The Chris21 upgrade to version 7.08 should be performed before the end of financial year 2013. Ideally you will already have the software and are planning the upgrade to fit in with your resourcing.
It’s always best to try to get the Chris21 upgrade under way as early as possible so that
you have time to address any issues from testing and so that you have a stable system prior to your end of year processing.
This upgrade is quite big – by big I mean there are quite a few enhancements and fixes from previous versions. I am currently helping clients with their upgrades and can say that the release notes make for some quite heavy reading, there’s a lot to get through!
Some things to note:
- It should go without saying that you must upgrade your test environment and run test scripts. Make sure your test system has a recent copy of your Production DAT directory before upgrading;
- Consider archiving before you start. This will reduce the size of your database which in turn will speed up the upgrade process. See my blog “Chris21 Archiving – the Pros and Cons” for more information;
- If you use the database option I always recommend moving your database to the native Vision format before beginning the upgrade. You can back up your DAT directory and you have more control over the upgrade process. Move the database back to SQL or Oracle when the upgrade has been completed without errors;
- Make sure you run the Data Dictionary Changes Impact (DDI) and Data Functions (DBF) functions after upgrading;
- Even after running DDI and DBF you should still carefully check your customisations. Sometimes things will go wrong and this can mean overlapping data or customised fields disappearing. The way to do this properly is by visually checking the upgraded version against your Production environment, form by form;
- For Payroll, testing is vital. You should have test scripts but as a bare minimum you will want to run a payrun in the upgraded version and check the results.
- Don’t forget HR21. This will also need to be upgraded. Usually this is done as a fresh install so you will need to copy in any customisations, such as images and changes to stylesheets.
The release notes have further information regarding pre and post upgrade checklists.
Please feel free to contact me at tony.danher@systemlogic.com.au if you need help with your Chris21 upgrade. Or if you have a quick question, post a comment below.