Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

2236.0. "One customer's upgrade saga" by GANTRY::HULL (Digital Services Delivery - Motown) Tue Feb 09 1993 14:54

Extracted from the DECUServe ALL-IN-1 notes.  DECUServe info is considered
public domain.  This is the real world. This is the kind of info I would
think is invaluable to Engineering.  I only hope this type of experience
isn't what most of our customers are going through...
	Al

               <<< EISNER::DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ALL-IN-1.NOTE;1 >>>
                                 -< ALL-IN-1 >-
================================================================================
Note 750.27                ALL-IN-1 V3.0 Installation                   27 of 27
EISNER::SIMON_C "Chris Simon - WHO 375.229"         116 lines   5-FEB-1993 11:27
                    -< V3.0 Upgrade Saga - Hallmark Cards >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The following is from Diana Wittenberg.  She's with Hallmark Cards in
    Kansas City.  Diana no longer has a DECUServe account, but I thought
    her upgrade story might be of interest to people here.


    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well here it is.  I have tried to document all the wierd things that
happened during my ALL-IN-1 v3.0 upgrade for those who might be interested.

Started the installation on January 15, 1993 at 11:52 p.m. (after backing
up all my disks, because I had to do the install in non-safety mode--not
enough disk space for safety).

We did an upgrade from 2.4 to 3.0, did not integrate Datatrieve, did
install WPS 4.1, did copy the EPS graphics, did not integrate ACMS, did
configure to use Message Router but no remote Message Router.  My DDS was
set to 2, no CDA support, no Group Conferencing, and ran IVP as part of
installation.  At 12:04 a.m. January 16 the install was ready to go do its
own thing.  The IVP started at 1:29 a.m. and the install was done at 1:38
a.m.  We came in at 8:00 on Saturday and started the manual post install
tasks.  Most of these went fine.  Did check all files before starting the
post install.

While running <do sfcp_migrate not all SFCP cabinets were migrated.  This
was caused by not having the cabinets under an A1 account. They were in a
VMS directory.  Those under the A1 account migrated fine.  Those in the VMS
directory had to be backed up to the A1 account and then we had to do (from
Mgr account) <get #oafc_seed_user = "username".  All SFCPs were now
converted and worked fine.  The SFCP.log and the OAFC$PART_SEED.LOG did
give me information that there were errors converting the SFCPs and what
ones weren't converted.  There were still some references to SFCP in CM
forms that had to be changed as they were causing errors.

Manager could not find CM or SM.  We had to add CM to managers form
library.

Could not come up in ALL-IN-1 with new MAIN screen--only saw old one.  Paul
Morabito (CSC) worked several hours in CM and other areas (VMS level) that I
don't know about to fix this (I have requested he fax or send me something
that would at least give me an idea what he did).  He got help from Ian
Gunn both Saturday and Sunday.  Part of this was also adding the language
ENGLISH to the <form profil of all users.  Even after MAIN and MAIN2 were
current versions, we could not bring up 20/20 under A1.  The system hung on
Monday morning and had to be rebooted.  The system would not start A1
because it couldn't find the file A1v30start.com.  It was redirected and
the system started okay.  Then 20/20 could be accessed but had errors as
described below.  If you have a A1site_start.com file it probably has a
reference to SFCP.  Make sure to either delete or comment out the
reference.

Users were experienceing problems using the SOM function with mail.  I am
still working on this with CSC as I have to install 3.2 Message Router.
Page 4.2 of the v3.0 Base Installation manual says Message Router 3.1 is
the prerequisite, but CSC says the engineers will only support 3.2.  I am
planning on upgrading this Saturday.

There are some funky things within e-mail that worked one way with 2.4 and
work another way with 3.0.  While reading a message, P now prints the
document but puts you back at the mail menu--does not leave you in the
message; FA files the attachment but does not give you a message back that
says it has been filed.  This has been referred to the engineers.

We purchased new Kyocera FS-1500 PostScript printers with 39 extra scalable
fonts--our users think we didn't have enough fonts before (we had 86).
When users would send a flag page to the printer, the document would go in
to Never Never Land.  The problem seems to be sending ASCII data at the
printer when it is expecting PostScript data at the VMS level.  CSC uses a
software package that converts this ASCII text to PS so they can use
headers.  CSC is researching a way to include a setup module between pages
to convert from ASCII to PS (/page=setup).  This will cause printing to be
slower.

Also couldn't find the CO option to change the flag page to N permanently
(or at least until you want to change it back to Y).  Finally went into US
PO (which was the 2.4 way) and was able to do this.  CSC says you should be
able to do this from the Gold E and SS.

We have document quota enabled. v2.4 would lock the user out before sending
the message that they were going over quota and they would have to delete
documents and then recount them and they were able to work (the you are
going over quota message would be in their INBOX).  This feature now works
with v3.0.  Users are receiving the Going over Quota message after CHECK
DOCUMENT QUOTA housekeeping procedure is run.  They can now go in and
delete messages before they are locked out of their accounts.

If you are using 20/20 under A1 and the File Cabinet Server is not running,
you will get error messages when trying to edit new documents "goes
immediately to a /Store Read and says this document could not be reserved".
Just start the File Cabinet Server and this problem is resolved.

While editing 20/20 documents we would receive the following message:

%DCL-W-INSFPRM, missing command parameters - supply all required parameters
Problem accessing GKS drivers

CSC requested I do a A1UPDATE.COM again.  This did not solve the problem.
Had to escalate to 20/20.  It seems I had 2 GKS files.  Had to delete
ATI_BOOT:S20GKSV0330_BOOT.COM and rerun ATI_COM:DO_BOOT.  Everything worked
fine after that.  The POST print tables seem to work fine with the Kyocera
printers also.

