Upgrades
Contents
- 1 General Information
- 2 Current Upgrade Package: April 2016
- 2.1 General Details
- 2.2 Global System Upgrades
- 2.2.1 Enhanced Visual Styles for Tabs and Captions in Arcadia
- 2.2.2 Enhanced Dynamic List View Filtering
- 2.2.3 Enhanced Level 1 List Views With Ability to Search Organization and Contact Fields
- 2.2.4 Enhanced Level 3 List Views With Ability to Search Level 2 Fields
- 2.2.5 Updated Reports List Page
- 2.2.6 New Font Weight and Color Settings Added to List View Columns
- 2.2.7 New Currencies Now Supported in the System
- 2.3 On-Demand System Upgrades
- 2.4 Beta Previews
- 2.5 Notes for Admins
- 2.5.1 New Style Sheet for XML Budgets and Defined Default Classes
- 2.5.2 New Arcadia X Layout Picker
- 2.5.3 New SmartField PDF Page Options
- 2.5.4 New Role Permissions for Submit Buttons
- 2.5.5 Enhanced Dynamic Control Fields
- 2.5.6 Extended Record Lock Feature to Contact and Company Records
- 2.5.7 Enhanced Message Queue Functionality and Re-Sending of Failed Emails
- 3 Previous Upgrades
- 4 Future Upgrades
General Information
Next Upgrade Date
The next upgrade is scheduled for July 20 2023.
Quarterly Upgrades
Upgrades are now released on a quarterly basis.
Key reasons for changing to a quarterly upgrade approach include:
- This upgrade period will bring more enhancements that will make your SmartSimple system more robust with more and better features.
- We are well into the process of becoming Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) compliant. This process requires more in depth testing and review of our work to meet a higher level of compliance. Better security standards mean a more secure platform for all our users.
Upgrade Schedule
Upgrade | Key Release Date | Global Release Date |
November 2024 | Thu, Nov 14 2024 | Thu, Nov 28 2024 |
February 2025 | Thu, Feb 13 2025 | Thu, Feb 27 2025 |
June 2025 | Thu, Jun 12 2025 | Thu, Jun 26 2025 |
October 2025 | Thu, Oct 9 2025 | Thu, Oct 23 2025 |
February 2026 | Thu, Feb 12 2026 | Thu, Feb 26 2026 |
June 2026 | Thu, Jun 11 2026 | Thu, Jun 25 2026 |
October 2026 | Thu, Oct 8 2026 | Thu, Oct 22 2026 |
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.
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.
Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
Key Release | Production | Second Thursday of an upgrade month | 22:00 - 23:59 EST | 5 minutes |
Key Release | Backup | Two weeks prior to the production upgrade | 22:00 - 23:59 EST | 5 minutes |
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.
Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
Global Release | Production | Fourth Thursday of an upgrade month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
Global Release | Development/Test | Fourth Thursday of an upgrade month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
Global Release | Backup | Second Thursday of an upgrade month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
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.
Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
Global Release | All | Fourth Thursday of an upgrade month | client-managed | 5 minutes |
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: April 2016
The Production SAAS server was last upgraded on January 28th 2016, between 10pm - 10:15pm EST.
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, the upgrade will be made available on February 18th.
General Details
Upgrade Dates
Public Cloud Production release date: April 28th 2016
Public Cloud Backup release date: April 14th 2016
Private Cloud Production (Managed Upgrades) release date: May 12th 2016
Private Cloud Backup (Managed Upgrades) release date: April 28th 2016
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:
Enhanced Visual Styles for Tabs and Captions in Arcadia
Updated the style of tabs and captions within the Arcadia interface for improved look and feel. These include changes to the color and style of field labels, and the introduction of accent colors in tabs.
Enhanced Dynamic List View Filtering
List views and search filters have been enhanced with the ability to dynamically filter lists based upon the current user. This allows the creation of a single list view that shows the current user all records they are associated to in a specific role.
