Upgrade Process Overview

Beginning the Process

Your upgrade ticket will be created by your SAE along with your projected Live upgrade date. Once created you can make comments or ask questions regarding it via the support center. Self-Hosted clients will need to fill out a provided questionnaire detailing a number of environment based questions that will most likely need to be handled by your IT staff. These questions are not to be taken lightly. They are a mix of technical questions and specific environment locations that will need to be adhered to if the Upgrade is to be successful. For Hosted clients the request is all you will need to accomplish to have the request created.

We ask that you take a moment to familiarize yourself with the release notes which can be found on the Support Center. The release notes to look at would be the notes of your current version of Avionté up to and including the version you will be upgrading to.

After the ticket has been created it will be moved to the Upgrades team to have the parallel environment upgraded for testing.

Testing in your Parallel Environment

For the clients on our hosted platform, once you receive notice on your Parallel Upgrade request you should be able to launch the Parallel application from the following web address by replacing the company code with your company code; https://<CompanyCode>-preprod.aviontego.com. This is the same company code used to log into the outlook connector or your live application. If there is no Parallel option for you to launch, please contact your power user to gain access. If you are the power user at your company you can give or take away parallel access at your discretion with the use of the Avionté User Manager. Once you launch the Avionté User Manager there should be an option regarding Parallel Access. Click on that option. In the new window that comes up you can move users from Enabled/Disabled to the other side to grant or take away access.

During the parallel testing process, you will want to test all parts of the application which are necessary to your business process. Process being the key here. Functionality testing has already been completed by our Development Q&A testing. You will be given a checklist of certain actions to perform such as; creating an employee in the Core Application, Applying Online, Assigning an employee to an order, and processing payroll, all things that would be done in a day’s work.

Hosted parallels will remain available for three weeks to complete testing. After that time the parallel will be deactivated and after four weeks the parallel will be removed. Keep this in mind when planning your testing internally. If more time is needed, please notify your SAE to extend this window. Parallel availability is not guaranteed outside of the upgrade process.

The Parallel is only a snapshot of your live – an instance frozen in time. This process differs from your parallel you did in your implementation. There is no need to do a side-by-side comparison between your Live and Parallel applications. There are a couple of key things that you will not see in your parallel (e.g. Jobs that run on the Live database to change employee statuses). Items like these will not need to be tested. Our primary focus is to ensure your business process is fully functional in the new version. Also, because your Parallel is merely a snapshot of your Live, when testing Reports, you do not need to test exact numbers between your Live and your Parallel. These numbers likely won’t be identical. We primarily want to make sure your custom reports function with the new database.

For any issues that arise during parallel testing, please log into https://support.avionte.com. Sign in and chose the Support Issue Form. Under Ticket Type chose Technical Services > Upgrade. 

Make sure to make these tickets as detailed as possible, including screenshots, steps to reproduce and intended results.  This ensures that the Upgrade Specialists will be able to resolve it as quickly as possible, and minimize phone tag or the request for more information for the ticket. 

Including the word “Parallel” at the beginning of the subject will make sure that the ticket is directly assigned to the Upgrade Specialists for them review.  

Training issues will be assigned to the Avionté Training team to review with you. 

Any issues that are determined to be outside of the bounds of the Database or a Setup issue will go our Maintenance Team, a sub-section of Development Dedicated to issues that may be Bugs.

Any specific settings that need to be carried over into live from your parallel will be added to your live environment as needed, to ensure that your transition in your live goes as smoothly as possible.

All of your custom settings will be brought forward, automatically, during the upgrade process.

You will be given approximately three weeks to complete your parallel checklist.  After that time, you will then need to request your Live Upgrade via the Support Center (https://support.avionte.com) on the ticket created to facilitate your parallel upgrade. Please attach your completed parallel checklist to the created ticket.

** DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR ISSUES ON THE PARALLEL CHECKLIST. SEPARATE TICKETS NEED TO BE CREATED TO RESOLVE ISSUES IN THE PARALLEL. IF YOU SUBMIT YOUR ISSUES IN THIS MANNER, YOU WILL BE TASKED WITH CREATING THE TICKETS. **

Completion of the Parallel and Upgrading your Live Environment

When you and your team have completed the parallel checklist, you will attach it to a comment on your upgrade ticket as proof that you have tested and signed off on the new version.

You will not need to close your account period before the night of the upgrade.  The upgrade will not impact this.

Our Upgrade Team will then complete the Live Upgrade on the Live Upgrade date on the ticket.

Any issues that are experienced in this time frame should be entered in the same manner as before during your parallel by logging into https://support.avionte.com, creating a new ticket, choosing the support issue Form and picking the Technical Support > Upgrades ticket type.

Again, when creating a ticket, please make sure to include as much detail as possible, including screenshots, steps to reproduce and intended results.  This ensures that the Upgrade Specialists will be able to resolve it as quickly as possible, and minimize phone tag or the request for more information for the ticket. 

Including the word “Upgrade” at the beginning of the subject will make sure that the ticket is directly assigned to the Upgrade Team for them review. 

For any immediate issues (e.g. Payroll or Billing related), please call into support at the support mainline number: (651) 328-6060