TARGIT Upgrade process - from any version to latest version

Note 1: This article is relevant to TARGIT customers with an on-premises TARGIT installation only. If you are running TARGIT Cloud, you don’t need to worry about upgrades as the cloud installation will always be running the latest version.

Note 2: If you are upgrading from a TARGIT version older than the TARGIT version 2017 Update 4, we strongly recommend that you contact TARGIT Support for advice or help on managing the upgrade process. TARGIT Support: Link

The simple upgrade

Upgrading TARGIT Decision Suite from one version to a newer version is in most cases a relatively simple process.

Basically, you only need to take these steps to upgrade a standard TARGIT installation:

1. Acquire the installation file for the new TARGIT version you want to upgrade to. This can be done from the Download Center in http://portal.targit.com.
2. As a precaution, make a backup of relevant folders. Typically, just the C:\ProgramData\TARGIT\ANTServer folder.
3. Run the installation file – using the ‘Upgrade’ option.

That’s it! This is what you need to do if upgrading from a relatively new version to the latest version.

For a slightly more detailed guide, see this article: Upgrade TARGIT to new version

The importance of frequent upgrades

We strongly recommend that you keep your TARGIT installation upgraded with the latest version as frequently as possible.

If you wait too long between upgrades, you may experience these negative effects:

• Your end-users will not be able to benefit from the latest features and performance improvements that will add even more value to your TARGIT solution.
• Your end-users will have to adapt to a range of potential new interfaces, new or changed functionality, new workflows, etc. It is easier for them to adapt to fewer changes that are introduced in more frequent upgrades.
• Your upgrade may not be a single upgrade process but may stretch over multiple versions that need to be installed as intermediate upgrades before getting to the newest version. Occasionally, the technology behind some TARGIT features becomes obsolete, and is being deprecated and replaced by new and better technology. When this happens, it may be required to install specific versions or to perform specific actions on specific versions before you can safely move on to later versions.

Stop-and-Go versions

While most TARGIT upgrades are a smooth process from one version to the next version, a few TARGIT versions have introduced radical changes to one or more components, making it a necessary stop-and-go point during an upgrade process.

Overview

The quick overview of Stop-and-Go versions, and what actions you need to take for each of those.

Find out which version you are currently upgrading from, and continue from the next available version in the list below:

• 2017 Update 4
  • Verify that you can open documents and that scheduled jobs are running.
• 2019 Update 6
  • Optional: Conversion/redesign older documents to fixed sized canvas.
• 2021 Update 3
  • Last version to support Classical reports (reports created before the 2019 version).
  • Convert Classical reports that you wish to keep to the new report format.
• 2022 Winter Update 2
  • Last version to support Obsolete documents (any other documents created before the 2019 version).
  • Open/save the documents you wish to keep.

The 2019 version – canvas and objects proportions

The 2019 version introduced a radical new way of designing dashboards and reports. Objects were now allowed to be sized and placed anywhere on a fixed canvas, even overlapping with each other if necessary. The fixed sized canvas, among other things, meant that previously scaling issues on different sized screens were now a thing of the past.

Dashboards and reports created in the older versions could still be opened in the 2019 version. However, dashboards and their objects might suddenly appear too big or too small or too cramped together because they now had to fit on the fixed size canvas. Directly converted, the old dashboards could have any random canvas sizes, based on the Designer’s screen size when it was created in the old version.

You can ensure a standardized canvas size, e.g., 1600 x 900 pixels of all your pre-2019 documents by specifying this in a settings file.

See this article: Automatic document conversion to fixed size - DocumentUpgrade.xml

After opening a pre-2019 document the first time, you should still check and potentially modify the objects’ proportions before saving it. Once saved, it will be saved in the 2019 format.

Coming from e.g., a 2017 Update 4 version, the 2019 Update 6 version is the version you should upgrade to since this is the last version that are able to open documents created before the 2019 version.

The 2021 Update 3 version – Classical Reports

This version is the last version to support reports that have been designed with the old reporting engine – i.e., reports created and saved in a pre-2019 version.

Until this point you have been able to open these so-called Classical Reports in the TARGIT client, and they have been able to run as scheduled jobs as well. But from the next TARGIT version, none of this will be possible anymore.

The conversion into the new reporting engine format is generally a manual process. However, there are several advises that should help you lighten the burden of this task:

• Check your list of active Scheduled Jobs. Are you actually using all of your Classical Reports? The most common use of reports is to set them up as scheduled jobs. You may significantly reduce the list of Classical Reports to be converted by looking at the list of active Scheduled jobs.
• In your TARGIT client’s Start page, set the filter to show only ‘Classic Report’. This will ensure that only the folders that contain the Classical Reports will be shown.
• If you have the TARGIT Insights module, you can check when a specific Classical Report was last opened – helping you to judge if a Classical Report needs to be converted or not.
• When doing the actual conversion, use these best practices:
  • Create or use a template for your new reports. The template should contain common elements such as page header with Title font and logo, page footer with page numbers etc.
  • Open the Classical Report in one tab and the new report (from template) in another tab. Copy/paste all data bearing objects from the old report to the new report. See this article: Copy data objects from "Classical reports" to the new TARGIT 2019 report formath
  • From the Criteria Editor, copy/paste all global criteria.
  • For Scheduled jobs, open the Scheduled job and replace the source document with the new report. See this article: Redirect scheduled job from Classical report to new report

Furthermore, see this article: Report conversion - from Classical reports to new report format

The 2022 Spring version – Data Discovery as an Application pool

While this is no huge task – it does not involve any kind of conversion – it is yet an important change in how Data Discovery / Data Service works.

Until this version, Data Service has been running as a Service among all other Services on the server hosting your IIS webserver (often the same server as your TARGIT Server). From this version however, it has been changed to run as an Application pool on the IIS. The Application pool should probably be set to run with the same account as the previous Service account.

See this article: Data Service as IIS Application pool

The 2022 Winter Update 2 version – Obsolete Documents

An Obsolete document is a document created and saved in a TARGIT version prior to the TARGIT 2019 version. The 2022 Winter Update 2 release is the last version where you can open documents of this type.

The conversion process is a simple manual process: Open the document and save it to ensure that you can still open it in later TARGIT versions.

From the 2022 Spring Update 3, the ‘Start’ page of the TARGIT Windows client contains a list of Obsolete documents – making it easier for you to identify those documents that still need to be converted.

See this article: Check for Obsolete documents

Note: If you have the TARGIT Insights module, you will also be able to get an overview of your documents by version. In addition, the Insights module can tell you when a document was last used – helping you to determine if a conversion is necessary.

Deprecations

To keep yourself updated about deprecations and potential actions you need to take when a new TARGIT version is released, we strongly recommend that you follow this article: Deprecations by version

By following it, you will get an automatic notification when important deprecations are imminent.

Client Updates

Normally, when you have upgraded your TARGIT Server, the end-users’ Windows client will be automatically updated at first login.

However, this automatic client update may have been actively disabled or does not work because the client is running in a Citrix or Remote Desktop environment. In that case, you may need to manually update the TARGIT Windows clients. See these articles:

• TARGIT Windows Client - Architecture and Installation
• TARGIT Installation - FAQ

The TARGIT Mobile App

End-users using the mobile TARGIT application on their smartphones or tablets should make sure they are running the correct version according to the version of the TARGIT Server.

Update by manually installing the correct version from the Apple’s App store or from the Google’s Play store.

Article on matching versions: Mobile App versions