Sage 200 Upgrade Process & Tasks
Sage 200 Upgrade Process & Tasks
At GCC, we have developed a Sage 200 upgrade project delivery process to ensure a smooth upgrade of your solution.
During a project you will have access to the GCC project portal, where you can see the plan of delivery, discussions, and files. You can at any point send messages to the project team and raise change requests in the portal.
Why would you need to upgrade?
There could be many reasons, but the most common ones are that your current version:
- Is end of life which means the product cannot be licensed anymore beyond a certain date, this means the application simply will not run.
- Is outside of Sage support which means the program may still run but it is running on a platform (e.g., Microsoft Operating System) that has possibly become incompatible with Sage 200.
Incompatible means that Sage have not or cannot test everything on this newer platform and so therefore they can no longer guarantee support, or you may be in a situation where Sage 200 does run in general but a specific feature no longer works, for example emailing reports.
- An external factor that will make the product unable to function e.g. Microsoft’s move forwards with regards to TLS which is the security mechanism by which servers communicate across the internet.
- An integration requirement that necessitates functionality which can only be achieved with a more up-to-date version of Sage 200 e.g., integrating Sage 200 with a web site using the Sage API.
Whatever your upgrade reason, GCC have established upgrade processes, systems, and experienced consultants to deliver a successful upgrade and implementation.
How much will your upgrade cost?
Each customer has different types of Sage installations, different versions, different modules, different add on programs, different number of users etc – so unfortunately there is no common cost. We have an estimate builder which is a series of questions that will help to determine the cost.
Complete the briefing form if you would like a Sage 200 upgrade quote.
Complete this briefing form to receive your Sage 200 upgrade quote
GCC Project Delivery Process
The diagram below shows the stages and processes involved when upgrading your version of Sage 200.
IT Requirements
Once we have received order confirmation for your Sage project, we will be in touch to arrange a full audit of your existing Sage 200 system.
A Statement of Work (SoW) will then be produced that details the results of the audit, the deliverables and defines who is responsible for each part of the project.
We will ask your IT Services provider to complete a new Sage Server & PC specification sheet that will form part of the SoW document. Feel free to download a copy of this and pass to them, to fill in, as it will help speed things up if they review this in advance of us engaging with them. Any items yet to be determined can be left blank for now, although they will need to be confirmed before the project can begin.
Sage 200 Pre-requisites
Although Sage provides a full Pre-requisites document, it contains a substantial amount of information that may or may not be relevant to your specific upgrade.
GCC have our own condensed version of a Sage 200 new server checklist that we suggest you review as a starting point. Then if we need to delve into any areas in more detail this can be discussed on a case-by-case basis.
You can view a copy of this document here.
IT Information & Considerations
In-Situ vs New Server
In-Situ (NOT RECOMMENDED)
This is where Sage is upgraded on the same server it is currently running on.
This is strongly discouraged as:
- Current system downtime is increased. As we cannot build a new server alongside your current system you would have to stop using your current version of Sage whilst the upgrade takes place. As you can appreciate this may not be feasible in terms of your downtime and this is in addition to the increased risk of this option.
- The project risk increases. As there is no separate new system to set up and perform testing on, if there is a problem found during the upgrade then you do not have the ability to continue with your current Sage as it’s just been overwritten by the new version. This would leave you with no Sage at all until either the issue with the new set up is fixed or if that is not possible in a reasonable time frame the system is reconfigured to reinstall your old version, so you go back to where you were until the upgrade failure is investigated and rescheduled.
New Virtual Server
As you would expect this is where the Sage Application and SQL database are installed on a different server to the one you are currently on.
The risk is lower as if there are any problems you can just revert to your current installation whilst the problems are addressed.
Downtime is also minimised as you will be able to fully test the new system and resolve any issues whilst continuing to work with your live system.
IT FAQs
Common FAQ’s regarding technology that is not supported for Sage 200
Remote Desktop Services
Sage 200 has only been tested and is fully compliant for remote access with Traditional Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (formally Terminal Services).
Other remote desktop solutions such as Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp have not been fully tested by Sage and are therefore unsupported.
We know from experience that Sage will point to your non-recommended set up as the reason for system instability issues. In order to ensure that your system is fully supported by Sage, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services will be required.
Review the Sage 200 System Requirements document for more information regarding supported technologies.
