Revision as of 08:36, 16 August 2017

General Information

Next Upgrade Date

The next upgrade is scheduled for July 20 2023.

Upgrade Schedule

We regularly update the list of upgrade features and schedule for both the backup and production environments on this Wiki page.

This page will provide a general overview of each upgrade, with links to the Wiki articles describing the new or updated features and how to use them. You can also subscribe to the Technical Journal that is sent out prior to each upgrade on the Newsletter Signup Page. (Unsubscribe here).

System Upgrade Process

The objective of the System Upgrade Process is to ensure that customers have a chance to review, without compromising the integrity of their production system, how their applications and information will work following the upgrade. In order to take advantage of this you will need to know how to access your backup instance of SmartSimple. If you need assistance with this either refer to the Backup Server and Testing Instances Wiki article, or contact the SmartSimple support desk.

For clients on a Private Cloud enviornment, please review the SmartSimple Upgrade Process – Dedicated Server page.

Upgrade Schedule Details

The following tables outline the detailed upgrade release cycle.

If you are part of our Key Release your SmartSimple Cloud system will be automatically upgraded according to the following schedule. Generally North American Clients are on the Key release.

If you are part of our Global Release your SmartSimple Cloud system will be automatically upgraded according to the following schedule. Generally clients in Europe, Middle East and Asia as well as Managed Dedicated clients are on the Global release.

If you are on dedicated environment that is client-managed your SmartSimple Cloud system is only upgraded manually by your system administrator or by submitting a request to SmartSimple. The upgrade package is made available for you according to the following schedule.

Backup Environment Update

• Each backup environment will be updated to the "release candidate" prior to the upgrade date.
• This update will provide for instance specific testing of release candidate, as you can log into your respective backup environment and test the changes against your most current data and configuration.
• Internal staff will also be using these environments to perform instance specific testing.

Update Go/No-Go

• Subject to satisfactory testing on both the pre-production environments and the backup environments, the Go/No-Go decision will be made on the Wednesday prior to an upgrade release.

Current Upgrade Package: August 2017

The production environments for the Public Cloud were last upgraded on May 24th 2018.

Important: The upgrade will be applied to your backup environment two weeks prior to the scheduled upgrade date for your production environment. You are encouraged to log into your backup environment during this period to test the changes against your most recent data and configuration.

If your organization is subscribed to Private Cloud hosting, the upgrade will be made available to you two weeks after the Public Cloud release.

General Details

Upgrade Dates

Public Cloud Production release date: August 31th 2017
Public Cloud Backup release date: August 15th 2017

Private Cloud Production (Managed Upgrades) release date: September 14th 2017
Private Cloud Backup (Managed Upgrades) release date: August 31th 2017

Global System Upgrades

The new features listed below are enhancements to the SmartSimple system and will be immediately available to SmartSimple users upon the application of the upgrade to their server:

Major Updates

Deprecated Support of HTML in List View Column Templates

Removed the ability to configure HTML syntax in the content template of a list view column. Existing list views that employ these configurations will continue to work, however the HTML syntax will be encoded and will no longer function as desired if the list view is re-saved. This would only apply to a small number of list views where the columns have been customized with HTML syntax for specific formatting effects.

Deprecated Pandora API

Removed the ability to configure the Pandora API for instances that do not already utilize this API. We are no longer continuing development of the Pandora API and suggest that any existing configurations be migrated to our SmartConnect RESTful API instead.

Deprecated Desktop Plugins

Removed several plugin applications from the Downloads section. We are no longer continuing development of the Microsoft Office Smart Doc/Excel/Access plugins, Windows Folder Synchronization tool, and Signature Pad.

New Portal Draft Mode

New draft mode for the portal builder lets you easily modify or create new portals. You can now edit a portal in draft mode and then promote it to the current active configuration when ready.

New List View Split Screen

New split screen mode available for list views. When viewing a list view you can now toggle a split screen to retain the list view on the left and open the records on the right to view and work with both simultaneously.

List view split screen feature

Enhanced Interface for End Users

Enhanced user interface for improved experience and usability. Specific areas include the Options menu within a record has been consolidated and reorganized, and the list view pagination indicator has been updated to display the total number of records returned in your list view results. Other changes throughout the system include the update of the default font style to Roboto, and minor interface changes.

