Current Release

During this phase of the release cycle, Pricefx recommends that customers have an understanding of the state of their current release and overall environment so they can begin the process of designing an upgrade path for the upcoming release.

While customers are in the Current Release state of their Pricefx implementation, it is important to start preparations for upgrading to the next major release. In order to be prepared, they will need to answer the following questions:

• Is my Pricefx solution deployed in a Shared or Private environment?

• What module capabilities are currently deployed?

• Will a pending new release contain capabilities advantageous to my deployment?

• Will pending new release features impact my currently deployed capabilities?

• What is the QA test plan for the current release? Does it need to be updated for the pending new release?

Managing Upgrades

While planning your release upgrades in your Private Environment, it is important to plan with the following Pricefx constraint in mind since there are some limits on DevOps team for performing these upgrades. Refer to these guidelines:

Upgrade Preparation

When a new release is announced, the customer should begin their preparations. As a best practice, Pricefx recommends that these steps be performed:

Selection of Testers and Scheduling Upgrade Testing

Selection of a cross-section of skills (business users, administrators, technical, etc) to fully test all aspects of the application against the identified upgrades to the Pricefx core application. Ensure that individuals selected can commit a percentage of their time to this process.

Scheduling Upgrade Testing

Ensure that all selected testers have allocated and reserved the appropriate amount of time for performing their specific upgrade testing. The amount of time to allocate to this task will be dependent upon the volume and complexity of their test use cases.

Upgrade System Accessibility

All of the testers will need access to the QA system where the upcoming upgrade has been deployed. Ensure that all access credentials have been defined and all testers are aware of the correct partition to be used for their upgrade testing.

Create Upgrade Test Cases

Prepare the complete set of test cases for upgrade testing. Each test case should follow a standard format and structure:

• Should be based on the customer’s business cases and should cover all scenarios from beginning to end.

• Should be based on the current functionality and version of Pricefx before the upgrade.

• Should contain a checklist of what needs to be verified and the expected results.

• Should determine the GoLive criteria for the test case.

• Should use proper data selection for testing to ensure testers have both positive and negative outcomes, and that they are testing for specific scenarios.