Systems and records
Epicor Vantage and Vista to Kinetic: what history to bring and what to archive
By SourceX Editorial · Updated
Short answer
In an Epicor Vantage or Vista to Kinetic migration, bring forward open jobs, open orders, active parts at their current revision, open quality records and the balances finance needs. Archive closed jobs, old quotes, full revision history and closed NCRs in a form people can still query. Decide record family by record family, never all or nothing.
Key takeaways
- Moves from Vantage or Vista are usually scoped as conversions, so every year of history carried forward adds mapping and testing work.
- Bring forward what the plant must transact on; archive what people must look up.
- Closed jobs, quote outcomes, part revision history and quality records are the history most often requested after go-live.
- An archive needs a data dictionary and part and customer cross-references, or it becomes unreadable once the old system is gone.
- Flag customer-owned designs and export-controlled work in the archive before anyone reuses it.
Why Vantage and Vista moves are conversions, not upgrades#
Moves from Epicor Vantage or Vista to Kinetic are usually scoped as conversions because the data model, customizations, reports and often the database platform have changed across many releases. Partners commonly treat them as a new implementation with data migration rather than a version upgrade, and the amount of history to convert is one of the biggest levers on effort.
Every year of history brought forward has to be mapped, cleaned, loaded and reconciled. Closed jobs carry labor, material and operation detail that references parts, resources and cost settings that may no longer exist. Old quotes reference obsolete parts and prices. Converting all of it can push go-live without improving daily operations.
The alternative is a deliberate split: carry forward what the plant needs to run, and keep everything else in an archive that finance, quality and sales can still search.
Bring forward or archive: a table by record family#
The bring-forward or archive decision is made per record family, with finance, quality and sales agreeing the split before conversion starts. Each group asks for history for different reasons, and changing scope after data loads begin is expensive.
Where a family has both halves, the line usually falls between open and closed. Open work needs Kinetic's transactions; closed work needs to be findable.
| Record family | Bring forward to Kinetic | Archive |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs | Open jobs and work in progress with remaining operations | Closed jobs with labor, material, operations, scrap and cost detail |
| Quotes | Open and recently active quotes | Older quotes with won or lost outcome, pricing and worksheets |
| Sales orders and shipments | Open orders and open releases | Shipped and closed orders, packing slips and returns |
| Parts, bills of materials and routings | Active parts at the current approved revision with current methods | Full revision history with the bill of materials and routing for each revision |
| Quality records | Open NCRs, open discrepant material reports and open corrective actions | Closed NCRs, dispositions, corrective actions and inspection results |
| Purchasing | Open purchase orders and approved supplier lists | Closed purchase orders, receipts and supplier performance history |
| Financials | Opening balances and summarized prior periods agreed with finance | Transaction-level ledger, payables and receivables detail |
History finance, quality and sales ask for later#
The history most often requested after go-live is the history that explains cost, quality and pricing decisions. When nobody can reach it, people rebuild answers from memory or old spreadsheets, and the same mistakes come back.
Write these requests into the archive design. If quality will pull closed NCRs by part and customer, the archive needs those keys indexed and documented, not buried in a database dump.
- Finance: actual versus estimated cost on closed jobs, for quoting repeat work and investigating margin.
- Quality: closed NCRs with dispositions and corrective actions, for customer audits, ISO 9001 or AS9100 surveillance and recurring defect analysis.
- Traceability: lot and serial history linking material receipts to jobs and shipments, for complaints and recalls.
- Sales: won and lost quotes with pricing, for repeat quotes and price changes.
- Engineering: part revision history with the bill of materials and routing in effect for each revision, for warranty and repair of older units.
- Purchasing: receipt, rejection and delivery history by supplier, for supplier reviews.
Archive options for an old Epicor database#
An old Epicor database can be archived in a few ways, and the right choice depends on how often people will need it and how long the old servers and licenses can stay.
Many manufacturers combine two: a limited read-only period for comfort after go-live, then an export to open files with a data dictionary before the old servers are retired. Attachments linked by file path, such as drawings and inspection photos, must be copied and relinked, because those paths break when old file servers go away.