Update to the options menu

Enhanced Responsiveness for Mobile Devices

Enhanced user interface for mobile devices for improved experience and usability. As we continue to optimize the mobile experience of the platform, this update sees improvements to list views, and record layout. List views will be transformed into a single column card-type list view that by default will only display the information from the first five columns of a list view. The information can be easily expanded to see all the details of the original list view too. Within a record, the save and submit buttons will be consolidated into just a few buttons to save screen estate.

Responsive list view on mobile device

Enhanced Interface for Administrators

Enhanced user interface for administrative and settings pages for improved experience and efficiency. Specific areas include the field selection when configuring list views or reports to now display more meta information about the field that you're selecting than just the name or caption. This simplifies the configuration of these areas and the selection of the fields you want.

More information shown during field selection

Minor Updates

Deprecated Dynamic Sorting for Classic List Views

Removed the ability for ad-hoc sorting of older Classic interface list views. You will no longer be able to sort the results of certain list views by clicking on the column headers.

Deprecated Dynamic Sorting for Old Classic Reports

Removed the ability for ad-hoc sorting of older Classic reports. You will no longer be able to sort the results of certain reports by clicking on the column headers. This will only affect older reports built using the version of Classic report builder that does not contain the Recordset selector for each column. This translates roughly to reports built before 2012.

Deprecated Options in Instant Messages

Removed the ability to switch to email mode from within Instance messages communication. Also, removed the ability for administrators to terminate another users session from this screen.

Deprecated Associated Forms for UTA Level 1

Removed the ability to configure associated forms for a UTA Level 1 type. This previously gave you the ability to attach a web form to a Level 1 record.

Updated Visibility of UTA Transaction Tab

Updated the visibility of the UTA Transaction list view to now be controlled by the UTA Level 1 Transaction standard field view permissions. Previously the UTA Transaction list view tab was always being shown despite the view permissions of the UTA Level 1 Transaction standard field.

Updated Organizations and Contacts Menu Labels

Updated labels throughout menus that refer to Organizations and Contacts instead to Organizations and People. This is to resolve inconsistencies in some areas where the system would use your defined terminology in the Global Settings Branding section, that would be misleading when it only used either the internal or external term. This label change is to make the system more consistent as well as more clear where a system area deals with both internal and external organizations and contacts.

Update to menu labels for organizations and people

Simplified List View Search Filters

Updated the behaviour of list view search filters so that the 'All' option within the type, status, category, and role filter selections will now also include records with no type, status, category, or role. Previously, to show the records that did not possess any of those attributes you had to deselect all options. A 'None' option has also been added to the filter selections to achieve that now.

Extended Group Email for Greater UTA Level 2 Targeting

Extended ability to send group emails to now allow the targeting of the Assigned and Contact standard fields of a UTA Level 2 record. Previously the Level 2 group email functionality was limited to just the Owner standard field.

Updated Interface for Workflow Requests

Updated the interface for the workflow request page to open the record in question in a side panel view thus retaining your view of your workflow request list at the same time.

Updated Language Support for Reports and Country Lists

Enhanced reports that are internet enabled for the external URL to accept a language parameter that will translate the report results appropriately. Added support for French translations to the country selection list in the address of Organizations and Contacts.

Added Warning for Authentication Controller

Updated the behaviour when logging in to another instance via the Primary Authentication Controller to display a warning when someone else is already logged in to that same user account.

On-Demand System Upgrades

The following features are available immediately with the application of the upgrade, but must first be enabled or configured by a System Administrator:

Major Updates

New SmartCard Feature

New personal screen for users that allows them to mark favourite or commonly accessed areas. This screen shows a collection of SmartCard containers that hold and display any records that you add to them. Users can create any number of SmartCards and even share them with other users. This will empower end users with the ability to create their own lists of what's important to them without the need for administrators to create system list views and such. Enabling this feature is a simple permission setting in the System Visibility Permissions area.

New SmartCards feature

New Login Page Routing Configuration

New ability to configure routing links on a login page. This functionality was traditionally implemented using static HTML files served from SmartFolders but is now easier to produce. A new routing configuration area has been added within the Login Page Configuration screen where you can create links to other areas such as organization and contact registration pages. To incorporate this into your login page you then simply need to place a variable reference to @routingbutton@ in the login template.

