I have put together what I call our Automatic Upgrade Database that I use to keep our extensive customers databases up-to-date. In the past we tried to keep our customer up-to-date by distributing the dbs and instructions on how to do a design refresh/replace on each db. It was too difficult for our users to stay up-to-date and we were getting too many redundant support issues on bugs that were already fixed. Support was doing most of the updating since customers couldn’t follow what seemed to us simple instructions. ![]()
Over the course of a year and a half myself and another developer put this process together. A Notes db is populated with the updated software, then distributed to our customers. From there they simply download an .exe which launches this notes db. The splash page prompts them for a few key pieces of information, and then they run the upgrade. A few minutes later their environments are up-to-date on the current release.
If anyone is interested in this process/db/instructions, please let me know. It will take a little modification on your part to fit your own dbs and needs into it, but not too much. In any case, you are welcome to it if you think it may help your customers stay up-to-date on your software. Ours have loved it. They can’t imagine going back to the old way of doing things.
Just e-mail me at skylab@xmission.com if you want me to send you the url location of the zip file.
Enjoy!
Tim Williams