Vtiger Migration from 5.2 to 7.2 version

Our customer created Free trial hosting to test how Vtiger 7 looks like. Then our guy contacted customer if there is any question about Vtiger or if needed any help. Customer answered Us that have some questions about functionality and our hosting. After some mails customer made decision that he want to migrate to Vtiger 7. First at all, our guy had to find out which version of Vtiger we are talking about and if there is any customization of Vtiger. Our customer did not have any customization just official Vtiger patches and some custom modules. Without customization it is a little easier but still it is demanding process. Our guy created Quotation of migration and Vtiger hosting and All Access Package of our extensions. Price was fair so customer agreed with price.

Now, Vtiger migration was spitted into 2 steps:

1. Test migration
2. Live migration

Customers created dump of database and files of his installation of Vtiger CRM and sent it to us. We checked dump files and integrate it on our server 1. To migration we need more servers because Vtiger 5 need older version of PHP and then Vtiger 6 and 7 need newer version of PHP. There are also 2 ways how to migrate Vtiger. One is faster but does not work on 100% and debugging issues after migration directly from 5.x to 7.x may take a lot of times. And works only from Vtiger 5.4. So, we decided to provide 2nd way migration from version to version. Because of security reasons, we do not know passwords of users so that we had to reset old password and set new to be able login and deactivate custom module (PDF Maker for example). Our guy downloaded current migration patches from official Vtiger page. Turned on error reporting and error logging. Now, we started migration from Vtiger 5.2 to 5.3. Then we check error log if migration was correct without errors. If log is OK, then we can continue. Migration from Vtiger 5.3 to 5.4. Again, we need to check log and if there is error we need to fix it. When we are in 5.4 Vtiger CRM we made back up of files and database to not start with 5.2 if there is any big error later. Then we migrated from 5.4 to Vtiger 6.0. Checked log and errors and continue. Same steps are:

• migration from Vtiger 6.0 to 6.1
• migration from Vtiger 6.1 to 6.2
• migration from Vtiger 6.2 to 6.3
• migration from Vtiger 6.3 to 6.4
• migration from Vtiger 6.4 to 6.5

When we are in Vtiger 6.5 version there is a time to backup again files and database. Now, we transferred this installation to server 2 with newer version of PHP because we are going to Vtiger 7. On server 2 we provide migration from Vtiger 6.5 to 7.0 and as usually checked error log. Also, the same process from Vtiger 7.0 to 7.1 and migration from 7.1 to 7.2. After migration is done, we checked system and set correct permission and privileges. We installed our Installer to manage our extensions and activated All Access Package. Customer receive temporary URL for testing. He started testing process was about month. Of course, there was some issues that we can’t see during migration. Because migration is never 100% and for that we are there to fix it. Customer have access to our Vtiger Customer Portal where he created tickets and we solved it immediately and noticed for live migration. For example, Amount and Forecast amount of Potentials was reset to 0. After investigation it was caused by database mix collation and Forecast Amount was not calculated automatically. For mix collation we had created a script for live migration as well as script for calculate initial Forecast Amount. We set PDF Maker for our customer because it was installed also in previous Vtiger installation. Then we helped set customer our Brute Force extensions, Reports4You and there was request to map our Credit Notes to Opportunity and transfer in menu from Sales to Inventory section. We decided that there is no necessary to map Credit Notes now and we will do it in live migration phase. About month we received summary from our customer:

Overall it looks pretty good:

• vTiger v7 offers some (new) functions, which will be useful going forward
• we tested some functions of your expansion package and found them useful as they will disburden us from manual work and also provide more functions for reporting
• we also found a few drawbacks, where vTiger v7 is a step backwards compared to vTiger v5 (
• (most) issues and hick-ups, which we reported to its4solutions were fixed by its4solutions

Such we can conclude a positive summary of the evaluation phase and want to continue with the final migration.

Our customer sent us time plan for Vtiger migration:

Migration plan:

1. 2020-07-22 (Wed): Lock vTiger v5 database -> read-only access to account managers
2. 2020-07-23 (Thu): IT to provide archives  with CRM files and db dump
3. 2020-07-24 (Fri): migrate database to vTiger v7, customize vTiger v7 based on learnings of evaluation phase [itsolutions4you]
4. 2020-07-27 (Mon): update users, install/configure extensions, establish workflows, modify modules
5. 2020-07-29 (Wed): official vTiger v7 kick-off

We received dump of files and database and provide same process like in test migration phase also with knowledge of behavior of this specific installation and fixes that we made for it. When it was done, we send new URL to customer to check and give us feedback. Of course, one little customization which was not added to Customer portal was forgotten. That for is our Customer Portal important because me and customer have all communication on one place. So customer wrote us if we could remove Advertisement banner from dashboard. Then customer made decision of final URL and we set it. Then we set again Brute Force extension. Then customer asked Us to map Credit Notes to Opportunity and we did it. The last trouble was that customer wanted to export standard Vtiger Reports to Excel but from approx. 300 records in detail view of Reports was exported to Excel only 9. So, customer asked Us to checked it and fixed it. After investigation of issue we found out that there is issue in standard Vtiger Reports. If create filter that closing date of Potentials is specific day than in detail view of Report you can see also records which does not meet this condition but export to Excel worked correctly and export only 9 records.

We informed customer about this situation and created similar report in our Reports4You where condition, show details and export worked correctly or if we may checked and fixed standard Vtiger Reports. On the other hand, customers realized that condition is wrong, and he needed Potentials where closing date is more than specific date and not only specific date. So, after edit condition export works correctly.

Customer decided that now it is OK and for now we did not care about this standard Vtiger Report issue and we will use it. We will inform Vtiger developers about this issue soon to fix it for other users of Vtiger Open Source solution. If you have read it to the end it looks that you are interesting for migration. Maybe this blog helps you in your process but if you want to give it experts feel free and contact us.