Application Updates and Hotfixes

ivankoletic

Hi all

I'm interested in what is the most common method of applying MS delivered updates to partner/customer databases.
Do you strip the translation of the update first and then do a merge?
Do you use update as is (with translation) and do merge?

Appreciate any thoughts...

Thanks

Alex_Chow

If by translation you mean modifications, then:

Update as is (with translation) and do merge.

Always.

ivankoletic

So, irrespective of number of false positives you may get doing this (with translation) you'd still go and do merge with translation?

rhpnt

ivankoletic wrote:

So, irrespective of number of false positives you may get doing this (with translation) you'd still go and do merge with translation?

I'm not really sure what you mean by that but in general we trust MS that the delivered updates are an improvement compared to the objects in use.

Alex_Chow

If by false positve, you mean bugs.

Yes, we still do the merge and pray that there are no false positives released by Microsoft.

kine

I think he means:

remove language layers
export as text
merge
import
import language layers


to prevent conflicts on CaptionML lines...

In most cases, I am doing merge with language layers, because the hotfixes are small. But sometime I remove one language layer which is additional to objects, which I am merging. But sometime it could have side-effect that when soe caption was changed, I have wrong translation and it is not easy to notice that.

ivankoletic

Thanks kine. That's what I meant.

I'm asking this primary for regulatory update. These may have lots of objects (recent one we released for IT contained ~ 100 objects changed).
We're looking into how to make delivery of such large updates more convenient for partners, since partners will distribute and merge those in customers' databases.

Currently these are releasead with translation, so question is:
1. is the payoff big enough if we release update first and then we release translation - this would mean that code is available a week to 10 days earlier
2. we continue releasing updates with translation and release all on same date?

What do you think.

kine

For me it is better to have the code as early as possible, even without translations (only with ENU layer) and have the translation later, because it will give partners more time to prepare for it. Even now, when the updates are released "post mortem" - in time, when all partners already developed own solution, because they cannot wait for the standard update (which may be will be usable), because they need to send something to customers and communicate about it with them, prepare them, prepare processes, documentation etc.

ivankoletic

Thanks for the input kine.
Anyone else?

einsTeIn.NET

We only apply hotfixes if they fix an issue that concerns us. But since we've got different databases with different languages it would be to laborious to merge them based on ENU objects. So, most of the time we just copy&paste MS changes to our Objects, if possible. Otherwise we'll wait for the language specific hotfix.

mohana_cse06

We have customers who pay us based on hourly rate.
If MS release Objects once and translation once then the cost to customers will double to apply the objects once and translation once..

So You can consider this point also..

Alex_Chow

We only have 1 primary language here, so I would want to get the code first then release the language package later.

ivankoletic

mohana_cse06 wrote:

We have customers who pay us based on hourly rate.
If MS release Objects once and translation once then the cost to customers will double to apply the objects once and translation once..

So You can consider this point also..

Agree with your concern, but translation won't break code and it's a matter of clicking import translation and that's it.
On the other hand, if update is released on time, partner can wait for translation and then do the mergin to customer's db only once, thus not charging the customer twice.

ivankoletic

One more question comes to mind... remembering the times while working at partner company.

How do you organize maintenance from dev perspective for your customers?

Do you maintain your own version of local Cronus DB with your addons and customizations, a sort of "Partner's W1" database, and:
1. apply fixes / updates to "Partner's W1"
2. apply fixes to customers' databases

or do you have some other method of doing this?

kine

We areworking in similar way you described... "central" database, distributing the updates to different customer's DBs.

einsTeIn.NET

ivankoletic wrote:

On the other hand, if update is released on time, partner can wait for translation and then do the mergin to customer's db only once, thus not charging the customer twice.

From my point of view that depends on how important that update is for that customer. I mean if he had a real issue and his work is interupted by that bug then he surely wants to get the update as soon as possible.

einsTeIn.NET

ivankoletic wrote:

One more question comes to mind... remembering the times while working at partner company.

How do you organize maintenance from dev perspective for your customers?

Do you maintain your own version of local Cronus DB with your addons and customizations, a sort of "Partner's W1" database, and:
1. apply fixes / updates to "Partner's W1"
2. apply fixes to customers' databases

or do you have some other method of doing this?

No, same way. We have a development database which is from Object's point of view a copy of the customers database. Changes will be moved to test database on customer's site and (if approved) then moved to live database.