Upgrading JDE with SOX Compliance at Avanir Pharmaceuticals

The Organization

Avanir Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutic products for the treatment of central nervous system disorders.

The company is growing rapidly due to new products in the market. As part of their overall strategy to enable growth and streamline processes, Avanir needed to upgrade JD Edwards. Working with Smartbridge as their trusted JD Edwards partner, Avanir decided to upgrade to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2 as well as implement a new security model with ALL Out Security in order to improve security, support, and maintenance.

Avanir selected Smartbridge as their JDE upgrade partner due to their strong expertise in JD Edwards, history of delivering value, quality of work, and consistently meeting their commitments.

Project Objectives

• Upgrade the company’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system from 9.0 to 9.2 with latest Tools release. The current release of JD Edwards 9.0 update 2 allowed for a simplified upgrade.
• Implement ALL Out Security to improve security support and maintenance. The current security model needed to be reviewed and updated. Smartbridge worked with Avanir to design a new andimproved security model based on the required user roles and tasks.

Smartbridge Methodology

Smartbridge has been providing ongoing CNC managed services support for Avanir and upgraded the company’s JDE tools release in 2015. Smartbridge is responsible for overall project management, CNC, retrofit, functional testing, training and coordination of user acceptance testing.

Using Smartbridge’s JDE Upgrade methodology, the upgrade was delivered in a well-organized and consistent manner, with each stage (planning, upgrade, and deployment) clearly defined. The client knew what to expect along each step of the upgrade.

Challenges

• Upgrade the company’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system from 9.0 to 9.2 and latest Tools release. In order to upgrade to JDE 9.2 without impacting ongoing projects in the 9.0 environment, Smartbridge utilized their unique upgrade methodology to allow for migration to new virtual servers, as part of a Simplified Upgrade process. This allowed for the JDE 9.0 environment to operate while the upgrade to 9.2 was progressing.
• Avanir was undergoing several other major projects during the JD Edwards upgrade. Smartbridge project management worked closely with Avanir and other project stakeholders to make sure key dependencies were accounted for, and project efforts were well coordinated.
• As part of Smartbridge’s upgrade methodology the required documentation and sign-off requirements were easily met, including sign-off on testing procedure and user acceptance testing.

Results

Due to Smartbridge’s strong upgrade experience and in-depth knowledge of Avanir’s JD Edwards environment, the upgrade project was completed on-time and under budget. Smartbridge was able to identify custom objects that could be eliminated or replaced reducing the overall retrofit effort.

Avanir successfully went live on JD Edwards 9.2 in September 2016 as planned. The go-live went smoothly, and Avanir is operating on JDE 9.2 seamlessly. Now that Avanir has upgraded to JDE 9.2, they are in excellent position to take on additional process improvements and continue their growth.

“Smartbridge executed one of the smoothest upgrades and go-lives we have ever experienced, delivering on time and under budget.”

– James Pham