Introduction To Upgrading
There are two primary reasons to upgrade an existing Collect!
database.
- To have the benefits of the new features and enhancements to
existing features. For this upgrade, you can use the convenient
"one click" upgrade procedure described in the Help topic,
One Click Upgrade, OR
- Because you want the database benefits of the manual process
because doing a Manual Upgrade (not the One Click method) will
condense / defrag the data to the smallest possible size.
Both of these reasons are valid. Your reason for wanting to
upgrade will determine whether you opt for the One Click method
or the Manual Upgrade. Performing the upgrade should
be a simple process that should not hamper your day to day
operations.
Upgrading Collect! is an important event. For those of you
who have never upgraded a database before, there are a few
points to consider.
Upgrading OS or Computers too? If you have
decided to upgrade your Server or hardware as well, postpone
upgrading of Collect! until after you have finished with
any changes to your computers.
WARNING: It is not recommended to attempt to upgrade your
hardware or operating system at the SAME TIME as
you upgrade your Collect! Doing too many things
at once may result in unexpected and frustrating
complications with no ability to confirm which change
to your operating environment is the root cause of
the problem.
We recommend that you do any hardware or operating system upgrades
FIRST, and when you have been successfully running your current
Collect! on the new equipment or operating system, for a
week or two, then, you should proceed with the upgrading
of your Collect! software.
Planning your upgrade. Planning for an
upgrade is very important. Doing a test run on the upgrade is
a very valuable practice. When upgrading, having that security
of your existing database, untouched and waiting if you need
to move back to it is a big stress reliever.
Is it a Major or Minor Upgrade? You need to
know whether you are upgrading to a MAJOR RELEASE CHANGE,
or upgrading within the SAME VERSION.
Upgrading from any of version CV8, CV10 or early CV11 databases to a
current shipping version in CV11 is a major upgrade. Upgrading from a
more recent release of CV11 may be only a minor upgrade (One Click patch).
A major version upgrade may require some in-depth scrutiny
of data after the upgrade. Perhaps features not available in
the older release may affect the financials of a debtor. Or,
maybe you will have to review the reports to verify that they
still print as they used to. For these reasons, you must
figure on more time for testing and verifying when you
are doing a major upgrade.
To judge when you may apply an upgrade, you will need
to determine your timelines by allotting testing and verification
time and benchmarking the time it takes to do a major upgrade.
Have you prepared for the upgrade? The
next step is to properly prepare for the upgrade. Before doing
any upgrade, thorough maintenance and recalculation of all
totals must be completed. A backup of your database
must be created and it is necessary to know how to restore
the backup, just in case something goes wrong. This ensures
that your day to day operations will not be interrupted by an
unforeseen circumstance during the upgrade procedure.
Do you use multiple databases? Each database
that you use must be upgraded at the same time. The preparations
must be performed for each database that you intend to upgrade.
Do you need help with upgrading? Finally, you
must be very familiar with your system. Where is your current
database installed? How much space do you have on your hard drive?
How big is your actual database? Are you knowledgeable about your
operating system? If you are not comfortable, or you are new to
Collect! you may want to bring in a technician to give you a hand and
help you out with this upgrade.
Contact Technical Services at 250-391-0466 option 2 to
obtain pricing to have one of our technicians do
your upgrade. For major manual upgrades, we will
obtain a copy of your database, do a test upgrade
on our site, then smoothly cut you over on a
pre-agreed scheduled basis.
See Also
- Upgrading Topics
|
Was this page helpful? Do you have any comments on this document? Can we make it better? If so how may we improve this page.
Please click this link to send us your comments: helpinfo@collect.org