11.1 Upgrade Guide

Summary

There are many benefits to keeping your current system upgraded. And, remember that upgrades are made easy with SaaS!

  • Get the latest and greatest to stay ahead of your competition

  • Improve the user experience and increase both productivity and efficiency

  • Stay current with releases for security and supportability

  • Support new business initiatives

  • Benefit from improved system performances

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 11.1 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.

For on-prem deployed systems, it is always recommended to use the latest released version of SPOT (regardless of the current STEP version in use). If upgrading via the --upgrade command, using the latest SPOT version is required.

Details

Improved SaaS migration performance

Release 11.1 introduces a cleanup process for transition log entries on products, entities, and classifications that are older than a configurable number of days, which defaults to 93 days. Old log entries, which are displayed on the State Log tab, are not immediately deleted on upgrade nor when subsequently changing the configuration. Instead, the removal of the old transition log entries is integrated into the mechanism that writes to the transition log. For performance reasons, old log entries are only removed when adding new entries to the transition log. Cleanup of old log entries improves system performance as well as the amount of time it takes to migrate an on-premises environment to SaaS. While the number of days is configurable, it is not advisable to increase the number of days, but instead to reduce it.

Additionally, multiple threads are now used to import collections, which can reduce the overall time for a SaaS migration.

For more information, refer to the General Enhancements and Changes release note for 11.1 here.

New deleted object handling and automated connection / concurrency error handling in event processors and integrations

All event processors (EPs) now handle events for an object in the recycle bin by skipping the event, which allows the system to continue processing after attempting to process an event for a deleted object. For EPs that run business actions ('Execute Business Action' and the 'Execute Business Action for Event Batch'), a new 'Skip Deleted Nodes' parameter is set to 'No' to continue current functionality, which may include handling for deleted objects via JavaScript. All other processor types automatically skip deleted objects.

Updates to handle connection errors are now available for both inbound and outbound integration endpoints (IEPs) as well as event processors (EPs) and concurrency error retries are available for EPs. These updates reduce the manual intervention required to restart processing and the time delays previously experienced after connection and concurrency error failures. For all new and existing EPs, connection error handling is enabled by default with a 30 day retry duration – this should be reviewed and updated with an appropriate retry duration to suit each EP.

For more information on additional changes, refer to the Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes release note for 11.1 here.

New automatic cleanup of IIEP files

At upgrade, older IIEP files are removed. Before upgrading, review IIEP files (those that were imported successfully or that failed to import) and determine if they should be kept after upgrade. To prevent deletion of older files, manually move the files to a new directory on the application server. Once upgraded to 11.1, IIEP import files are automatically deleted based on new parameters in the IIEP wizard. For more information, refer to the Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes release note for 11.1 here.

Upgrade of internal numeric fields

Internal numeric fields are upgraded in 11.1 to their 64-bit equivalents to provide more capacity for data and prevent unplanned downtime. The change will add some time to the upgrade, measured in minutes, which will vary based on the size of the database tables with affected fields.

Change in Web UI components for exporting empty values

In Web UI, the 'Export Empty Fields' parameter in Web UI Design Mode is now included for the Export Current View component and the Custom Export component configuration dialogs. By default, the parameter is disabled since exporting empty fields can increase the time for the background process to complete. As empty fields were previously exported automatically, admins should evaluate the configuration of these components to ensure the expected functionality after upgrade.

Derived events now display user-defined ID

Derived events now display the user-defined ID on an event queue list to improve testing and troubleshooting processes. The user-defined ID is also now exposed in SOAP API responses as the new 'eventTypeName' element. While the functionality of existing integrations using 'eventType' are unchanged, it is recommended to use 'eventTypeName' instead since it will not change between environments and is easily identifiable. For more information, refer to the General Enhancements and Changes release note for 11.1 here.

New Loqate Local data packages update process for SaaS and on-premise deployments

The update process for Loqate Local data packages has been greatly improved for both SaaS and on-premise deployments. Customers with SaaS deployments no longer need to do anything to update; their systems will update regularly. Customers with on-premise deployments should follow the steps laid out in the Loqate Local License & Data Pack Update topic in the Data Integration documentation here.

Loqate reference data packs must also be updated on a regular basis (regardless of deployment type), even when not upgrading to a new version of STEP. Loqate provides a quarterly release. This release will typically include updates to the Knowledge base (GKR) and often also reference data. Loqate’s release schedule can be found on their site: https://support.loqate.com/release-information/

For more information, refer to the Loqate Integration topic in the Data Integration documentation here.

Alert for missing JavaScript catch / rethrow

A new configuration healthcheck 'Javascript catch without rethrow' identifies JavaScript business rules that use a try-catch statement without a rethrow for exceptions. The absence of a rethrow can cause data inconsistencies since the database transaction is not rolled back as is expected when a core exception is thrown. In a future release, this type of business rule will not be allowed to run. With this healthcheck, exceptions that are not rethrown are no longer ignored, and instead are rethrown by the business rule framework. An administrator can use this healthcheck to proactively edit the identified business rules and add a rethrow for unhandled exceptions. For more information, refer to the General Enhancements and Changes release note for 11.1 here.

Support, platform, and system admin information

The following items are desupported or removed with the 11.1 release (or as indicated):

  • macOS Catalina (10.15) support ends with this release.

  • Support for the 9.2 version of STEP ended August 1, 2022.

  • Support for the 9.3 version of STEP ended November 1, 2022.

Note: Support for the 10.0 version ends May 1, 2023, and support for 10.1 ends December 1, 2023.

Platform and Software Support information can be found in the 11.1 Platform Support and Software Support section here. And, the latest changes included with this release can be found in Platform and Software Support Changes section of this release note set here.

Superseded, Withdrawn, and Deleted components

Some components are moving into a new stage within the component removal lifecycle with the 11.0 release. The purpose of these component status changes is to simplify the component list, minimize support on components that have an improved substitute, and to remove clutter and uncertainty as to which component(s) to use. For users, this means that after components are superseded, they are later withdrawn (also referred to as deprecated). Previously withdrawn components are now being removed (status = deleted). Alternate components have previously been announced, and it is very important for customers to make sure they are using those recommended components prior to upgrade.

  • The ECLASS Advanced Screen is superseded and will be withdrawn in a future release. Read about the new ECLASS Advanced Editor Screen in the Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes release note here.

Important: Prior to upgrade, customers should be aware of any maintenance patch updates that came out in earlier releases. The projects below were covered in the maintenance patch notes for 11.0, which can be accessed via the 11.0 Release section within the 11.0 Maintenance Patch Notes section of the documentation here.

New features incorporated via 11.0 maintenance patches*

  • ECLASS Import Message Updates (11.0-MP4 and 11.0-MP2)

  • PDX Onboarding for Accelerator for Retail and Supplier Onboarding (11.0-MP4)

  • New Uptime Report for SaaS Self-Service production systems (11.0-MP4)

  • New Online Help Home Page (11.0-MP2)

  • Enforce Validity for Add Action in Data Container (11.0-MP2)

  • No white space around Summary Card thumbnail image (11.0-MP2)

  • User to change their own password in Web UI without Maintain user password setup action (11.0-MP2)

  • SPOT logs are now available from the Admin Portal (11.0-MP2)

  • DaaS Publisher allows writing Last Published date / time to nodes (11.0-MP2)

  • Asset Publisher includes a new option for processing delete events to manage blob storage (11.0-MP1)

*11.0-MP3 was a hotfix only maintenance patch, and no new features were released.