Preparing for change such as a software upgrade requires attention to detail, planning and the right expertise to deliver this successfully. There are standalone type of setups and then there are server-client type of setups. Typically, the complexity of a planned upgrade constitutes a few things:

• What is the risk associated with this change to our business?
• Am I/we ready for an upgrade? Does our infrastructure support the technology?
• What features are we going to benefit from? Are there known issues?
• Are we upgrading some products or are we upgrading all the products?
• Are any other systems or customizations affected by this change?
• Do we have backups, and can we plan production downtime?
• Is any of this effort multi-regional requiring scoped and planned project management?

We highly recommend talking to your regional product experts to get a sense of what is involved. If you are going to upgrade the technology yourself there are some caveats to look out for:

1. Which version & service pack are you going to?
   1. Review the system specifications and requirements for server & client applications.
2. Server License manager must be the first in the sequence of upgrades.
   1. Read more on upgrading the license manager
3. If PDM exists along with SOLIDWORKS, then PDM should be the next in line for upgrade.
   1. Read more on upgrading PDM
4. If SOLIDWORKS Electrical products exist in the mix, SOLIDWORKS along with SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D requires to be the same version as SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic Professional.
   1. This product is a server-client type of product. The same rules apply where the server application must be upgraded first and then the application clients. Read more on Upgrading SOLIDWORKS Electrical 
5. SOLIDWORKS upgrades should be done towards the end if all the server-client based applications are addressed first.
   1. Read more on Upgrading SOLIDWORKS
   2. Plan for using an administrative image
6. There is a difference in upgrading your software versus upgrading your data. Upgrading your data can be done incrementally for some products and mandatory full data upgrade for other products. In some cases, the data is not backward compatible.
7. If you plan to move your data around during an upgrade, this constitutes a migration and there are stricter rules that need to be adhered to. This warrants a discussion with product experts who can help you understand and shape up your scope of effort.

The above is a simplified summary of what goes in to a SOLIDWORKS multi-solution upgrade. TriMech does have services to help reduce this risk when upgrading or migrating your design tools/technology. Our clients have benefited from the reduced downtime and professional quality of the service. Listed below are some ways we can address your solution challenges:

• SOLIDWORKS Electrical Implementations, Upgrades or Migration
• PDM/Manage Upgrades or Migration
• Data Analytics and migration
• Planned large user base SOLIDWORKS desktop upgrades.

What next?

Reach out to your regional specialist gather additional data on how you can yield the best results with reduced downtime for an upcoming upgrade or migration: Contact Us – TriMech