Updating an Existing e-Business Site

Madhuri Dange

April 19, 2024 07:35

Use these install instructions if you want to apply e-Business updates to an existing e-Business site.

Desired Release	Releases that can update to the desired release
e-Business 5.5.3	5.0 SP2, SP3, 5.5, 5.5.1, or 5.5.2
e-Business 5.5.2	5.0 SP2, SP3, 5.5, or 5.5.1
e-Business 5.5.1	5.0 SP2, SP3, or 5.5
e-Business 5.5	5.0 SP2, or SP3

If you want to apply e-Business 5.5.x updates to an existing e-Business 5.0 or 5.0 Service Pack 1 site, you must first upgrade your e-Business site to e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 2.

Aptify strongly recommends that you install and test any service pack on a non-production server environment prior to updating a production server. You should also create backup copies of all production databases and your e-Business website prior to running a service pack setup program on a production system so you can restore the previous version if needed.

Identifying Which Version of e-Business Is Installed

This topic describes how to identify which version of e-Business schema you have installed on your Aptify database. Because hotfixes and Aptify service packs can modify the version of specific DLLs, it is not always clear what version of e-Business currently resides on the server.

Review the information below to help you determine what version is installed.

e-Business 5.5.3: You have e-Business 5.5.3 installed already if your system has the eBusiness553Installed text file in the Object Repository's EWA package. This file is added to the repository by the e-Business 5.5.3 installers.
e-Business 5.5.2: You have e-Business 5.5.2 installed already if your system has the eBusiness552Installed text file in the Object Repository's EWA package. This file is added to the repository by the e-Business 5.5.2 installers.
e-Business 5.5.1: You have e-Business 5.5.1 installed already if your system has the eBiz551Installed text file in the Object Repository's EWA package. This file is added to the repository by the e-Business 5.5.1 installers.
e-Business 5.5: You have e-Business 5.5 installed if you do not have the eBiz551Installed text file but your system has the PersonSocialNetworkMismatches entity.
e-Business 5.0 SP3: You have the Person External Accounts entity but not the PersonSocialNetworkMismatches entity. Your version of the AptifyCMSIntegration object in the CMS integration package should be 5.0.3.x. If not, please contact Aptify Technical Support for assistance.
e-Business 5.0 SP2 or earlier: You do not have the Person External Accounts entity. Your version of the AptifyCMSIntegration object in the CMS integration package should be 5.0.0.3 and the version of EBusinessGlobal in the EWA package should be 5.0.2.0. If not, please contact Aptify Technical Support for assistance identifying your specific version and upgrade path.

Step 1 - Creating a Backup of the e-Business Site and Aptify Database

Create a copy of your e-Business website's files so you have a reference version of the site before installing the e-Business update. You will want to have this handy to refer to during the update process. All changes described below will be made to the original directories, not a copy.
- You may also decide to run the update process against a test site and then manually apply page updates from the test site to your production site as necessary (this method will further prevent the process from overwriting any changes you made to core Aptify Sample Site files during installation).
Using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, back up the APTIFY database before continuing. Also, if you are using a CMS that has its own database, back up that database as well.

Step 2 - Running the e-Business Upgrade Utility

Download the installation ZIP file for the desired release to a folder on the computer and unzip its contents.
- e-Business 5.5.3: APTIFY_553_eBiz_UPDATE_Revised.zip
- e-Business 5.5.2: APTIFY_552_eBiz_UPDATE.zip
- e-Business 5.5.1: APTIFY_551_eBiz_UPDATE.zip
- e-Business 5.5: APTIFY_550_eBiz_UPDATE.zip
- Run the installation program locally on the computer; do not run it over the network.
Browse to the location of the installation files and right-click on the Setup application (look for the Setup file with the Aptify "A" icon). Select Run as Administrator to launch the installation program.
- The Run as Administrator option bypasses the server's User Access Control (UAC) for the duration of the installation.
When prompted, enter login information for the database server, specifying an account with system administrator privileges (such as sa).
- If you are logging in as a trusted user based on Windows credentials, select Use Windows Integrated Security.
- If you are logging in as an untrusted user using SQL server security, select Specify a User Name and Password.
Click OK to continue.

Review the information on the Welcome screen and click Next to continue.

