Upgrade FAQ

Starting with version 20.15.01 (Winter 15), BMC Remedyforce has moved to the Hybrid Upgrade Model. This model provides the following options for upgrading your existing BMC Remedyforce environment to version 20.15.01:

• Automatic Upgrade: Wait for BMC to automatically upgrade your organization.
  For information about dates on which BMC will automatically upgrade all sandbox and production organizations that are on version 20.13.02 or later, see Release schedules. Because of the number of queued upgrades, BMC cannot provide a specific date and time for upgrading any organization.
• Self Upgrade: Perform the upgrade according to your own schedule and requirements.
  Based on your organization's needs and internal change control processes, you can perform a self upgrade at any time or on any day before the scheduled automatic upgrade by BMC. The self upgrade process provides you the highest level of flexibility and control of your upgrade, and requires no intervention from BMC. Please take note about Grayout dates so that your upgrade does not conflict with any other system or platform maintenance. For possible Grayout dates, see Release schedules.

Before your organization is upgraded to 20.15.01, you must review enhancements in the 20.15.01 release and understand the actions that you must perform after BMC upgrades your organization. For more information, see 20.15.01 enhancements and Configuring after manual or push upgrade.

System administrators can log on to each organization and navigate to Setup > Installed Packages. The version number is listed next to the BMC Remedyforce managed package. The following is a mapping of BMC Remedyforce version numbers to the more commonly known names:

If you do not self upgrade your organization prior to the scheduled dates for the automatic upgrade, BMC will automatically upgrade your organization. For more information, see Release schedules. However, if your organization is on version 20.13.01 and its patches or earlier, BMC cannot automatically upgrade your organization. In this case, you must self upgrade to version 20.15.01

In previous releases, you could self upgrade or request BMC to perform the upgrade at any time. However, from version 20.15.01 (Winter 15), BMC will perform the upgrade for you only during the specified dates for the Automatic upgrade option. If you have customizations or other special requirements, contact your Customer Success Manager.

If your organization is on version 20.13.02 or later, you can opt out of the Self upgrade option but not the Automatic upgrade option. Unless you self upgrade your organization prior to the scheduled dates for the automatic upgrade, BMC will automatically upgrade your organization. For more information, see Release schedules. If you have customizations or other special requirements, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Because production and sandbox organizations are separate environments, upgrading one will not impact the other. Also, the upgrade process is the same regardless of the type of organization. BMC recommends that you upgrade your sandbox organization prior to your production organization, although it is not mandatory. It is also not a requirement to have a sandbox organization. For additional information about sandbox organizations, see the Salesforce Help.

Prior to upgrading a sandbox organization, you must click the Remedyforce Administration tab and not navigate to any other page until the Remedyforce Administration page is loaded completely. The initial load might take several seconds. Sometimes when sandbox organizations are refreshed, the system administrator does not open the Remedyforce Administration tab, which causes an Out Of The Box missing notice during the upgrade.

Refreshing a sandbox organization is the equivalent of deleting the sandbox and making a new copy of your production organization.

If you self upgrade BMC Remedyforce on a sandbox but not your production organization and then refresh your sandbox, BMC Remedyforce on your sandbox will revert and will be running the same version of BMC Remedyforce as your production organization. If you wish for your sandbox to run the latest version, you will need to re-upgrade your sandbox by using the Self Upgrade or Automatic Upgrade options. Automatic Upgrade dates for sandbox organizations vs. production organizations are listed on the Release schedules page.

If you self upgrade BMC Remedyforce on both your sandbox and production organizations and then refresh your sandbox, your sandbox will remain upgraded because it will be running the same version of BMC Remedyforce as your production organization.

It is also important to note that depending on the type of sandbox you are refreshing, Salesforce limits how often they can be refreshed. For detailed information about sandbox functionality, see the Salesforce Help. 

If you choose the Self Upgrade option, you can upgrade any organization at any time as long as you upgrade before the Automatic Upgrade dates listed above. BMC recommends that you upgrade your sandbox organization prior to your production organization, although it is not mandatory.

For the Automatic Upgrade option, the organization types will be upgraded as defined in Release schedules.

You should not see any down time during the upgrade process. BMC recommends that you upgrade sandbox organizations before production organizations, especially if you use custom code, objects, or classes.

You must perform all the required post-upgrade actions, taking a special note of permission sets and profiles. For more information, see Configuring after self-upgrade or automatic upgrade. To perform additional steps to enable the new features in Winter 15 (20.15.01), see Enabling new features in 20.15.01.

 For information about the overall upgrade process, see Overview of the self-upgrade and automatic upgrade processes. 

Grayouts are defined as periods when BMC recommends not performing a Self Upgrade or making other major changes to a BMC Remedyforce environment. BMC will flag Grayouts based on available information, including Salesforce maintenance or other changes to the overall Salesforce, BMC Remedyforce, or BMC MyIT systems and platforms. You can still perform upgrades and changes during a Grayout if you need to. However, BMC recommends that you avoid doing so to avoid potential conflicts and to ease the troubleshooting procedure if an issue arises. Refer to the Release schedules for possible Grayout dates.