You are correct.

The Dato 12 is a snap back case and to remove the movement, it does come out the front. It is easy to mar the case if you are not careful.
It can be done with a small pocketknife blade or you can buy an opened of off ebay for $2. If you are going to be doing this often I would wake a look at
www.ofrei.com for watchmaking tools.

Good luck.

Cheers

Rob