New routing links on a login page

New Ability to Track Duration in Each Status

New ability to track the duration that a record remains in each given status. This is available for UTA Level 1, 2, and 3 records and can be configured within the status standard field. This setting enables the tracking of duration within the status change history logs. The status change history logs are already available through the use of reports and will now also include this additional duration field for you to extract this information.

New Integration with GuideStar Charity Check

New integration available with GuideStar Charity Check. This will allow you to verify the charity status of your organizations on demand at any time. Upon validating an organization against the GuideStar database, mapped fields will be updated in SmartSimple and a PDF status form generated and stored against the organization. This will be a paid service, please contact your account manager for more information.

Extended Invitation Feature to UTA Level 2s

Extended the Invitation feature to be available for UTA Level 2 records now.

Minor Updates

Extended Setting for Instruction Text to Organization Contacts

Extended the ability to add instructional text for the multiple contacts tab under an organization record. This was previously limited to the organizations and contacts tab under UTA records.

Extended Ability to Download File Attachments to Organization and Contact List Views

Extended the ability to bulk download files from list views to the Organization and Contact list views as well now.

Added Mandatory Setting for Special - In-Line Data Grid Custom Fields

Added ability to configure Special - In-Line Data Grid custom fields as mandatory. The setting can be found within the properties of each individual cell to grant greater granularity around this validation.

Added Setting to Configure Label Chart Axes

Added ability within a list view chart to edit the label of the X and Y axes.

Beta Previews

No beta previews for this upgrade.

Notes for Admins

Bug Fix for Upgrade Process

Bug fix for the upgrade procedure. Sometimes, an upgrade will include an update to the upgrade procedure itself, in which case SmartSimple needs to be restarted before continuing. Previously, there was no mechanism to indicate or enforce this so there was a chance that updates would not complete successfully when you initiated many updates at one time. Going forward, the upgrade procedure will force the restart of the SmartSimple application if necessary and stop the updates at that point. A warning message has also been introduced to tell users to come back to the upgrade screen and verify the version after performing an update.

New Ability to Generate Payment Schedules via Workflow

Enhanced workflows to allow you to easily configure and generate payment schedules. New 'activity scheduling' options have been introduced on the create new activity task type within a Level 1 Workflow. These options allow you to enter in details that enable you to then dynamically generate payment activity schedules on the fly.

Enhanced Workflow Variable Processing

Enhanced workflows to allow you to reference field values from other workflow objects when cascading multiple workflows. For example, if you have a Level 1 workflow that triggers a Level 2 workflow, you may now reference fields from the Level 1 record within the Level 2 workflow tasks with a variable reference to @triggerobject.fieldname@.

Simplified Configuration of Website Content Management

Enhanced Website configuration within Content Management with a configurable template for each of your virtual folders and virtual aliases now. The configuration has also been simplified by introducing a link to each Website configuration within the configuration area for Login Screen Content for ease of navigation.

Enhanced Payment Allocation Mapping

Enhanced the Payment Allocation modules to allow you to define different amount aggregation categories outside of the preset ones for tentative, committed, and paid amount.

New Custom Field Permission Quick Edit View

New Permission Quick Edit view within a custom field list allows you to see all the role permissions for each of the fields in a single screen for you to view and update a little easier.

Added Setting for Organization Signup Verification

Added a setting for Organization signup pages using verification services such as IRS to limit the search fields to only the unique organization ID such as EIN. By default the verification search may include other fields such as organization name, etc.

Bug Fix for Single Sign On Creation of New Organization or User

Fixed a bug with Single Sign On where the default organizaton and contact status was not being correctly set when creating a new organization or contact. Also added a setting within the Single Sign On connection configuration to use a specific status for new organizations and contacts instead of the system default.

Added option for UTA Currency Standard Field Hidden Input

Added an option for the UTA currency standard field to have a hidden form input for exrate, excur, and examt in order for you to update the exchange rate and currency attributes while hiding the currency field input from end users.

Previous Upgrades

See the Previous Upgrades page for a list of previously-implemented upgrade features.

Future Upgrades

Click here for a listing of future upgrade dates.