Upgrades

General Information

Monthly Upgrades

Upgrades are released on a 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.

We will provide a list of updates 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.

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: September 2013

The following server will be upgraded on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 10pm EST.

• smartsimple3.biz

The following servers will be upgraded on Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 10pm EST.

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

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 September 12. The following features will be implemented as part of the upgrade cycle commencing in September 2013:

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 September 2013 upgrade to your server:

Consolidation of Submit Logic Failure Messages

• In order to assist end users complete forms with multiple Submit Logic validations, SmartSimple will now display all alert messages configured with Submit Logic into a consolidated alert window.

Revisions to User Interface

• Users of SmartSimple's next generation interface - Arcadia - may notice minor revisions to the user interface, such as new tab bars and changes to the title bars on records.

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:

New Feature: Recently-Viewed Objects

• When enabled through Manager Permissions, a new right-hand panel titled "Recent" can be shown containing a list of the most recently-viewed records. Users can then click on their most recently-viewed records to navigate easily through the system.

• The Recently Viewed panel can be locked to always be shown on the right-hand side of the SmartSimple window, or, by default, will close when a recently-viewed record is selected.

New Feature: Scheduling Reports

• System Administrators can now schedule reports to be run periodically (daily, weekly, monthly).
• Scheduled reports can be configured to store custom field values to SmartSimple records, allowing for the periodic aggregation of data.
• The following types of SmartSimple records can be updated:

• Organization records
• Contact records
• UTA records, i.e. Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 records

• Typical use cases might include:

• On a monthly basis, automatically storing the total number of reviews that have been performed by a given user on their contact profile.
• On a weekly basis, automatically updating a user's profile to indicate whether or not timesheets have been filled out in SmartSimple.
• On a daily basis, automatically updating on a company's profile a summation of the total number of grants for which contacts of that organization has applied.

Arcadia - Basing Summary Cross-tab on Standard Fields

• One of the key features of SmartSimple's next-generation Arcadia interface is its Summary Matrix, which displays a cross-tabbed view of the records in a SmartSimple application.
• The default display of the cross-tabbed view is to break out an application's statuses as column headings and its templates as the row headings:

• The September 2013 upgrade allows system administrators to configure the Arcadia interface to enable the Customer, Branch, Person and Owner standard fields as row headings as alternate methods of displaying data summaries.

Setting Alignment of Columns in Report Builder

• Columns in reports can now be set in the Report Builder to be left-, right- or center-aligned without resorting to custom HTML.

IRS/CRA/OFAC Automated Checking

• The system can now be configured to perform automated verification of contact records, as well as organization records, against the OFAC database.
• The settings page to configure the automatic verification of records against the IRS/CRA/OFAC online databases has been simplified.

If you would like to receive the Technical Journal you may subscribe here

---

Previous Upgrades

Click on the links below to find detailed information on previous upgrades.

• The date listed indicates when the upgrade cycle commenced. Not all servers were upgraded on that date.