Revision as of 10:54, 11 March 2014

General Information

Bi-Monthly Upgrades

Upgrades are released on a bi-monthly basis.

The benefits of this approach are as follows:

• The upgrades will be performed in smaller batches.
• New features will come on-stream faster, as we can fast track key enhancements into early updates.

A list of planned upgrade dates is available here: Future Upgrades.

We regularly update the list of upgrade features and schedule for both the backup and production servers 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 Dedicated Server, please review the SmartSimple Upgrade Process – Dedicated Server page.

Backup Server Update

• Each backup server 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 server and test the changes against your most current data and configuration.
• Internal staff will also be using these servers to perform instance specific testing.

Update Go/No-Go

• Subject to satisfactory testing on both the pre-production server and the production backup servers, the go/no go decision will be made on Wednesday at 12:00pm.

Current Upgrade Package: January 2014

The following server will be upgraded on Tuesday, January 14th, 2014 at 10pm EST.

• smartsimple3.biz

The following servers will be upgraded on Thursday, January 16th, 2014 at 10pm EST.

• smartsimple.com
• smartsimple2.biz
• smartsimple4.biz
• smartsimple.ca
• smartsimple.us
• smartsimple.biz
• smartsimple.co.za (after 10pm Local Time)
• factorial.ca
• frontdeskinc.net

The following server will be upgraded on Thursday, January 30th, 2014 after 10pm Local Time.

• smartsimple.ie

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

If your organization has a dedicated SmartSimple server or you host in-house, SmartSimple will be in contact with your system administrator to schedule the upgrade of your server after January 16th.

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 March 2014 upgrade to your server:

PDF Annotation

• You may now add annotations to uploaded PDF documents on the fly. When the "Enable Annotation" option is selected on a multiple file upload field, PDF documents uploaded to that field can be commented and marked up. Comments and drawing mark-ups can be added to any PDF without any downloads or browser plug-ins required. The annotated PDF can then be saved at any stage as a new file. See the PDF Annotation article for further details.

Simplified List Views for Companies and Contacts

• The configuration of list views for companies and contacts has been simplified, combining the list view settings pages for external and internal companies and contacts. As well, the setup page for Ajax Lookup list views has been consolidated for external and internal companies and contacts.

New Icon Sets for Portal pages

• New icon sets have been added to the portal configuration page, enabling administrators to give their copies of SmartSimple a more contemporary look. The icons can now be chosen directly from the icon preview page.

Update to Rich Text Editor

• The Rich Text editor has been updated and has a new look and feel. This feature allows you to easily add formatting to text input.

On-Demand System Upgrades

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

Simplified Display of Uploaded Files

• A new syntax has been added for referencing files uploaded to a field. You can display uploaded files as a string of text by using the @Fieldname.filenames()@ variable. The syntax is @field name.filenames(delimiter)@.

Example: To display a comma separated list of file names of the files uploaded to a field named Uploaded Files, you would enter the variable @Uploaded Files.filenames(,)@.

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.