Preparing custom-coded applications for upgrade

Upgraded UI elements and third-party libraries in BMC Helix Innovation Suite releases might cause issues for custom-coded applications built on BMC Helix Innovation Studio. For example, when upgrading BMC Helix Innovation Suite from 25.1 to 25.2 version, applications might break due to Angular SDK changes. To prevent such issues, administrators can proactively stage updated custom application bundles in the QA and production environments for automatic deployment during upgrades. The staging mechanism helps prepare these bundles in advance, ensuring applications continue to work without downtime.

This capability does not apply to codeless applications.

Before you begin

Review the following important considerations and complete the following steps to prepare your custom-coded applications for the upgrade process:

On your development or sandbox environment

Upgrade BMC Helix Innovation Suite to version 25.2 in your development or sandbox environment.
Due to the upgrade, custom-coded applications might face issues. You must rebuild and fix these applications in the development environment by using the updated SDK for 25.2.
Identify all the custom-coded applications built with the older SDK.
Set up your development environment with the latest SDK (in this case, version 25.2) to rebuild your custom-coded applications.
Rebuild your custom applications by using the SDK version 25.2.
For more information, see
Thoroughly test the upgraded custom application in the development environment.
Create an install package of the custom application and keep the package ready to attach the custom-coded application bundle to the Bundle Staging record definition (Environment Configuration) in the QA or production environment.

On your QA or production environment

The version of BMC Helix Innovation Suite must be 25.1. If not, upgrade BMC Helix Innovation Suite to version 25.1.
Prepare the custom-coded application bundle for upgrade as explained in the following section To prepare the custom-coded application bundle for the upgrade.

To prepare the custom-coded application bundle for the upgrade

Attach only Install packages for upgrade.
Ensure that only the required bundles are staged and listed in the Bundle Staging form to prevent incorrect bundles from being picked up during the upgrade.

Perform the following steps in your QA or production environment:

Navigate to BMC Helix Innovation Studio > Workspace tab, and select Environment Configuration.
On the Environment Configuration UI, select Bundle Staging and click Edit data.
On the Data Editor UI, click New to add a new record definition.
Enter the following information:
- Bundle ID- Enter a unique ID for the bundle.
- Deployment Order- Specify the order in which the bundle should be picked up for deployment.
- Install Package- Attach the install package (bundle) you created by rebuilding your custom applications by using the SDK 25.2 version.
- Select the Status as Staged from the list.
- (Optional) Add important notes, if any, in the Notes field.
Click Save.

During the upgrade, the deployment pipeline performs the following tasks:

Reads the staged records.
Deploys the corresponding install packages.
Updates the status of the record as follows:
- Deployed – if the upgrade was successful.
- Error – if the upgrade failed. The pipeline logs the error but does not stop the platform upgrade.

To check the status of the deployed bundle

Perform the following steps in your QA or production environment to check the status of the upgrade:

Navigate to BMC Helix Innovation Studio > Workspace tab, and select Environment Configuration.
On the Environment Configuration UI, select Bundle Staging and click Edit data.
Select the record definition on the Data Editor UI and click Edit record.
Check the status of the deployment.
If the deployment failed with Status as Error, review the deployment logs to understand the issues.

The custom application upgrade might fail if the rebuilt application bundle has issues. However, the deployment pipeline logs the errors and continues upgrading the environment.
A rollback option is not supported for deployed bundles. To revert, you must manually deploy the previous version of the bundle.

Troubleshooting

If the bundle fails to deploy, review the deployment logs to identify the errors. Fix the issues in the bundle and deploy it manually.