5 Best Practices for Upgrading Sugar
As you may already know, we release updates for Sugar Sell, Serve, and Enterprise on a quarterly basis. The more frequent releases make it more important than ever to stay ahead of product updates so you can be prepared for upgrades. Here are five tips from SugarCRM to help you stay ahead of the four-yearly releases as a SugarCloud customer.
1. Stay in the Loop with Sugar Resources
First off, to make sure you stay in the know, make sure you continue to get updates on each quarterly releases by doing the three following things:
- Subscribe to our SugarCRM newsletter – our monthly newsletter always includes the latest releases from Sugar and recent SugarCRM news, new features of each new Sugar update, and more.
- Follow the Releases page in the SugarClub.
- Once you hear about a release, reach out to us. We offer private access to view releases about three weeks prior to a release and we can share some details with you.
2. Submit Upgrade Request with SugarCRM Support
Once a new release is out, get ready to submit an upgrade request with Sugar support. We provide the following guidelines for your upgrade request:
- Indicate your preferred upgrade date and time
- Submit your request within 30 days after the release announcement
- Include whether or not you would like to upgrade a sandbox
Here’s an example of the message to include in your request:
“Per the recent announcement on the community of the Summer ‘20 release being available, I would like to upgrade my Sugar cloud instance, [INSERT URL], to that release on [INSERT DATE] after [INSERT TIME, TIME ZONE]. Please also upgrade our sandbox, [INSERT URL], immediately so we can begin testing in the release. Thanks!”
3. Perform All Testing Before You Upgrade
We recommend you review the release notes for the new version to create a testing plan for your upgrade. You know your organization and its CRM usage better than anyone else – because of that, we recommend you test the following thoroughly:
- Integrations and connectors
- Advanced workflow and processes
- User experience flows and critical business processes
- Usage in each module
- Creating, saving, and updating records in Sugar
If you’re running Sugar in the SugarCloud environment, reach out to us to make sure your custom code is upgrade-ready.
4. Keep an Eye Out for That Upgrade Notification Email
Seven days prior to the upgrade, you’ll receive an email alerting you that your upgrade has been scheduled. It’s sent to Sugar admins and any other configured emails.
P.S. If you need to update your configured email addresses, you can do that here.
5. Consider the Sandbox Auto-Upgrade
You can submit a one-time support request to register your sandbox for auto-upgrade. This provides you with immediate access to each Sugar release and ensures you have ample time to test Sugar prior to a production upgrade.
Concluding Thoughts
There are many important reasons to stay upgraded – to get access to Sugar support, to be on a version that receives bug fixes, and to continually invest in the CRM and treat it as an ongoing project. Hopefully – this post gives you some ideas of how to make it easier to stay upgraded. If you have any questions about upgrading, reach out to us here.