Running Sage over a Wide-Area-Network (WAN) or VPN
We strongly advise you to not install Sage on a server and run your client from anywhere, it may appear to work, but running Sage 200 over a Wide Area Network (WAN) or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection is not recommended by Sage.
The reason for this is that these connection types usually increase latency in communications between the Sage 200 server, the Sage 200 client and the SQL server which can cause unacceptable performance and database timeouts.
This may then lead to potential data corruption, if it does, then fixing the data may be challenging and certainly time consuming plus potentially chargeable.
We know from experience that Sage will point to your non-recommended set up as the reason for the corruption.
Review the Sage 200 System Requirements document, which states a minimum requirement for Gigabit connectivity from Client to Server.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure provide a number of modern technologies for hosting systems in the cloud, some of which are not supported by Sage 200.
Here are a few of the common ones we come up against:
- Azure Active Directory Services are not supported by Sage 200. A separate dedicated traditional Domain Controller will be required to provide the required integration for users management and authentication.
- SQL-as-a-Service is not currently supported. Traditional Microsoft SQL Standard/Enterprise instances only.
- Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is not supported. Traditional Microsoft Remote Desktop Services only.
Review the full Sage 200 pre-requisites document for more details fully supported technologies.
Upgrading your Reports & Layouts
Reports & Layouts – Your options
For the most part, your non-customised reports and layouts (invoices, remittances, orders etc) will upgrade to your new version of Sage 200. Whether they do upgrade or not depends on several factors such as layout formatting and where in the database the data is drawn from.
From version to version, Sage will sometimes restructure the underlying database to improve efficiency and add in new features, such as when the Bill of Materials module was updated or EU tax rules changes. Upgraded reports may appear to work as the old structure is still within database but when new fields/records are added, or new functionality is used, the report may just error or not function correctly and give the incorrect figures.
Your user acceptance testing of reports may reveal the need for some reports to be recreated, which may require additional work and costs. Of course, you can request in advance that all reports and layouts are rebuilt regardless, thereby guaranteeing compatibility, but this would increase the time required considerably.
Please note that it is possible that migration and testing will still not reveal an issue until a later date when perhaps a service pack is applied or the layout needs amending. At this point GCC support may find that the only way is to solve the issue is to build the upgraded report from scratch but you would then incur the same charge as if it had been built from scratch during the upgrade.
On the briefing form that you will complete prior to receiving a quotation for your upgrade, you will be asked to confirm whether you choose to:
- Migrate existing reports as they are and accept responsibility for verifying all reports and layouts during the testing phase, whilst accepting the above.
- Or, whether you wish to request in advance that all reports and layouts are rebuilt regardless, thereby guaranteeing compatibility, whilst accepting that this will increase the time and cost considerably.
Click here to complete our briefing from to receive your Sage 200 quote.
Sage 200 System Checks
Check your version of Sage 200 and the number of users
To check the version of Sage 200 you are currently running, and the number of users, follow the steps below.
Click on the Cog (settings) button in the top right of the main Sage 200 screen and select ‘About Sage 200
Your version number will be displayed, as well as the number of users.
Check the number of Live AND Historical Companies/Databases in your Sage 200
Follow the steps below to check the number of Live AND Historical companies/databases in your Sage 200 system.
Open the Sage 200c Administration application. This application/shortcut will be available on the desktop of the onsite Sage Administrator for your company.
Once loaded you will see the below. Select ‘Companies’ from the list of options running down the left hand side of the window.
Here you can see which of the companies listed are your live companies and which are historical/test companies.
Complete this briefing form to receive your Sage 200 upgrade quote
GCC Customer Testimonials – Sage 200 Users
“The Sage 200 upgrade installation is running nicely and the whole process of moving went well due to the great support from the GCC team, who went above and beyond what was expected.
We had inherited a terrible environment set up from a previous support partner, however GCC guided us through getting our PC’s and systems ready to run SAGE smoothly.”
Sage 200 End of Support
Some versions of Sage 200 go into end of support in January 2023.
Find out if you need to upgrade your system, why you need to upgrade & how GCC can help.
Sage 200 End of Support – Sage are withdrawing support, updates, patches & legislative changes for certain versions of Sage 200.
Sage has a software lifecycle policy for Sage 200 meaning every year an older version of Sage 200 is moved into end of support.
Complete this briefing form to receive your Sage 200 upgrade quote.