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This article provides guidance about how to prepare for the go-live for finance and operations apps.
To ensure that the production environment is used for live operations, Microsoft provisions the production instance when the solution is ready and after project readiness is validated as part of the Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft. For more information about the environments in your subscription, see the Licensing guide.
Note
Most projects are required to use the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 implementation portal for their Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft. If you have a Microsoft FastTrack Solution Architect assigned to your implementation project, reach them before creating a new project to avoid duplicate projects/reviews being created. The Microsoft FastTrack Solution Architect can work with you on the Go-Live review and guides you on the process to follow.
For answers to common questions about go-live, see the Go-live FAQ.
The following table lists the key steps in the go-live process.
Step | Duration/When | Who | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Validation of prerequisites | A project is close to the end of the testing phase, and you're planning the go-live review. | Customer/Partner | For more information, see the Go-live Readiness Review prerequisites section. |
Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft | No later than four weeks before the go-live | Customer/Partner submits answers to review questions in the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 implementation portal. Microsoft FastTrack provides a review report. | For more information, see the Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft section. |
Go-live review workshop with Microsoft (only for eligible projects) | The workshop is part of the Go-live Readiness Review. | Microsoft FastTrack together with the project team | This step applies only to eligible projects that have FastTrack engagement. For more information about the workshop, see Go-live Readiness workshops. |
Production deployment | Production deployment can be initiated as soon as the Go-live Readiness Review is completed. After deployment is triggered, production deployment takes approximately 30 minutes. | Customer/Partner triggers the deployment in Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services. | After the go-live review is successfully completed, the Configure button is enabled for the production environment. Selection of this button triggers the production deployment. |
Deployable package installation | An average of 30 minutes | Customer/Partner | Follow the instructions in Promote an update to production environments. The packages must contain all the models and binaries consolidated into all-in-one deployable packages. |
Data migration to production | The duration/time depends on the method that is used. | Customer/Partner | |
Cutover activities | The duration/time depends on the project. | Customer/Partner | |
Go-live | Customer/Partner |
The project team should validate solution readiness. The following prerequisites must be met before the Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft can be initiated. The production environment can be deployed after the Go-live Readiness Review with Microsoft is successfully completed.
User acceptance testing (UAT) and performance testing is complete or almost completed in a Tier-2 (or higher) environment. Tier-1 environments must not be used for UAT or performance testing. For more information, see Tier-1 vs. Tier-2 and higher. For information about how to identify the correct sandbox environment tier, based on your transaction volumes, see Selecting the correct Tier-2 or higher environment.
During the UAT phase, test all the business processes that you've implemented and any customizations that you made.
Performance testing is a crucial part of validating the readiness of your solution. For detailed guidance about the recommended practices, review the Performance Testing Techtalks.
The environment version that is planned for the go-live complies with the Software lifecycle policy. If you use Commerce Scale Units (CSU), the CSU version must be in sync with the environment version. For more information, see Component dependencies.
Key customer team members are added to the Lifecycle Services project.
A generic service account that's used to deploy the production environment is added to Lifecycle Services.
All licenses that are required for go-live were purchased in the correct tenant.
After all licenses are purchased, the final subscription estimator is uploaded and activated in Lifecycle Services. For more information, see Subscription estimator in Lifecycle Services.
The Customization analysis report (CAR) is run, and critical issues are addressed. For more information, see Customization Analysis Report (CAR).
The go-live date in Lifecycle Services correctly represents the go-live date that you're targeting. This date is the date when end users start live operations, not cutover activities.
All relevant tasks and phases in the Lifecycle Services methodology are complete. Production can be deployed only after all phases, including the Test phase, are complete. To complete a phase in Lifecycle Services, first complete every required step in that phase. When all the steps in a phase are complete, you can complete the whole phase. You can always reopen a phase later if you must make changes. The process of completing a step has two parts:
Complete the steps in the methodology as you make progress with the implementation. Don't wait until the last minute.
All finance and operations apps customers must complete a Go-live Readiness Review with the Microsoft FastTrack for Dynamics 365 team before production environments can be deployed. The main purpose of the review is to assess project readiness and help you have a smooth and successful go-live experience. Lifecycle Services project users receive an email reminder about the Go-live Readiness Review, based on the go-live date in Lifecycle Services.
The review might require up to three business days for the initial report, plus more time for any risk mitigation that is required. Determine an appropriate time to start this review, so that you can meet the go-live timeline.
For most projects, the Go-live Readiness Review is done in the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 implementation portal.
Note
There are three exceptions that don't use the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 implementation portal:
Note
If you have a Microsoft FastTrack Solution Architect assigned to your implementation project, reach them before creating a new project using following steps in the portal to avoid duplicate projects/reviews being created. The Microsoft FastTrack Solution Architect can work with you on the Go-Live review and guides you on the process to follow.
There are two options to proceed with the Go-live readiness review. You can choose either one of the following options.
Option 1 - Self-Service Create/Join the Project in the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal.
Option 2 - Share details with Microsoft to create the Project
Note
Option 2 will be deprecated in the future.
Submitting the Go-live readiness review can be performed by partners and customer in the Dynamics 365 Implementation portal without involving Microsoft. The Onboarding Wizard in the Implementation portal has simplified the steps to create the project, add the admin and users, and submitting the Go-Live review for self-service.
Note
If you follow this method, you don't need to follow the steps in Option 2. To continue, see the submit the review section later in this article.
Follow the below steps if you have any issues creating the project via the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal/blocked from creating project due to any other reason. This option will be deprecated in the future, and we highly encourage you to follow Option 1 whenever possible.
The project team decides who from the customer organization is the admin for the project on Portal and a key participant of the Go-live Readiness review. Admin access to the project on Portal can be granted only to the member of the customer organization. Microsoft grants access to this user and this user manages access for other team members.
Project team sends an e-mail to d365fogl@microsoft.com and includes the following information:
Microsoft grants the key review participant from the customer organization admin access to the project and confirms that this task is completed by responding to the email.
The admin adds more project team members.
Project team creates the review in the portal by following the guidance in the Portal Help article. All users who have registered on portal can access this article.
Note
If you encounter any issue with the portal, contact the portal Support team by selecting Contact us in the upper-right corner of the portal or sending an email to the Support team. In the email, specify the ID of your project in Lifecycle Services, and provide details that describe the issue.
Note
The production environment must be used exclusively to run your business operations. Don't use it for testing, demo, or training purposes. You are able to do the cutover, and mock the cutover (if a mock cutover is planned), in production. To test the solution, use an appropriate sandbox environment that is designed so that it includes all the elements and services that are required for testing.
We recommend that you select a service account for environment deployment. For example, select a generic user account as the admin user of the environments that you deploy. If you select a named user account, you might not be able to access an environment if that user is unavailable. Here are some examples of scenarios where the admin user must access an environment:
The production environment should be deployed to the same datacenter where your sandbox environments are deployed, and where UAT and performance testing were done. For information about network requirements and how to do latency testing, see Network requirements.
Production deployment takes approximately 30 minutes. When deployment is completed, an email notification is sent to the environment administrator.
The production environment is sized based on the number of licenses that are allocated to the Lifecycle Services project and the transaction volumes in the Subscription estimator.
After production is deployed, the project team can apply the deployable package by following the instructions in Promote an update to production environments and then migrate the data. For data migration, we recommend that you prepare and validate data in a nonproduction environment and then copy the sandbox database to production.
Events
Mar 31, 11 PM - Apr 2, 11 PM
The ultimate Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, SQL, and AI community-led event. March 31 to April 2, 2025.
Register today