Testing, Testing, 1..2..3...

As announced during the ASI Discovery Day, ASI are now ending the Releases or Service packs which were being issued once a year, and instead, will start issuing more frequent updates every couple of months or so, each containing a few new features or fixes.

This is of course great news in terms of receiving faster enhancements to ProgressCRM; however, is your organisation ready for the implications?

As any seasoned I.T. chap will tell you, no matter how good a software house is at checking its new software changes, things always slip through the net. Even Microsoft has been known to quickly issue a new windows update to fix the problem they sent you the week before! Also if your system has been customised, then checking that any new enhancements don’t conflict with, your system specifically, is always a sensible idea.

So testing any new release in a test environment is crucial before unleashing a new version on your live data and users. With ProgressCRM this can be delightfully easy to do, all you need is a snapshot of your live system restored to the SQL Server under a different name, and a little configuration to give users access to this test system.

If you don’t already have the facility to test new releases, now is the time to get this in place, then you can enjoy the benefits of more frequent updates, without all those eggy-faces that can come with simply dropping a new version on your users.