Ad Astra releases new versions of Astra Schedule several times a year. Clients can request an upgrade of their instance by submitting a support ticket. The upgrade process has minimal risk and can be completed with approximately two hours of downtime.
How does my institution upgrade?
We have outlined the steps to upgrading your Astra Schedule instance.
- Request the upgrade by submitting a support ticket.
- Ad Astra Software support will coordinate with you a time for the upgrade (typically a 2-hour window starting between 7am-5pm CST)
- The requester of the support ticket (your institution) will need to notify your institution's end-users that Astra Schedule will be unavailable during the upgrade window.
- The Ad Astra Cloud team will initiate a full backup of the Client’s Data and Configuration files.
- The client’s site is upgraded to the latest version of Astra Schedule.
- The Ad Astra Cloud team verifies basic functionality, configuration, and import/export jobs and notifies the requester the upgrade is complete.
- The requester of the support ticket (your institution) will need to notify your institution's end-users that Astra Schedule has been upgraded and is now available.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to schedule an upgrade?
We recommend you submit your request to upgrade Astra Schedule at least two weeks prior to your preferred date to allow for scheduling and notifying your end-users.
Where can I view a list of the changes for each release?
Checkout out our New Releases section.
What happens if there are problems during the upgrade?
If the Ad Astra Cloud team detects any issues during the upgrade process a backup which was taken immediately before the upgrade is restored. This is extremely rare.
Can we upgrade a test instance first?
Upgrades from any version greater than 8.0 are simple and rarely cause issues, therefore we do not recommend creating a test site for the sole purpose of upgrade testing. However, if you have a persistent test site or an active temporary test site, we recommend upgrading both your production and test instances. You may choose to do them at separate times. If you do not have an active test site and desire to test the upgrade, itself, Ad Astra can accommodate.
Are there any impacts if our site is on an obsolete version of Astra Schedule, such as version 7.x?
Upgrades from version 7.x to the latest do have significant changes in both the internal data structure and the user interface. Ad Astra recommends clients upgrading from 7.x to the latest version first upgrade a test instance, do light User Acceptance Testing, and allow end-users to preview the subtle changes in the user interface. Learn about some of the advantages of upgrading from version 7.x.
Are there any impacts to LDAP or SSO integration?
There are no changes to authentication, however, clients may have additional options that have been recently added including SAML 2.0 and user creation via SSO.
Are there any disruptions in Import/Export jobs or report functionality?
Any Task Agent Jobs that were scheduled during the upgrade will start immediately after the upgrade. If your site is using the Astra Scheduled Report replication functionality, your Reports instance will be momentarily disconnected prior to the upgrade and re-enabled after the upgrade is complete.
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