Sales may work from one customer list, finance from another and operations from a spreadsheet. Adding a new platform will not resolve those differences on its own. Start by agreeing how one transaction should move between the people and systems involved.
01 — Map enquiry to fulfilment
Choose a representative process: enquiry, qualified opportunity, quotation, approval, order, fulfilment and invoicing. Name the person responsible at each step. Identify where staff re-enter information or wait for an approval. Separate necessary controls from habits that no longer serve the business.
02 — Agree which system owns each record
Define the authoritative record for customers, products, prices and order status. Choose stable identifiers and rules for duplicate records. Document which system may change a field and how that change reaches the others. When an integration fails, someone should receive a visible exception with enough context to resolve it.
03 — Test with representative data and exceptions
Use an approved, appropriately protected sample of actual business data. Reconcile totals and record counts after migration. Test a changed quotation, partial fulfilment, cancelled order and failed integration as well as the normal flow. Microsoft’s implementation guidance treats functionality, integration, data migration and user acceptance as distinct parts of the testing plan.
04 — Rehearse the handover to daily operations
Plan the cutover window, final data import, user access and first-day support. Agree who can approve launch and when to postpone it. Keep a documented recovery approach and assign ownership for unresolved issues. Begin with a manageable scope; expand only after the team can complete the process and reconcile its results.
What a useful first scope contains
- A process map with named business owners
- A data dictionary and agreed source for each record
- Integration exceptions and acceptance scenarios
- A rehearsed launch and support plan
Reference & further reading: Microsoft Learn: Create a test plan for your implementation projects