Upgrade Your On-Premise Deltek PIM Solution on Your Own Timeframe

As you are likely aware, Deltek PIM is a robust software. As such, the upgrade process for those who are running the solution on their company servers (vs. hosting in the cloud) can be complex and risky, not to mention costly because of the need to engage with Deltek’s upgrade team.

However, we have introduced a new self-upgrade tool to help your teams perform the upgrades internally, saving you time and money. This will enable your business to take advantage of new features and functions within each release, no matter how many main releases or maintenance releases there are throughout the year.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell.

The Self Upgrade Process

The Deltek PIM Self Upgrade process follows a number of pre-defined steps, which must be completed in order. The process is designed to be started well before your actual upgrade to allow you to prepare and to mitigate any risks ahead of your upgrade. By starting early, there is ample time to solve any issue that arises whilst delivering a planned and seamless upgrade for your Deltek PIM users.

Planning

Begin planning your upgrade with plenty of time in hand. Decide who will be involved, outline the approximate timeline and consider any rippling effects. Involving key stakeholders and setting expectations early in the process will ensure that your upgrade is successful.

It’s also important to engage Deltek early on so they are at the ready should any issues arise during the self-upgrade process. Our goal is to help your team perform a successful upgrade.

Lastly, don’t forget to plan your post checks to ensure that your Deltek PIM system is working properly after the upgrade.

Downloading

Access the Deltek Software Manager (DSM) to download the latest version of the PIM deployment tools and install them on your live Deltek PIM web server to prepare for the upgrade process.

Checking System

Manual Checks

You’ll need to verify that the hardware used in your Deltek PIM environment meets the required minimum/recommended. You’ll also need examine the release notes for any additional checks needed to complete this particular upgrade.

Environmental Checks

The self-upgrade toolset will first scan your Deltek PIM environment (i.e., .NET version, Microsoft SQL Server version and DMS version in use), displaying results and feedback issues in the user interface (UI). Any issue detected must be resolved before the upgrade can run. Once issues are resolved, this step will need to be repeated to ensure the system is ready to continue to the next step.

Assessing

Database Assessment

This step will 1) validate your database can be upgraded to the latest version and 2) generate a sample database that represents the live database once the upgrade is complete. Any issues encountered during this step will result in a tool being displayed allowing you to enter remedial steps to resolve. The outcome of these remedial steps are held to be used in the final upgrade.

Interactive Site Assessment

This step will allow you to view a list of risks identified on your site that will cause issues during and post upgrade to allow you to select a mitigating action (i.e., database issues, configuration anomalies, nonstandard files in standard file structure, custom files that depend on standard functionality that has been deprecated). For each item identified, the toolset will make relevant suggestions to rectify the issue and will require you to confirm the action to be taken.

Upgrading

Once all previous steps have been successfully completed, you will be provided the option to carry out the upgrade. All dependent PIM services will be upgraded and restarted automatically after the main PIM website has been upgraded. After the upgrade, a page will be displayed to allow you to carry out required action to workflow modules.

Completed

Clean up tasks will be carried out once the upgrade is completed. The steps carried out include – but aren’t limited to – compressing the backups taken during the upgrade process, deleting the testing database mounted earlier, deleting the test database backup created earlier, compressing usage log information, finalizing the upgrade process and logging outcome steps and locations of compressed data for future reference.

Testing

Don’t forget to carry out post upgrade tests. Deltek can help you plan for this, but it is a much better experience for your users to have any issues found and addressed before they are handed the PIM site back.

Deltek is Here to Help

Engaging with Deltek is an important part of the process. This ensures that we can keep an eye out for any support requests, prioritize those accordingly to solve them faster.

To learn more about the self-upgrade feature, reach out to your Account Manager.

Help us Improve Deltek PIM

Deltek is always looking for customer feedback and strives to continually improve our products to better fit your needs. At Deltek Virtual Insight, we launched a series of customer experience surveys. Let your voice be heard! Sign up and we’ll contact you to participate in ongoing research opportunities including studies, surveys and more. Sign Me Up!