The purpose of this article is to introduce the CitiXsys iVend Partner community to an overview of the recommended steps to be followed while upgrading the iVend Retail applications in accordance with best practices.
The recommended steps specified below will be applicable in either event of a manual or automatic upgrade of iVend:
1. Check if the proposed post-upgrade application landscape is supported by iVend.
The post upgrade iVend application version should be compatible with the post upgrade version of other applications with which iVend is integrated to. For example, in the scenario of iVend Retail being integrated with an ERP such as SAP Business One, then you may refer to the document: iVend SAP Compatibility. In this document you will find details on the combinations of iVend, SAP Business One and the SQL application versions that are compatible with each other.
2. Once the technical landscape has been validated then you may proceed with the upgrade project. For further details on the recommended phases and steps in an upgrade project, please refer to the separate document: Upgrade Project Plan for iVend POS version 1.0.
3. The following represents the major phases in an iVend upgrade project:
a. Check the prerequisites such as the list of applications and Add-ons, Licenses, Infrastructure, System accessibility, etc.
b. Finalize User Acceptance Testing (UAT) cases as per the client’s business processes. These cases should be a reflection of the client’s current business processes and should be approved by them.
c. Prepare the UAT environment. This environment should be a replica of the client’s production environment.
d. Upgrade iVend in the UAT environment as per the proposed production landscape and execute the aforementioned test cases. The main purpose of this activity is to ensure that all retail business processes are checked in the test environment first to help circumvent the possibility of any unforeseen issues and problems before the upgrade is committed to the production environment.
e. Once, the UAT is signed-off, then proceeds with the production environment upgrade during non-operational hours. Before the upgrade, please ensure that all relevant full back-ups of iVend and supporting, integrated and inter-relational applications are done, so that the system can be fully restored and reverted back to its original pre-upgrade version in the event of a failure.
4. After Go-Live and before handing over the production system to end users, it is recommended that a test execution of one or more transactions, processes and activities are performed to ensure the smooth operation of the application for all standard features, functions, peripherals and integration to other applications.
5. If everything goes well, then the system can be handed over to end users to proceed with normal business processes on the newly upgraded production environment.