Upgrade Suggestions

Hi @Amruta 

Here are some answers to your questions :

• One need to plan the frequency of updates atleast to major versions (from 2020r2 to 2021r1 or 2021r2) in advance
• Primarily, customizations need to tested, updated if required on a test environment before updating live environment
• For each new version, we provide a ‘Developer release notes’ which helps users test/ update their customizations to work with new version (Here is a link for 2021r2 developer release notes : https://acumatica-builds.s3.amazonaws.com/builds/21.2/ReleaseNotes/AcumaticaERP_2021R2_ReleaseNotes_for_Developers.pdf )
• With regards to skipping a version while upgrading, on each version and build release notes, we do mention the versions from which one can update directly. Here is an extract from latest build of 2021r2 release notes ( #page 1, link : https://acumatica-builds.s3.amazonaws.com/builds/21.2/ReleaseNotes/Release_Notes_for_Acumatica_21_203_0026.pdf )

• Though its ideal to stay updated  on latest build, one can skip build updates after carefully reading relevant build release notes on our Community portal. If the bug fixes are not critical to your client environment, then you can opt ‘not’ to update to that build and wait. 

Hope this answers your quesitons,

Regards,

Thank you @vkumar. I appreciate your response. (I’m Amruta’s teammate.) 

We’d like to define our plan for annual upgrades, and we have questions like

• should we upgrade to R1 each year when it comes out?
• should we upgrade to R1 each year, but wait several months for any bugs to be resolved in updates?
• should we upgrade to R2 each year since it’s more mature than R1

It’d be nice to hear from members of the Acumatica community that have experienced a few upgrades. What approach do you take?

Thanks!

Dave

Greetings!

Some notes below from my experiences through 3 upgrades:

• We plan our upgrades every 12-18 months, just depending on what features we stand to gain.  So yes, we skip 1, sometimes 2 of the major releases.  They are done in partnership with our VAR, who also hosts our Acumatica instance.
  • I keep a very close eye on Release/Build Notes, and Known Issues.  This helps paint a full picture of what we’re getting into with an upgrade.
  • We used to upgrade early in the Build cycle, but recently we waited for about 8-9 builds before starting the process.  After reading over the various Build Release Notes, this likely saved us several headaches.
• Test environment gets upgraded, and our VAR validates our customizations.
• Extensive testing.  I get users involved, they know the nuances and weird scenarios better than me.  Someone might get lucky and discover an unknown bug!
  • During testing, its likely several more builds will be released.  Read the Build Notes, they might fix a problem you didn’t know you had.  I’ve done several Build applications mid-testing because I found a potential issue got fixed.  This of course means you may need to re-test some things, but it could be worth it in the long run.
• Once testing is complete, I usually have a list of “Day 0” fixes that need to be done to tidy things up post-upgrade.  This is often just tweaks to GI’s/Reports, and maybe a setting here or there that needs to be adjusted.
• Go-live upgrades are done on Friday evenings, so I have the weekend to do some validation and “Day 0” fixes.  I usually find one or two unexpected issues arise at this time that got missed in testing, so I have time to fix/get help on those as well.
• Day 1 (Monday) is probably my most anxious day of the year, waiting for things to go wrong.  However, if testing was done right by both myself and my users, usually only 1 or 2 more issues sneak in.

Hopefully that helps.  I’m usually in “firefighter-mode” the first week post-upgrade, but after that I get to start having fun with the new features.  Best of luck!

Be sure you check with any integration software you have purchased to make sure it has tested the integration with the version you are moving too.

Hi @dhollinden 

Each version (R1 or R2) goes through similar vigorous test cycle at our end. So, R1 will be as matured as R2. 

I would say the criteria for upgrade should be

• the newer features added on each version and value addition it can bring to one’s business process
• the time/effort one has to invest ( complexity of the upgrade project )

Hope this clarifies,

Regards,

Hi @Amruta  and @dhollinden , In addition to all the above recommendations,

1. Please review the Release notes available for each releases under builds.acumatica.com for the version you are switching to and the versions that are in-between.(Screenshots below for reference)

2. 

   Please involve your Acumatica Partner (Acumatica VAR) in advance on the Upgrade Plan, so that they can assist you in the upgrade , elaborate you the New features, and expected impacts on the current flow.

Thanks

Hi @Amruta and @dhollinden You can also refer to the below link for more details on the release notes for Acumatica 2021 R1

Thanks

Thank you all for these comments. It’s helpful to get your insights. 

Dave