10.3 Upgrade Guide

Summary

With the 10.3 new features and enhancements, the benefits of upgrading include:

  • An enhanced user experience and increased efficiency

  • Staying up to date on security and supportability

  • Utilizing expanded solutions to support new business initiatives

  • SaaS option available

Customer action may be required. Before upgrading the platform and its add-on components, there are certain system changes that customers need to be aware of when moving to 10.3 from an earlier version. The list that follows may not be comprehensive; however, along with the full release note set, it provides a starting point for upgrade evaluation.

It is always recommended and in case of --upgrade, required, to use the latest released version of SPOT (regardless of the STEP version you are on).

Details

SPOT upgrade and DSA keys support update

DSA is no longer supported for users taking SPOT version 7.79.0 and higher. STEP systems should discontinue using DSA keys, and can refer to the updated Cluster SSH Configuration that became available in the 10.3-MP2 documentation and for on-premise systems can be found in the System Administration Guide on the Downloadable Documentation.

Recompiling REST API extensions required

Customers need to recompile extensions for REST APIs using these libraries:

implementation  'javax.ws.rs:javax.ws.rs-api:2.1.1'

And, the import package definition must be changed to:

'Import-Package': 'com.stibo.*,javax.ws.rs; version="[2.1.1,2.2.0)",javax.ws.rs.core; version="[2.1.1,2.2.0)",javax.xml.bind.*,com.sun.xml.bind.v2'

Faceted search / Elasticsearch re-indexing required

Improvements to faceted search in 10.3 requires the re-indexing of data. This means that customers using Elasticsearch will need to delete indexes and republish all search data to Elasticsearch. Republishing is necessary to take advantage of continuous improvements to the publishing schema.

Additionally, if your system has the Elasticsearch.FeatureToggle.UserGroupPermissions property in the sharedconfig.properties file, remove the property prior to upgrading. It is no longer needed. Any online help that references this property will be updated with 10.3-MP1. Refer to the 'Support for supplier privileges' section of the Faceted Search Enhancements and Changes release note for details here.

Lionbridge service update for existing users

Lionbridge is scheduled to discontinue support for APIv1 in Q2 2022, and recommends existing customers contact their Lionbridge representative in order to access an APIv2 staging environment for testing purposes before using the new service on production systems. Refer to the Support for Lionbridge APIv2 section of the General Enhancements and Changes release note here.

Support, platform, and system admin information

The following items are desupported or removed with the 10.3 release:

  • Microsoft Windows-based servers are no longer an option for new customers and will be desupported for existing customers starting with the next feature release. Contact Stibo Systems to review your options for making the transition to a supported platform prior to upgrading to 10.3 (or later) release.

  • MacOS Servers are no longer valid server options for Asset Push File Servers.

  • Support for MS Windows Server 2016 has ended.

  • macOS-based STEP InDesign servers can no longer be used.

  • macOS 10.14 Mojave support has ended.

  • Office 2016 support has ended.

  • Adobe InDesign CC 2019 (Client and Server) is no longer supported by Adobe. While CC 2019 remains as an option within the STEP InDesign Plugins, it will be removed along with CC 2020 in the next feature release (Spring 2022).

  • Apache for the reverse proxy is not supported. Customers with Apache-related support issues, regardless of the STEP version they are on, will be asked to transition to the HAProxy-based solution.

Important: Support for the 9.1 version of STEP  ends on January 1, 2022.

Web UI-specific information

The following changes are described further in the Web UI Enhancements and Changes release note here:

  • The Locale Selector child component on the Login Screen is replaced by the Locale Global Representation configuration component. This new component will control which locales are available on the Web UI login page and the 'Select Locale' section of the 'User Settings' menu in the 'Global Navigation Panel.' For backward compatibility, users who have already configured the old Locale Selector child component on the Login Screen will still be able to use it as designed but are encouraged to use the new Locale Global Representation component. If both the old Locale Selector child component on the Login Screen and the new Locale Global Representation component are configured, the Locale Global Representation component will take precedence.

  • As reported in the 10.2 release notes, LibreOffice is no longer installed as part of STEP, and to use the Office Preview functionality, customers will need to do their own install of LibreOffice. Additional installation instructions regarding this change and a required property plus package installs have been documented for 10.3 and can be found in the Considerations and Limitations section of the Asset Previews in Web UI topic here.

Online help / documentation changes

In addition to documentation updates as part of 10.3 initiatives, the following changes have occurred:

  • New PDX documentation will available early in 2022. Refer to the Product Data Exchange (PDX) Enhancements release note for information here.

  • Within the Customer & Supplier MDM Solution Enablement documentation, updates have been made to the 'SAP S/4HANA Business Partner Data Structures' and the 'SAP Business Partner Integrations' sections. These updates will be included in the 10.3-MP1 release documentation. To receive this information prior to upgrading to the maintenance patch, contact Stibo Systems.

  • For on-premise systems, extensive updates were made to the System Administration section and can be found in the System Administration Guide on the Downloadable Documentation.

  • Dun & Bradstreet Integration materials were reorganized for better navigation here.

  • Match Actions materials for Match and Merge were reorganized within Matching, Linking and Merging for better navigation here.

  • Release information is available from within the Stibo Systems Service Portal and will be available via the Partner and Customer Communities in December. Before accessing the documentation in Stibo Systems Service Portal, clear your cache to ensure the system is accessing the latest materials.

Important: Prior to upgrade, customers should be aware of any updates made in prior releases in maintenance patches. For example, the items below were covered in the maintenance patch notes for 10.2.

New features incorporated via 10.2 maintenance patches

  • Online help includes Search Filters (10.2-MP3)

  • Improvement to Auto Map feature when importing industry standard attributes (10.2-MP2)

  • Identify and differentiate duplicate ETIM attributes within different ETIM versions (10.2-MP2)

  • New 'Clear Selection' parameter on Web UI Node List Assign Action (10.2-MP2)

  • Outbound Integration Endpoint cross context configuration change (10.2-MP1)

  • Configuration Management Git Delivery plugin change (10.2-MP1)

  • Improvements to the ECLASS Advanced screen (10.2-MP1)