Enhanced Level 1 List Views With Ability to Search Organization and Contact Fields
A past enhancement added the ability to display the fields of associated records within a Level 1 list view, this enhancement now allows you the ability to also perform searches on these fields with advanced search. The Advanced Search functionality has now been enhanced to allow you to search the following records on a Level 1:
- a) the organization connected to the Level 1
- b) the branch connected to the Level 1
- c) the external person connected to the Level 1
- d) the internal person connected to the Level 1
Enhanced Level 3 List Views With Ability to Search Level 2 Fields
A past enhancement allowed you to display Level 2 fields within a Level 3 list view, this enhancement now allows you the ability to also perform searches on the Level 2 fields within advanced search. This will allow you to create more complex searches and filters.
Updated Reports List Page
This enhancement extends the Arcadia list view page-style to the Reports page. This enhancement also adds search functionality.
New Font Weight and Color Settings Added to List View Columns
This enhancement adds the ability to easily select a font color or bold the text values of a column in a list view through the list view settings.
New Currencies Now Supported in the System
40 new currencies have been added to the list of standard system currencies.
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:
New Customizable Privacy and Confidentiality Policies
Privacy is a shared responsibility. This enhancement adds the ability for organizations to define their own policies. Separate policies can be created for individual country and language combinations. Also added is a Privacy & Security tab where all policies are managed. The policies will appear on the standard system login page as well as in the header section in user portals.
Enhanced Search and Filter Functionality Added to Provider / Consumer List Views
This feature enhances provider / consumer list views with the ability to search and filter results. When viewing a provider record you can apply a list view filter on the list of consumer records.
New Disable User Account After Inactive Period
This enhancement enables user accounts to become disabled after a specified period of inactivity. Controlled by the Password Policy settings, an account can become disabled, requiring a password reset to regain access.
Beta Previews
New Field Revision Annotations
Revision Annotations allows you to add annotations at the field level and allow edits to be made to specific fields while keeping the rest of the record locked. Flexible security allows you to configure role-based permissions to allow different users the ability to add annotations to fields while others the ability to edit the field value.
New Contact Invitations
The Contact Invitation feature simplifies the process of inviting contacts to collaborate on a system record through an email invitation. It also allows for the invitation of new contacts that do not currently exist in the system. To facilitate this, invited contacts can accept or decline the invitation to associate them to the record. Contacts who are new will be directed to a contact sign-up page where you can then control their registration behavior.
New Assignment Panels - Phase 1
Assignment Panels allows the navigation of different list views simultaneously and easily search and bulk assign users to records. This first phase adds the ability to assign users in one panel to Level 1 records in the other panel. This feature will be expanded in the future to allow assignment to and from more record types.
New Create Consumer Records in Batch from Provider
This new feature enables the creation of consumer associated records in batch based on the contacts or companies associated to a provider record.
Enhanced Stripe e-Payment Integration
This enhancement furthers the integration with contemporary payments service, Stripe, and builds on the initial beta release in November. Through the Invoice module, payments can be accepted by credit cards using the Stripe integration.
Notes for Admins
New Style Sheet for XML Budgets and Defined Default Classes
Updated the style of XML data custom fields with a new default style sheet. This enhancement eliminates the need for hand coding HTML styling when creating XML data fields.
New Arcadia X Layout Picker
The Arcadia X Pre-Made Layout Picker enables the point-and-click configuration of different portal layouts using pre-made templates and the choice of Arcadia X themes and backgrounds. Arcadia X layouts built using the layout picker are responsive by default.
New SmartField PDF Page Options
This enhancement enables greater control of PDF documents generated from SmartField Views. Easily control page breaks and changes to page orientation within a PDF generated from a SmartField View with field format settings.
New Role Permissions for Submit Buttons
Submit buttons can now be configured so that they are presented to users based on role and UTA role permissions reducing the need for visibility conditions.
Enhanced Dynamic Control Fields
Updated the design of dynamic control custom fields for more consistent and improved behavior. The improvements were achieved through changes to the way Dynamic Control fields are rendered. While subfields are currently repeated multiple times on the form, in the case that they are available for multiple options in the dynamic control field, they will now only exist on the form once.
Extended Record Lock Feature to Contact and Company Records
The Record Lock feature ensures that only one person may be editing a record at any given time. This enhancement extends the Record Lock functionality to include Contacts and Organizations, and eliminates the possibility of two users concurrently editing these records.
Enhanced Message Queue Functionality and Re-Sending of Failed Emails
Updated the message queue list with the ability to easily discover and re-send failed emails.
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.