up after the go-live. (Better safe than sorry, after all.)
Infor CloudSuite: Post-go-live Support
The support needed after a go-live varies from client to client. We’ve found that six to eight weeks of post-go-live support is best, because there are always a number of details that your organization won’t know how to deal with immediately. One of the biggest gaps, for example, is a lack of ongoing training. Many organizations don’t have a plan for how new employees will get trained in the new system, leading to misuse of the technology investment down the road.
Benefits of an Infor CloudSuite Project Manager
An experienced, third-party Infor project manager can give you a birds-eye view of your upgrade project at all times, as well as the foresight that comes with years of experience of working on projects just like yours. Having someone who can look ahead and let you know about issues (and how to fix them) before they happen is invaluable.
A major technology transformation like moving to Infor CloudSuite is rarely easy, but a third-party Infor PM will be on your side to help you overcome those challenges. Contact us today to learn how our Infor Lawson project managers can help on any of your projects.