The database server must have the supported Aptify version installed prior to installing e-Business. The installer will check the database's version, and you will be unable to proceed with the installation unless Aptify meets this requirement. The following table identifies the supported version of Aptify for the e-Business releases:

e-Business Release	Requires this Aptify Release
e-Business 5.5.3	Aptify 5.5.3
e-Business 5.5.2	Aptify 5.5.1 or Aptify 5.5.2
e-Business 5.5.1	Aptify 5.5.1
e-Business 5.5	Aptify 5.5

Review the set of requirements to install e-Business. If your environment does not meet one or more of the specified requirements, click Cancel to abort the installation. Otherwise, click Next to continue.
- See e-Business Server Requirements and Specifying an e-Business Server User Account for more information on the e-Business requirements.
Click Next to continue.
If you want to deploy the Web Menus records for the Company Administrator feature added in e-Business 5.5.1, select the Include Company Admin Web Menu option.
- This option is only applicable if upgrading from a version earlier than 5.5.1. If you are upgrading from e-Business 5.5.1 to 5.5.2, then selecting this box has no impact on the upgrade process.
- Select this option if you are you upgrading from a version earlier than 5.5.1 and are planning to install an e-Business 5.5.2 sample site to review the latest functionality. It will create Web Menu records that correspond to the Manage My Group top level menu and its sub-menus. For a production upgrade, you should not select this option unless you intend to deploy the Company Administrator feature on your site and you want these Web Menus available.
Click Finish to update the Aptify e-Business components and database schema to the desired version. Note that the installer applies updates for all releases that came after your current version up to the desired version. For example, if running e-Business 5.0 SP2, and you want to upgrade to 5.5.3, the installer applies updates for Service Pack 3, 5.5, 5.5.1, 5.5.2, and 5.5.3.

Step 3 - Updating the e-Business Site

Copy all of the files from the Web Site Updates\50CompiledComponents directory to the corresponding bin folder in your e-Business site (for example, if the e-Business site is installed in the default location, the location would be C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ebusiness).
- This will replace several Aptify and third party .dll files. Be sure to copy all of the files in this step and then run the Object Repository Synchronizer as described in Step 6 - Streamlining the Website's Bin Folder and Running the Synchronizer.
Review the set of new and updated User Controls in the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\UserControls\<release> directory.
- Controls updated in e‐Business 5.5.3 are included in the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\UserControls\5.5.3 directory.
- Controls updated in e‐Business 5.5.2 are included in the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\UserControls\5.5.2 directory.
- Controls updated in e‐Business 5.5.1 are included in the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\UserControls\5.5.1 directory.
- Controls updated in e‐Business 5.5 are included in the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\UserControls\5.5 directory.
- For new controls, you can copy those directly to your site's UserControls folder if you want to leverage that functionality.
- For updated controls that you have not modified from the previous Aptify version, then you can replace that existing control with the new version.
- For updated controls that you have previously modified, then you should not overwrite your existing control. Instead, you should use a diff tool to compare how your version is different from the baseline Aptify control and modify the new control with your changes or modify the existing control with the latest changes, as necessary.
Certain User Controls in e-Business reference a set of new images. Copy the files from the Web Site Updates\eBusiness\Images directory to the corresponding Images folder on your website (for example, if the e-Business site is installed in the default location, the location would be C:\inetpub\wwwroot\EBusiness\Images).
- Within a sample site's Aptify_UC_Navigation.config, many entries reference the images included in this directory. As an alternative to copying all of the images to your site, you can review and modify your site's Aptify_UC_Navigation.config to specify your own images as needed or you can leverage one or more of the images provided in the update distribution package.

Step 4 - Updating the Aptify_UC_Navigation Config File

To take advantage of the new features included with the new version of e-Business, several changes are required to the e-Business site's Aptify_UC_Navigation config file.

Browse to the Web Site Updates\Aptify Navigation File folder and open the readme.txt file.
- The Aptify Navigation folder contains the current e-Business version of the Aptify_UC_Navigation.config file. The readme.txt file provides an overview of what has changed in the navigation file since Service Pack 2.

Review the content of the readme.txt file and manually apply the changes to your site's Aptify_UC_Navigation config file.

See the "User Control Development" section in the Working With an e-Business Site chapter of the attached Aptify e-Business 5.5 Developer Guide for more information about the new items added to e-Business and about making changes to the Aptify_UC_Navigation config file.

For e-Business 5.5.1 and up, you should also review the changes implemented in the appSettings section of web.config.

Browse to the Web Site Updates\Web Config folder and open the readme.txt file.
- The Web Config folder contains the current e-Business version of the web.config for the two sample sites. The readme.txt file provides an overview of what has changed in the web.config file since the previous release.
Review the content of the readme.txt file and manually apply the changes to your site's web.config file.

Step 5 - Porting Changes from Existing e-Business Site

If you have not already, you should now manually port changes to modify your existing controls with the updates (or modify the current versions with your configurations). See the "User Control Development" section in the Working With the e-Business Site chapter of the Aptify e-Business 5.5 Developer Guide for more information on best practices including leveraging the Aptify_UC_Navigation.config file.

If you are planning to use web menus and your site is running under an earlier version of than ASP.NET 4.0, you need to copy the appropriate version of Component Art. See Note Concerning Component Art Control in e-Business 5.5 for details.

Note Concerning Component Art Control in e-Business 5.5

If your site is not using the Aptify Web Menu control, then you do not need to add ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll to the site's bin directory.

