In a previous Vision33 article we covered a few of the key reasons why our customers should renew their software maintenance. Staying current is one of the best ways to ensure that your business continues to leverage fully your investment in SAP Business One. This week we take a more in-depth look at the benefits for users who may not have renewed their maintenance contracts in the past few years and are considering renewing in the next calendar year.
Keep your Focus on Running your Business Not on IT
A key benefit to renewing your software maintenance contract with Vision33 is that it eliminates the need to maintain a full complement of IT personnel to carry out regular patches to SAP Business One. Any current IT staff that you have can instead be reallocated to more productive areas within your operations, leaving this work to your dedicated ERP partner, Vision33. Our specialized consultants can make quick work of the updates in a professional, timely manner keeping your system up to date.
Have you Seen the New Features in SAP Business One version 9.3?
But the importance of software maintenance extends beyond fixing software bugs through regularly scheduled patches. As your business grows, so too do your business’ needs. You’ll need access to new business features when they hit the market so that you can remain competitive and run efficiently. All SAP Business One customers with a valid maintenance agreement are entitled to receive updates (patches) and new versions for free. If you aren’t current with your maintenance, you could be missing out on access to great new features.
With the release of SAP Business One version 9.3, SAP introduced new features of any SAP Business One release. In version 9.3, SAP focused development on core business area feature expansion, making the core of the solution current and more powerful. Some highlights include the inclusion of Return Materials Authorization (RMA), Journal Entry Importing from Microsoft Excel and a new Change Log utility, Authorizations, personal settings, and production router among other things. To learn more about the new features in this release accessible to SAP Business One users current with their maintenance, read the best of what’s New in SAP Business One 9.3 series.
Keeping Your Software Up to Date to Reduce Downtime
Moreover, SAP provides well-defined upgrade paths for SAP Business One meaning direct upgrades from one SAP Business One release to another are normally only supported for the currently installed release and the target release are two consecutive releases (e.g. upgrading from 2007 to 8.8). SAP provides well-defined upgrade paths for SAP Business One. Direct upgrades from one SAP Business One release to another are normally only supported if the currently installed release and target release are two consecutive releases (e.g. upgrading from 2007 to 8.8).
Depending on technical constraints, if the currently installed release and the target release are more than one version apart (for example, 2007 to 9.2), upgrades may have to be performed in several steps. An exception applies to the SAP Business One release families. Direct upgrades are supported in the following scenarios:
- From one release to another within the same release family, e.g. upgrading from 9.0 to 9.3 (skipping 9.1 and 9.2)
- From one release of a release family to the most current release (major or minor) of the successor release family, e.g. migrating from 8.1 to 9.3 (skipping 8.82, 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2)
In summary, it’s better to remain current with your software maintenance because it can make upgrading to the latest version more complex and time consuming if you haven’t been upgraded for some time. This may result in more downtime once you finally decide to renew maintenance to get an upgrade.
Want to Upgrade Your SAP Business One System?
If you want to upgrade your SAP Business One system, all you need to do is renew your maintenance contract with Vision33 and we’ll take care of the rest. Contact your local Vision33 office today to renew your SAP Business One software maintenance and continue taking advantage of these great benefits.
