X Dispatch Upgrade Guidelines and Best Practices
- Michelle Cabaya (Unlicensed)
This article will cover the general guidelines and best practices expected of performing an upgrade of your X Dispatch installation. As X Dispatch is a highly complex enterprise system that touches many aspects of the business, it is expected that great care be taken when performing upgrades to newer versions, as issues can come up depending on the individual configuration of X Dispatch. Please read over this guideline before performing an upgrade of X Dispatch, and ensure that you have read all the points of interest below.
Cloud Customers
If you are a cloud customer, there is no need to upgrade your database, as we perform the upgrades as soon as we have fully vetted a version of X Dispatch for deployment into our cloud environment, ensuring that you are getting the most reliable version of X Dispatch possible.
Reasons for Upgrade
There are many reasons why you may need to upgrade. Some reasons can be:
- You are upgrading your IT infrastructure and you want your server to be matched with the latest X Dispatch version.
- You have integrations that require the usage of X Stream, which requires at least version 11 of X Dispatch.
- You need to utilize a function that is only built into a later version of X Dispatch from what you currently have.
Any of these cases (except the first) are more than valid reasons for upgrading. The first reason is subjective, and you should analyze if you will gain any performance benefits from any of the newest features.
Minimum Requirements
New major versions of X Dispatch (i.e. going from version 11 to version 13) have expected changes in hardware requirements, and you should examine whether your server hardware meet the current requirements of X Dispatch. You can examine the articles below to find out the minimum requirements as well as read up on our server benchmarking guidelines.
Database Backups
Before ANY upgrade occurs, ensure that you have a fully working backup of your X Dispatch and X Dispatch Archive databases (typically “cxtData” and “cxtArchiveData” respectively). It is preferable that a FULL backup be taken of your database, using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. You can read this article from Microsoft discussing taking a database backup through SSMS here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187510.aspx
X Dispatch also has a built-in database backup function, but this backup runs on a schedule, and it is strongly advised to create a full backup right before upgrading your installation of X Dispatch.
Using a Test Server to Test Your Upgrade
For large deployments that involve integrations, testing your X Dispatch installation and upgrade in a separate but similar environment is highly recommended. This is to confirm both that your database will upgrade cleanly, as well as ensure that all the processes your business engages in will run smoothly and without issue.
When creating a test environment, you should have it emulate your current environment as closely as possible, including Windows Server configuration, same version of X Dispatch (which you will upgrade from, as part of your test) and same file structure setup for your databases and imports. This should also include all your XINI and XASN files for your integrations, as well as copies of your import files for testing.
You should copy your cxtData and cxtArchiveData databases over to your test server, restore them there, and then install the current version of X Dispatch onto your server (while deselecting the option to upgrade the database during the installation of X Dispatch). You can reference this article for installing a fresh copy of X Dispatch and all the requisite Windows Server configuration: X Dispatch Server Installation (Server 2012r2)
Confirm your databases and copy of X Dispatch are working without issue first by running through some of your typical business processes, such as entering in an order or posting routes for the day. Then, perform the upgrade to the desired version of X Dispatch, making sure to ALSO perform updates to the database by ensuring the option is enabled during installation.
Once the installation is complete, you can confirm if there were any errors by examining the update.txt file in the X Dispatch installation directory, which is by default located in C:Program Files (x86)Connexion. If you see any errors in the update log, you should investigate them to see if the function that the error was related to will not function properly. Please note that some errors are merely duplication errors, which is not unusual for upgrades to databases. The database update script is made to cover versions all the way from version 6 up, so there will be a lot of attempts to perform functions that are not necessary, and these will not run in the event that it already sees the necessary item there.
Once the upgrade is in place, you should run through all the necessary processes to see if everything functions as expected:
- Enter a new order into the system
- Create an invoice and preview the invoice results
- Post routes for the day and examine the route manifest of those routes
- Enter in a new customer
- Do a test import of your integrations by taking one of your already processed files and check to see if imports without issue and creates the appropriate orders/route stops
- If you have any advanced finds you run for reporting purposes, check to see if these run without issue as well
- If you are upgrading because you need to utilize a new function, test this function as well to see if it works as expected for your business
Assuming that these all function without issue, you should go ahead and schedule an upgrade of your system.
Perform Maintenance Before or After Upgrades
An upgrade can be a strenuous process on the database, with much of the information being reformatted to apply to a new database structure. To minimize performance issues that can result from an upgrade, you should perform regular maintenance on your databases prior to, and after the upgrade. The Advanced Find Service currently hosts an advanced find that performs regular maintenance on your database every Sunday at midnight and will keep your databases running in an optimal condition.
You can find this by going to the Find function, then click on the Advanced Find Service button (looks like a globe), then find the “CXT – X Dispatch Maintenance Plan” entry, then double-click it to download. Follow the prompts to download it, and it will eventually complete the download. At this point, you can then go into your list of Query Definitions, and find this advanced find in your Unassigned folder. Run the Maintenance Plan advanced find, and it will automatically install an X Stream definition to run our custom maintenance plan every Sunday at midnight from here on out. You do not need to take any further action from here on out, it is already set to run without further intervention.