Upgrade from AX 2009/2012 to D365
Does your AX system slow down when handling large data volumes?
Do you worry your data center costs outweigh the benefits?
Are your employees wasting time on manual processes and a complicated interface?
Are integrations with modern systems costly and hard to maintain?
Why is it worth it?
Upgrading from AX to Dynamics 365 is a natural step toward optimizing the entire business. It enables a shift away from “putting out fires” and the costly maintenance of outdated infrastructure to a model built on innovation, scalability, and the security of the Microsoft cloud. With this change, the company stops accumulating technical debt – which, in older versions (AX 2009 and 2012), continues to grow over time – creating hidden costs and operational risks.
Key business values you gain:
- Reduced costs and technical debt: No more spending on server maintenance or facing the risk of losing expensive AX specialists.
- Maximum efficiency: Process automation lets you handle more contracts with the same level of effort.
- Rapid decisions: Real-time access to data via Power BI replaces static and slow reporting.
- Better user experience: A modern interface reduces resistance to change and speeds up onboarding.
- Compliance assurance: Automatic legal updates (GDPR, JPK, KSeF) that Microsoft does not provide for AX.
Dawid Gałęzyka
What does the upgrade process look like?
In simple terms, the process is divided into the following steps:
Process fit: We analyze the client’s current processes to plan a migration that won’t overwhelm employees or disrupt operations.
Data cycle automation: We leverage the similarities between AX and D365 structures to automate the migration of master data and transactional data, avoiding tedious manual work.
- Phased rollout: We deliver the migration in stages, enabling gradual change adoption and better management of team resistance.
- Transition to a continuous model: Going live in the cloud ends the era of costly, time-consuming upgrades, replacing them with ongoing, automatic updates and security patches.
Sounds interesting?
Write to us!
How can we help?
At 7F Technology Partners, we don’t view a system upgrade solely as a technical exercise of moving tables and records. We manage the full data transformation process and automate migration cycles, which helps reduce costs and eliminate tedious manual work. At the same time, we educate your team at every step on the latest Microsoft standards. For AX 2012, we support clients in mapping structures to Dynamics 365, leveraging the fact that both solutions have very similar dictionaries and databases.
As a result, key users know exactly how their data will be presented and used in the new system.
AX legacy specialists are becoming increasingly rare, and we provide access to experts who deeply understand legacy system logic and can guide your company through the change without chaos. Our consultants combine strong technical expertise with real business experience. This allows them to effectively support not only technology management, but the entire change process – sharing best practices at every stage of the project.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
It’s worth looking at it as an opportunity - not only as an expense. Does maintaining old infrastructure actually allow your business to grow? Dynamics 365 isn’t just a change in where data is stored; it’s access to AI and analytics tools that an on-premise server room won’t support. Sometimes waiting to "get your money’s worth" out of old hardware costs more than implementing a modern system today.
It’s worth asking whether the business isn’t losing a significant share of its hard-earned profit on maintaining costly infrastructure, servicing old customizations, and running inefficient processes. Even if AX is still operating, it can become a "glass ceiling" for efficiency - modern cloud solutions let you handle far more contracts in the same time and with the same resources, eliminating the risk of technological stagnation.
For your IT team, moving to Dynamics 365 will be a natural evolution - many mechanisms and the system logic remain aligned with what they know from AX 2012, so their domain knowledge stays a key asset for the company. It’s also worth looking at it from a security perspective: specialists in older AX versions are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. Migrating to the cloud reduces the risk of the business being paralyzed if staff turnover happens, and gives your team access to modern tools that automate repetitive technical work.
A well-planned upgrade process doesn’t have to mean organizational chaos. The migration, especially when moving from AX 2012 to Dynamics 365, can be phased and automated in a way that fits the company’s current processes. With this approach, we avoid overwhelming the team with sudden change, and the implementation stays controlled and predictable.
Even without growth plans, the key challenge is maintaining your current market position and profitability. It’s worth analyzing whether outdated technology is creating operational issues that, over time, will make it harder to sustain your current scale. In this situation, Dynamics 365 is less about expansion and more about optimizing and safeguarding processes against costly outages or errors, which can be especially painful for financial results when the business isn’t growing.
A stable order portfolio is the ideal moment to optimize margin. Even if you don’t need to chase new markets, it’s worth checking whether your current order handling isn’t generating hidden losses. A modern system lets you deliver the same contracts with less back-office effort and removes unnecessary operating costs that, with legacy technology, simply eat into your profit.
The cost of migration can be significantly optimized through proper planning and automation. When moving from AX 2012 to Dynamics 365, the process is simplified thanks to the alignment of structures and data dictionaries. However, even with older versions like AX 2009, costs can be effectively reduced by automating repeatable work steps and removing the need to involve large teams in manual data transfer.
Even if not every benefit can be calculated in the first month, the sum of small improvements builds real profit over the long term. Moving away from maintaining your own servers, automating processes that previously required multiple employees, and making faster decisions with real-time data all translate into tangible savings. What’s more, modern tools improve team satisfaction and help avoid growing technical debt, which in older AX systems becomes more expensive to maintain year after year.
Dynamics 365 offers a much broader range of standard capabilities than older versions, which naturally reduces the number of customizations you actually need. New modules, ready-made Polish localization, and easier integrations with external tools mean that many functions that previously required custom code are now available out of the box or through simple system-to-system connections.
Data is stored in Microsoft data centers located in Europe, in full compliance with EU regulations. Cloud infrastructure provides a level of security and redundancy (backups) that is difficult to match in an on-premises server room, with guaranteed service availability at 99.9%. In practice, the cloud protects far more effectively against cyberattacks or physical data loss than a self-managed server.
Although the subscription model shifts financing to an operating cost, you get much more in return: automatic updates, security patches, and full infrastructure management included. This eliminates the costs of servers, backups, and annual BREP fees. What’s more, the number of licenses is flexible - you can adjust it to your company’s current needs and pay only for what you actually use.
We focus not only on technology, but also on people’s day-to-day comfort. Dynamics 365 has a modern, intuitive interface that simplifies routine work and reduces the time needed to complete procedures. A well-run implementation is also a chance to refresh instructions and processes, which - combined with a user-friendly environment - leads to higher efficiency and faster team adoption.
