Upgrade to AbleCommerce Gold R11

PRE-UPGRADE Step:

This upgrade will ensure that you have an additional layer of encryption to your existing encryption key.  Before applying the upgrade, please take a backup of your existing key.

1. Find {website}\app_data\encryption.config

2. Make a copy of this file and place it in a different temporary folder.  DO NOT CHANGE the file name or move to a new location.

3. Apply the upgrade by following the steps below.

1)  Download Upgrade to temporary location

This upgrade is available to active subscription holders.  To obtain the file, login to the ablecommerce.com website and go to the customer account area.  From the Downloads tab, in the top section, you can see all files that are available to you by subscription.  Be sure to download the files and keep an original for backup.

1. Determine the type of version you are using, WAP or WSP, and download the applicable file.

2. Extract the contents.  Only changed files are included in the upgrade set.

3. Compare the new upgrade files with your existing ones, and merge any custom changes.

2)  Confirm License

Do not install the upgrade unless your license subscription is valid through the "release date" of the build you are installing, or you have a license key for the latest version.  The license key for Gold R11 is 7.0.91

There are two ways to see if you have a valid subscription for this upgrade:

Login to your AbleCommerce Merchant Menu and go to the Configure > Security > Licensing page.
The "License Details" section will indicate whether a subscription is included with your license, and the subscription's expiration date will be shown.

- OR -

Open the "commercebuilder.lic" file located in the \app_data\ folder with a txt program such as notepad. 

e.g. <subscription>10-08-15</subscription>

If your license purchase included a subscription, a line similar to the one above will be shown in your key file.  
Make sure the date is on, or after, October 8th, 2015, which is the release date for AbleCommerce Gold R11.

NOTE:  A store in DEMO MODE is not valid for the upgrade.  Make sure you have a license key installed before continuing.  The key type can be Development or Live, but not DEMO. 

3)  Backup your Existing Production Files and Database

Always make a backup copy of the entire AbleCommerce folder and the database before beginning any upgrade..

4)  Installation of New Files to Production Server

In this upgrade release, there are a few files that will be need to be adjusted manually.  Please refer to the Post Upgrade instructions for more information.

~\web.config

~\App_Data\EmailTemplates\

For WSP versions:

1. Stop the IIS web service, or application pool, to release a lock on the DLL files in the \bin\ folder.
   
   FAQ: How do I stop a website to upgrade?

2. Copy all files, from step 1c) above, to the corresponding folders on the production server.

3. Restart the IIS web service application.

For WAP versions:

1. Recompile the application.  For Gold release R8 and higher, the SLN file is upgraded to support Visual Studio 2012/2013.

2. Republish to the target server.

5)  Automatic Database Upgrade

When you login to the merchant administration for the first time, the database will be upgraded automatically.  The database changes will be completed regardless of which AbleCommerce Gold version you are upgrading from.

For a complete list of database changes, see below.

6)  Automatic Re-index

If you are using the Lucene search provider, we will re-index the database automatically after the upgrade. Re-indexing could get interrupted if the server is restarted.  If this happens, simply access the Website > Indexes page to manually re-index the database.

7) Post-Upgrade Instructions and Information

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING NEW ENCRYPTION

After upgrading, you may experience a problem with the gateway (payment, tax, or shipping) configuration data disappearing.  Please confirm the gateway settings have not been lost by logging into the Merchant Admin and viewing the configuration page for any gateway that you have enabled.  If the fields containing connection data are blank, then this issue needs to be fixed by following the instructions in Machine Key and Encryption.  Otherwise, your encryption is working fine.

a)  MAY BE A REQUIRED STEP TO DISABLE MOBILE STORE (read below):  

In new installs of Gold R10, the mobile store is supposed to be disabled by default because of the new responsive templates.  The setting was not working properly, and as a work-around, it needed to be checked (enabled) to actually disable the mobile store.

If you had previously enabled the mobile store as a temporary work-around to fix issue AC8-2810 (Disable mobile store not working properly), then you need to undo that change after applying the upgrade to R11.  

To do this, go to the Configure > Store > Mobile Settings page and check the box to disable the mobile store.

b)  REQUIRED FOR PCI COMPLIANCE

To be compliant with PA-DSS version 3.0, you must change the session time-out from 30 minutes to 15 minutes.  This is a manual change if you are applying the service patch.  This change is only required for production websites.

Open your web.config file and find the following lines of code:

CHANGE FROM -

    <authentication mode="Forms">

      <forms timeout="90" slidingExpiration="true" name="ACGOLD.ASPXAUTH"/>

    </authentication>

    <sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="30" cookieName="ACGOLD.SESSIONID"/>

CHANGE TO -

    <authentication mode="Forms">

      <forms timeout="15" slidingExpiration="true" name="ACGOLD.ASPXAUTH"/>

    </authentication>

    <sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="15" cookieName="ACGOLD.SESSIONID"/>

c)  REQUIRED - EMAIL TEMPLATE UPDATES AND CHANGES

Several changes have been made to the email templates.  This includes -

1. 1. • Converting Guest Account to Registered User needs to be improved

      • Add shipment tracking number to email templates

      • Complete affiliates self-signup feature

      • Add a basic contact us control with email notification

      • Review Reminder emails should unsubscribe users automatically without having to login

      • Recurring Orders:  The nextOrderDate string is not working in the email templates

If you have not customized your email templates, then you can directly copy the new files over your original ones.