The Aptify Web Menu control leverages the menu control provided by ComponentArt in ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll. e-Business 5.5 provides an updated version of this control in several ASP.NET versions. The installation process will deploy the ASP.NET 4.0 version of ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll to the website’s bin directory.

ASP.NET 4.0 is required to install e-Business and Aptify recommends that all new e-Business sites run ASP.NET 4.0. However, if you are updating an existing site that is running under an earlier version of ASP.NET, you need to copy the appropriate version of the ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll (found under the ComponentArt Control folder of the APTIFY_550_eBiz_UPDATE distribution file) to the site’s bin directory, overwriting the existing version, to update to the latest ComponentArt version. Also, if your site’s application pool is not using ASP.NET 2.0, then you can select another version of the ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll that matches your site’s .NET version.

See the readme.txt file in the Web Site Updates > Component Art Control folder of the APTIFY_550_eBiz_UPDATE distribution files for more details.

Step 6 - Streamlining the Website's Bin Folder and Running the Synchronizer

After updating the website with the e-Business updates, streamline the website's bin folder to remove extraneous files and then run the Object Repository Synchronizer for your e-Business Sync Repository Objects record only (do not download all of the objects to the bin folder). This topic describes the process in more detail.

Aptify e-Business deploys a streamlined set of files to the website's bin folder so it encapsulates only the functionality used by the out-of-the-box user controls and clients can add additional DLLs to the list as needed.

The set of Aptify Object Repository Objects required by e-Business are specified in the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record. Whenever you run the Object Repository Synchronization Utility against an e-Business website, you should select the Specify a Sync Repository Objects Record option and select the e-Business entry (or your site's Sync Repository Objects record if you create one) from the drop-down list box.

For updates to existing sites, the bin folder will already contain all of the objects from the Aptify Object Repository, so you need to perform a one-time operation to clean out that bin, as described below. Note that setting up your own Sync Repository Objects package may require some trial and error before you have the complete set of objects identified.

In Aptify, review the set of objects contained in the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record.
Create a backup copy of the site's current bin folder for reference.
Compare the e-Business Sync Repository Objects list with the contents of the site's bin folder. You should be able to remove the majority of the Aptify objects, such as images, icons, and XML files. You can also delete Aptify DLLs since the required DLLs will be added the next time you run the sync tool for the e-Business Repository Objects package.
- Do not delete any third-party controls.
- If in doubt, Aptify recommends that you leave the file in the bin folder or contact Aptify Technical Support for assistance.
Run the Object Repository Synchronizer against the bin folder, only downloading the files from the e-Business Sync Repository Objects package.
Launch the e-Business site.
If the site fails to load due to a missing object, identify the name of the missing object. The exception recorded to the Error Log should identify the name of a missing file.
Locate the missing file in the backup copy of the bin folder you created earlier or in the Aptify Program Files folder from a computer that connects to your database with the Aptify Desktop client.
Copy the missing file to the website's current bin folder.
Launch the site again. Repeat steps 6 through 8 until you resolve all of the missing file errors and the site loads as expected.
- Typically, it will be a manual, iterative process to identify missing files. In other words, as you resolve one missing file error, you may then encounter the next missing file error. Also, you may not learn of a missing file until you browse to a particular page. So, be sure to test all of your pages prior to go-live.
Log in to Aptify as an administrator and browse to the Object Repository application.
Open a new record in the Sync Repository Objects service. If the service does not appear in the application, you may need to add it from the Application Services selection dialog.
Clone the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record. Before saving, change the name of the new record (for example, by adding your organization's abbreviations as a prefix).
After saving the record, click the Sync Repository Object Files tab and add the files required by your website to the list of objects. (That is, add all of the files you had to manually drop into the web site's bin folder in steps 6 to 9 above.)
Anytime you need to run the Object Repository Synchronizer to update your site's bin folder with the latest objects, select the Specify a Sync Repository Objects Record option and choose your organization's e-Business Sync Repository Objects record so all of the objects for your site are updated as expected.

Step 7 - Restarting IIS

Although technically not required, restarting the Microsoft IIS service will ensure that all existing sessions connected to the web server are terminated before the website is used.

You can restart the IIS service from either the Internet Information Service (IIS) Manager or from the Windows Services dialog.

Step 8 - Verifying the New Functionality

After completing the steps above, connect to your e-Business site and perform the necessary tests to confirm that the new functionality works as expected and as described in the release notes for the new version:

Aptify e-Business 5.5.3 Release Notes

If your site fails to load after updating e-Business and IIS reports an error in the web.config, compare your web.config settings with the file that Aptify deploys with the corresponding sample site. See the README in the Web Site Updates\Web Config folder of the Updater package for details.

Once the update to e-Business 5.5.3 is complete, there is a procedure that you need to perform, if your e-Business environment includes an integration with LinkedIn. See the Configuration Procedure section of the Aptify e-Business 5.5.3 Release Notes for more information.

Aptify e-Business 5.5 Developer Guide.pdf
(4 MB)