ProjectWise Upgrade Planning - Part 2
In last month’s article, we discussed some of the preliminary steps you need to take in order to ensure a smooth upgrade to a new version of ProjectWise. This month, we will cover a few additional items which you should take into account when planning your ProjectWise upgrade.
Application Compatibility– You will need to verify that your desktop applications are compatible with the version of ProjectWise that you are upgrading to. The readme file that is delivered with ProjectWise contains a list of compatible applications, and Bentley also provides a more comprehensive listing which you can find by searching for ProjectWise Application Compatibility Matrix on the Be Communities website. Also, any customizations that you have made to ProjectWise using the ProjectWise Software Development Kit will need to be tested for compatibility with the new version of ProjectWise.
Database Upgrade- One of the key steps in a ProjectWise upgrade is the use of the DMSCONV utility to upgrade your ProjectWise database. This tool is executed from the command line to update the database tables to be compatible with the new version of ProjectWise. In our experience, this is the step where you are most likely to encounter errors, so it is strongly recommended that you first perform this step in a test environment on a backup copy of your database. If the DMSCONV process fails for some reason, you will not be able to run it again on the same database, so having a backup of your database is especially important during this step. The ProjectWise Implementation Guide which is included in the ProjectWise Server installation package contains specific instructions on using the DMSCONV utility.
Testing– The testing of your ProjectWise upgrade should not end after running the DMSCONV utility. Instead, it should include functional testing of all aspects of your ProjectWise environment including both server and client software installations. A virtual machine environment is ideal for implementing a test ProjectWise environment that needs to be isolated from your production systems.
When it comes time to do the upgrade on your production system, make sure your plan accounts for the amount of time required to perform all of the server and client upgrades along with running the DMSCONV utility against your database. Any good upgrade plan should include a full documentation and backup of your current system configuration and also should include a contingency plan to rollback the upgrade should a failure occur at any point.