In the previous chapter, you learned about the importance of requirements, business processes, solution blueprints, and requirement traceability.

Data is an important facet in any initiative and is often the most complex and underestimated area in ERP implementations. Effective management of data can be achieved with the help of right scoping, tool selection, techniques for migration, validation, and well defined acceptance criteria. In every implementation project, following are two primary segments which a project team needs to address in their data activities and planning:

• Configuration data: Configuration means setting up the base data and parameters to enable your functionalities, such as financial, supply chain, taxation, project management, and so on. Managing these configurations is an important task, as it is mostly driven by the key decisions in your solution and project.
• Data migration: Data migration is the task of migrating data from the existing legacy system to new ERP system. Typically, it includes master data such as customers, vendors, and products, and open transactions such as opening balances, open AR, open AP, open orders, on-hand inventory, and so on.  

In this chapter, we'll explore configuration management and data migration, which play a vital role in the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. We will be covering the following topics in this chapter:

• Strategies for managing configuration and data migration
• Configuration management 

• Data migration management 
• The data management framework
• Data management scenarios 
• Best practices for managing configurations and data migration