Factor in where Kinetic itself is heading. A post on the EpiUsers community forum, titled 'Epicor Kinetic Innovation Moves to the Cloud: On-Premises Development Ends in 2028', says Epicor is outlining export options for data and attachments, including which exports can be automated through APIs and reporting and which need assistance. If your Kinetic target may be cloud-hosted, keep the legacy archive in storage you control rather than loading everything into a system whose own export path is still being defined, and confirm current details with Epicor or your partner.
| Option | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|
| Keep the old system running read-only | Familiar screens and reports | Servers, licenses and security patching on aging software |
| Copy the database to a reporting server | Fast queries with existing reports or SQL | Needs someone who understands the old table structure |
| Export to a warehouse or open files with a data dictionary | Readable without Epicor and easy to join with Kinetic data | Upfront work to choose tables, document fields and build cross-references |
| Third-party archive product | Packaged viewers and retention rules | Another subscription, with its own export question later |
Exclusions to settle before anyone reuses the archive#
Exclusions are easiest to settle while the archive is being built, because the people who know which jobs were sensitive are still on hand. Two categories need flags.
Customer-owned designs, drawings and specifications often belong to the customer under purchase terms, even though they sit in your part master, job attachments and quality records. Export-controlled work, which may fall under regulations such as ITAR or the EAR, must be identified so it is never included in any reuse. Tag both at the part, job and customer level, and record who made each call.
Personal details need a note as well. Labor transactions carry employee IDs and names, quality records may name inspectors and customer contacts, and payroll-linked tables sometimes sit in the same database. Restrict access to those tables in the archive and document where they are, so any later reuse can remove them cleanly.
Illustrative: a precision machining company on Vantage#
Illustrative: a fictional precision machining company has run Epicor Vantage for many years and is moving to Kinetic. Its first plan is to convert every closed job and quote so nothing is lost.
The conversion partner's mapping shows that old jobs reference retired resources and cost settings, and that loading them would delay go-live. The CFO and quality manager agree a split: open jobs, open orders, active parts at current revision and open NCRs move to Kinetic. Closed jobs, quotes, revision history and closed quality records go to the company's data warehouse with a data dictionary and a part number cross-reference.
After go-live, estimators query the archive when quoting repeat parts, and quality pulls closed NCRs for a customer audit. Jobs for one aerospace customer are tagged as customer-owned and export-controlled, so when leadership later asks whether quality and production records could be licensed, the archive already shows what is out of scope.
How SourceX views an Epicor archive#
SourceX views an Epicor archive in terms of connected manufacturing decisions: quote to order, production planning, nonconformances with dispositions and corrective actions, supply exceptions and maintenance. These are records in which a request, a decision and an outcome can be followed end to end.
Assessment follows the SourceX five-step transaction: Supply, Rights, Preparation, Approval and Delivery. Customer-owned designs and export-controlled work are excluded, the archive stays in the manufacturer's own storage, and the SourceX Evidence Packet records provenance, licensing rights, permitted use, the privacy record and release authorization.
Frequently asked questions
How many years of history should we bring into Kinetic?
There is no single right answer. Bring forward enough for the plant and finance to operate, such as open work and the periods finance needs for comparisons, and archive the rest in a searchable form. Warranty terms, customer audit cycles and quoting habits help set the line.
Can we report across the archive and Kinetic together?
Yes, if the archive sits in a warehouse or database with cross-references for part numbers, customers and suppliers that changed during conversion. Without those cross-references, combined reports quietly drop history for renumbered items.
Do we still need the old Epicor licenses to read the archive?
Not if the data has been exported to open formats with a data dictionary. Keeping the old system running read-only depends on your license terms and server support, so confirm with Epicor or your partner what is allowed and what it costs.
What happens to drawings and photos attached in Vantage?
Attachments are often stored as links to file server paths rather than inside the database. Copy the files into the archive, keep their original paths in a mapping table, and relink them to archived jobs and parts so they survive server retirement.
Is old ERP history useful to anyone outside the company?
It can be. Connected quality, production and quote records can interest AI developers building tools for manufacturers, subject to a rights review, exclusions for customer-owned designs and export-controlled work, and removal of personal details. A metadata-only fit check shows whether it is worth pursuing.
Sources
- An Epicor post on the EpiUsers forum, titled 'Epicor Kinetic Innovation Moves to the Cloud: On-Premises Development Ends in 2028', says Epicor is outlining export options (data plus attachments) and which exports can be automated through APIs and reporting versus which need assistance. Source
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