We created a Cheat Sheet for users to let them know important 4 or 5 items
to function properly with new version on Monday morning.  The major one was
they had to use Laserjet on PS as print style when printing instead of old
KYOCERA or TESTING.  Received numerous calls of Background Formatter errors
because people did not read this Cheat Sheet.  It was taped to their
screens so they had to remove it to read their screens.  We all know how
users are.

Except for some major printing problems with the new printers as described
above, the upgrade went well.  Got to go home at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Hope this helps others who are going to upgrade sometime.  Talk to you all
later.

[end]

This doesn't sound so disastrous to me.

Most of the problems just involved sorting out their customisations, and
integrated products.

Then there's the expected unfamiliarity with new features.  I don't understand
the printing problems, as WPS+ will happily format ASCII to PS for them.

Then there are a few minor problems which we already know about.

But then I'm just a starry-eyed optimist :-)

Scott

    Al,
    
    Yes Diana is well known here at the CSC!! Paul has unfortunately been
    sent to Philadelphia for 6 weeks so if Diana is still waiting for
    some information please ask her to call in and someone else will talk to
    her.
    
    There's always a problem with offering opinions about how successful
    or not a particular upgrade was the question in my mind is always 
    could anything else have been done in the code to have made it a less
    harrowing experience and in Diana's case I honestly think the answer is
    *NO*. I know people in the CSC aren't supposed to say that the customer
    is wrong but I agree with Scott (and I have the added benefit of reading the
    work-units from her call).
    
    Most of Diana's problems were self-induced like not running and taking
    care of what the CART told her.
    
    Her all night call with Paul and the legendary Iain Voller (not Ian
    Gunn - why would you call a MAILBus Product Manager ???) was caused
    by missing CM logicals, customised TXl scripts (MICA?) basically
    nothing she shouldn't have taken care of before she started.
    
    Her SFCP problems were caused by the absence of the LANGUAGE field
    this is unfortunately a "Known problem" that wasn't included in
    the release notes.
    
    Her SOM problems are down to DECnet - hey Vid's DDS code can't do
    anything if it can't get a DECnet link.
    
    There are about 20 calls from Diana on this upgrade so I won't bore 
    you with all the details...
    
    But if the customer says it was a harrowing experience then
    unfortunately since they are the customer then they are supposed to be
    right.
    
    Regards,
    
    Andrew.D.Wicks

    Scott,
    
    � This doesn't sound so disastrous to me.
    
    Pretty disastrous to Digital AND the customer though ...
    
    The customer experienced what they considered to be MAJOR aggravation
    in upgrading from one version to another. Their management and users
    were not impressed with the time this process took. The confidence in
    our products was shaken.
    
    Digital suffered because 2 very experienced ALL-IN-1 support
    specialists had to spend the best part of a weekend fixing the
    problems. This meant that they were unavailable to support other
    customers and specialists and that significant extra support costs were
    incurred.
    
    I think it's imperative that we continue to improve the installation
    procedures in order that we can offer the best in class service to
    those who pay our salaries. I think ALL-IN-1 V3.0 was a major
    improvement over some previous releases but we can still do better.
    
    Cheers,
    
    Iain.

> Also couldn't find the CO option to change the flag page to N permanently
> (or at least until you want to change it back to Y).  Finally went into US
> PO (which was the 2.4 way) and was able to do this.  CSC says you should be
> able to do this from the Gold E and SS.

If the CSC did tell the customer the above then the customer was given 
wrong information.  There is no SS option in the Gold Expand menus for 
changing Printing settings.


Richard

I didn't say it was disastrous, I just stated that I hope that most
customers had an easier time than she did.  ALL-IN-1 is incredibly complex
no matter how you cut it.  I agree we've done a great job making V3.0 far
better than any pervious version, but there's always room for improvement,
and better QC testing to find upgrade bugs, etc.  I posted the note for
educational purposes so we could get a real-world perspective of a
less-than-stellar result, whomever is to blame.

I've been through them all since V1.1.

	Al

    
    	My summary would be: Pretty good upgrade, to do better we should
    	do more testing to find upgrade bugs and put more focus on
    	integrated products (which the user sees as part of ALL-IN-1).
    
    	Maybe the upgrade procedure should refuse to run until the CART
    	has been run...but then again we can't force them to read it!
    
    Regards,
    Paul

Hi,

> Manager could not find CM or SM.  We had to add CM to managers form
> library.
> 
> Could not come up in ALL-IN-1 with new MAIN screen--only saw old one.  

Must have been an old DEFAULT.FRM (and MAIN.FRM). 

Both CM and SM start a DO Script and open the right form libraries if you have
access to these sub-systems. The old DEFAULT.FRM just calls forms CM1 and SM
which don't exist any longer.

Ciao,

	Simon

    RE .7
    
    Exactly why the CART has DEFAULT.FRM marked as a mandatory change.
    
    RE .6
    
    We agonised about making the CART mandatory for a long time. I knew
    that people complained when we made the PIT mandatory in V2.3, so in
    the end we (Probably me, I don't mind taking the blame :-) ) decided
    not to make it compulsory, in order to simplify things for those sites
    with few or no customisations, who were most likely to get confused. I
    guess I was wrong (again!)....
    
    Graham

    
    Graham,
    
    > (Probably me, I don't mind taking the blame :-) )
    
    Don't worry, a number of other people agreed with this...
    
    Ciao,
    
    	Simon

And even if the CART were mandatory, we couldn't stop people throwing the CART
report in the bin and carrying on regardless.

It's up to the individual to follow the advice given them in the Installation
Guide!

Scott