Summary
System updates are your first line of defense against security threats while also boosting performance, ensuring compatibility, and unlocking exciting new features that add value to your digital experience. Regular updates not only protect your data and keep your system running smoothly, but they also give you access to innovative tools and capabilities that can enhance your productivity and user experience.
Important: Customer action may be required. Before updating to 2024.4 from an older version, customers should be aware of certain system changes. The list that follows may not be comprehensive; however, along with the full update note-set, it provides a starting point for update evaluation.
Details
Java version change
Java 21 is the latest available Long-Term Support (LTS) version and is required to run STEP (updating to 2024.4 will handle this automatically). It is an upgrade from Java 11 and provides better performance, enhanced security, greater scalability, and optimized memory management.
Impacted by this upgrade are base64 encoding and Gzipping. The strings for the same configuration element (e.g., business rule, event processor, integration endpoint, etc.) exported in STEPXML from a 2024.4 (or later) environment and from a pre-2024.4 environment will be different, leading to potential false positives when comparing files. Customers using features such as Impact Analysis for Change Packages could be impacted. Decoding and unzipping are backwards compatible, and configurations exported from older systems can be imported to updated environments.
Note: This change does not affect customizations in any way, and the same goes for any partner-driven extension to STEP. However, if you have built your own custom extensions with Extension API, refer to 2024.4 Update Notes for an unrelated issue that requires they be recompiled and redeployed in coordination with updating.
Address Normalizer renamed to 'Address Normalizer v1 (superseded)'
The Address Normalizer has been renamed to 'Address Normalizer v1 (superseded)' in the workbench. It remains available, but users of SaaS v2 systems are encouraged to transition to the new 'Address Normalizer v2' and the Machine Learning Matcher.
For details, refer to the Customer, Supplier, and Location MDM Enhancements topic in the 2024.4 updates notes and to the topic Data Element: Address Normalizer v2 in the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation.
Lock-Free Schema Change (LFSC) notification changes
As a result of backend changes to support various STEP environments, when a Lock-Free Schema Change (LFSC) encounters a lock, the current notification process has been slightly modified. Instead of displaying a detailed explanation, users will now see a pop-up with a process ID. To understand the specific reasons for an LFSC failure, customers will need to review the execution report.
STEPXML schema changes from 2024.3 to 2024.4
There are no changes to report.
Customer-focused transition: Final feature update and end-of-life notification for on-premises and other non-SaaS v2 environments
As part of our commitment to our customers' long-term success, we have made a strategic decision that we believe will benefit our entire customer community in the long term.
The 2024.4 update is the final update for on-premises systems and other non-SaaS v2 environments. Support of these deployments will continue until December 31, 2027. During this transition period, we will continue to provide security updates and critical fixes as needed. All subsequent feature updates will be exclusive to SaaS v2 customers.
Our focus remains on ensuring sustainable success for all our customers as we move forward on this SaaS journey together. Cloud-based SaaS v2 solutions have the benefits of new capabilities and continuous innovation—all while benefiting from predictable costs and scalable infrastructure.
Our goal is to support your long-term success by providing a platform that evolves with your business, and we want to ensure that your organization can experience these advantages as well. Impacted customers have been contact by Stibo Systems prior to this release, and any questions should be directed to the contact listed within those communications.
End-of-life schedule for currently supported STEP updates
Below is a table outlining the end-of-life schedule for the STEP updates shown:
|
Update |
Update Available to Customers |
EOL for on-prem and other non-SaaS v2 systems |
EOL for SaaS v2 systems not enrolled in continuous updates |
EOL for SaaS v2 systems enrolled in continuous updates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
11.0 |
June 8, 2022 |
June 8, 2025 |
June 8, 2025 |
N/A |
|
11.1 |
November 30, 2022 |
November 30, 2025 |
November 30, 2025 |
N/A |
|
11.2 |
June 7, 2023 |
March 7, 2026 |
March 7, 2026 |
N/A |
|
2023.3 |
September 27, 2023 |
September 30, 2024 |
September 30, 2024 |
N/A |
|
2023.4 |
December 13, 2023 |
June 13, 2026 |
June 13, 2026 |
N/A |
|
2024.1 |
March 27, 2024 |
March 31, 2025 |
March 31, 2025 |
September 30, 2024 |
|
2024.2 |
June 12, 2024 |
September 30, 2026 |
September 30, 2026 |
December 31, 2024 |
|
2024.3 |
September 16, 2024 |
September 30, 2025 |
September 30, 2025 |
March 31, 2025 |
|
2024.4 |
December 11, 2024 |
December 31, 2027 |
December 31, 2026 |
June 30, 2025 |
Refer to the updated STEP Update and End-of-Life Information topic in the System Update and Patch Notes section for more information about quarterly update target dates and support end dates for future updates. Additional Platform and Software Support information can be found in the Platform and Software Support Changes topic in the 2024.4 updates notes.
Customers should update as soon as possible to the latest version of the Stibo Systems Enterprise Platform (STEP). Contact Stibo Systems Support if you have questions and/or to receive help and guidance on how to update to a supported version.
Software errors reported for the versions shown above may be rejected after the listed effective dates. Application support issues in progress for the updates being desupported will be closed on the desupport date. It is not possible to extend the support services for desupported versions.
Deprecated e-Signature functionality
The e-Signature functionality is deprecated with this release. This functionality is currently not available for SaaS customers, and it will not be made available due to the deprecation.
e-Signature documentation has been updated.
Online help / documentation changes
With every update, documentation updates occur. In addition to online help that is updated as part of the projects listed in this update note set, users should be aware of the following documentation updates when updating to 2024.4:
-
A new Deprecations and Lifecycle Changes topic is available for users to easily identify what functionality and components have been deprecated, superseded, withdrawn, and deleted in the current update as well as post updates and future ones (as known).
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The STEP Update and End-of-Life Information has been updated to include 2024.4 information.
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Workbench images in documentation are being updated to show the restyled UI (from the 2024.1 update). This is an ongoing project that will continue over the next several updates.
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Documentation was updated to remove information about unsupported versions. For unsupported platform versions, this includes the removal of the update and maintenance patch notes, which are still accessible via the Stibo Systems Service Portal on the Update Information dashboard. Product MDM for Automotive 10.3 update and maintenance patch notes were also removed and can be provided upon request.
-
Videos for 2024.4 have been incorporated into the update notes and, if applicable, online help. If these videos, or any other videos in the documentation, do not play as expected, they are also accessible within the Communities. Most videos are also available in the Stibo Systems Service Portal.