COPY THE FOLLOWING FILES FROM -

~\App_Data\EmailTemplates\Default\

Affiliate Registration.html (new)

Contact Us Confirmation.html (new)

Lost Password.html

Order Shipped.html

Order Shipped Partial.html

Products Review Reminder.html

Subscription Cancellation Notice.html

Subscription Enrollment.html

Subscription Expiration Notification.html

Subcription Expired.html

Subscription Payment Reminder.html

Subscription Updated.html

COPY TO -

~\App_Data\EmailTemplates\1\

If you have customized your email templates that are located in the \App_Data\EmailTemplates\1\ folder, you can use a tool like WinMerge to easily find the changes between versions R10 and R11 and get them merged.

d)  OPTIONAL - CHANGE DEFAULT SETTINGS FOR RECURRING ORDERS FEATURE

If you are using the Recurring Orders feature, you may want to modify to change the default settings as follows:

From the Configure > Store > Subscriptions page, change -

Create Next Order = 0 (creates new order on the day that it is due)

Send Payment Reminder = 3 (sends reminder 3 days before payment is due)

These setting changes are optional, however, we have identified an issue where the payment reminder will not be sent unless it is greater than or equal to the Create Next Order setting.  Make certain that you modify your settings accordingly.

e)  OPTIONAL - NEW SETTING TO RETAIN SUBSCRIPTIONS X DAYS BEFORE REMOVING THEM

If you are using the classic subscription or new Recurring Order subscription feature, then you may want to look at a new feature available from the Maintenance page.  By default, all subscriptions are removed once they have expired.  You can now enter the number of days that you want to retain the subscriptions before they are removed.  They will still be shown as expired, but can be used for reference if needed.

From the Configure > Store > Maintenance page, view -

Retain Expired Subscriptions = 0 (remove upon expiration - change this value if desired)

f)  OPTIONAL - ADD NEW CONTACT FORM

A new feature is available which allows you to easily create a contact form and add it to your upgraded installation.

From the Website > Webpages page, edit your existing "Contact Us" page by adding this control tag in an appropriate place on the page.

[[ConLib:ContactUs EnableCaptcha="False" EnableConfirmationEmail="True" ConfirmationEmailTemplateId="0" Subject="New Contact Message" SendTo=""]]

For more information about implementing this feature, please see the Merchant Guide.

g)  OPTIONAL - ADD NEW CATEGORY DISPLAY PAGE FOR WEBPAGE BLOGS

A new feature is available which allows you to create a website Blog integrated with your store.  By using authored Webpages, you can created unlimited Blog pages that are organized by category.  Use the new controls for Article Listing Sidebar and Article Listing category to easily provide information about your services or products.

From the Website > Category Pages page, add a new display page named 'Article Listing' that will output a simple Blog for your store.

[[ConLib:ArticleListing DefaultCaption="Blog" DefaultCategorySummary="Welcome to our store blog." PagingLinksLocation="BOTTOM" ShowSummary="True" ShowDescription="False" DisplayBreadCrumbs="True" DefaultPageSize="5"]]

For more information about implementing this feature, please see the Merchant Guide.

h)  INFORMATIONAL - CATEGORY PAGES NOW SUPPORT THE DEFAULT ADMIN SORT

For all the category display pages that do not use the deep item display function, you will notice that they now support a new sorting option.  This option is called the 'Default' sort and it will use the same sort order that have in your Merchant Administration.

The category display pages that support this feature are -

Category List

Category Details

Category Grid 2

Category Grid 4

i)  INFORMATIONAL - NEW CUSTOM.CSS STYLESHEET OVERRIDE TO MAKE STYLE CHANGES EASIER

You will now find an empty custom.css in the ~/App_Themes/Bootstrap_Responsive folder which will help developers add or edit styles without having to use a 3rd-party "less" editor.  This requires a reference to this custom file in the style.skin file.

The benefit to using the custom.css file is to make upgrades easier.  If you maintain all your custom style changes in a separate file, then you can easily apply upgrades without having to merge or track your changes.

Informational Only - Database Changes

The database changes will be automatic after upgrading.  It is NOT necessary to make changes manually.  This is provided for informational purposes only.

New table ac_LabelImages is added

LabelImageId INT IDENTITY NOT NULL

OrderShipmentId INT NOT NULL

ShipGatewayId INT NULL

LabelImageData VARCHAR(MAX) NOT NULL

PRIMARY KEY(LabelImageId)

New field added to ac_OrderShipments table

ProviderShipmentNumber nvarchar(18) NULL

Two new fields added to ac_Webpages table

PublishedBy nvarchar(150) NULL

PublishDate datetime NULL

If you need to merge any customizations, we recommend that you use a file compare and merge utility such as WinMerge.  WinMerge is Open Source file compare and merge utility which runs on all modern Windows versions.  Latest WinMerge version and other WinMerge information is available at http://winmerge.org