Update Rollups and Project Considerations for Upgrade, Maintenance and New Implementations

More and more partners are beginning to work with the update rollups. They find a lot of value in applying the latest application and platform fixes up front, instead of waiting for a customer to report those. Update rollups also simplify the way fixes are discovered and surfaced.

So with this blog post, we want to provide a more detailed picture of the update rollups, their purpose, and their usage scenarios so that you are aware of the rollup release process and components, and so that more of you start using them. We would also like to provide our look at how to adopt and use the update rollups within various stages of the implementation project lifecycle.

What is an update rollup?

Update rollups are released monthly for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2: 

Released update rollups for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2

Released update rollups for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013

An update rollup is a set of files that includes all hotfixes (application and platform) and regulatory features that have been released for the versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV that are listed above. 

They are cumulative, meaning that they include hotfixes and regulatory features that were released in the earlier update rollups for the specific product version.

Each rollup contains the following:

  • Accumulated application change log (TXT format) compared to the originally release of the specific product version (the RTM release).
  • Application change log (TXT format) compared to the previous rollup – the “delta”.
  • Only the application objects that changed since the RTM version are included in the FOB and TXT files provided with the rollup.
  • Each application object is marked with rollup version number (version number + build number) to make it possible to see which objects have been changed in which rollup.
  • The latest version of all (not only the changed ones) platform components (executables and .dll assemblies). These components are also stamped with a version number and a build number.

Application changes:

Platform components:

Hotfixes that are included in the update rollups do not always include translation. In that case, the translation for such changes are provided with the next RTM version of  Microsoft Dynamics NAV (major releases or minor release). Regulatory features included in the rollup are almost always translated; however, in rare cases the translation is provided with the following monthly update rollup.   

Update rollups are currently released for 10 countries: Australia, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, North America (Canada, US, Mexico), Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Local hotfixes for the following countries are currently not included in update rollups: Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, India, Iceland, Norway.

Scenarios

Maintenance. Applying rollups for the countries/regions where they are available.

If you have a version of the running application for which you would like to apply the update rollup, you can follow this high level flow:

  • Find the latest rollup available for your application version here:
  • See the KB article for the UR to find the full list of application and platform changes as well as regulatory updates included in it. The list is divided by country/region. For instance, here are the KB articles for the latest available rollups:
  • Based on the urgency and relevance of the application and platform changes, current project stage, customer situation and other surrounding factors decide whether you want to apply the UR now, or wait for the next one. We strongly recommend that you always apply the latest UR to gradually reduce the amount of regressions, merging, issues and to be compliant with the latest regulatory requirements. 
  • If you are on the RTM version merge your application objects with all objects included with the latest rollup.
  • If you are on the URn version – filter out the objects which were changed since URn till the latest available UR and merge your application objects with those objects. You can use the Version List field to see in which rollup (build) they were changed. 

Maintenance. Applying hotfixes for the countries where update rollups are not available.

For these cases the process of applying the hotfixes and regulatory updates is the same as it was before the UR concept was introduced, namely the changes relevant to all countries/regions (W1 changes) should be applied one by one.

However, URs can aid this process as well as you can obtain all W1 changes by downloading the latest W1 UR and merge them into your country version. You can find W1 URs by clicking at “Show additional information” and looking at their Fix Name which you can see when you download the UR:

Platform components are country independent, therefore the platform updates can also be obtained from W1 UR and deployed for any country/region-specific version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Major releases, minor releases, and update rollups

URs are different from the major and minor releases. Every major and minor release contains new application and platform features and functionality as well as hotfixes, while the URs only contain hotfixes and regulatory updates. So when a major release or minor release has been released, we create a new branch for the next release and continue to maintain both branches.

Let’s dissect the process based on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 version as an example (see the illustration below).

When Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 version was released, we created a new branch for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 development. As we’ve been building Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 functionality, we kept fixing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 and kept releasing URs for it.

Relevant fixes from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 version were merged into the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 version in the course of its development. In many cases they had to be redesigned to fit the new code and new functionality of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2.

Therefore, when Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 was released, not all fixes included in the latest available Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 UR were included in it. The process of finding and merging relevant fixes into the latest branch is a continuous process, and there will be a certain lead time until the fixes from the releases are synchronized between branches. So, for instance, the majority of the fixes which were available in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 UR7 were included into Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 UR1, and the process of merging of relevant fixes will go on.

When considering upgrade or a new implementation of the new major release or minor release, we recommend that you always upgrade to (or start from) the latest available UR for it. If there is a particular hotfix which is available in the previous version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, but it not yet available in the latest release, you can always request it to be merged there using the normal support process “How to create a new support case”.  It is also always possible to only update the platform components with the updated ones coming from a corresponding UR (technical upgrade), although the best practice would be to keep the application objects updated to the latest UR as well.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 hotfixes are also periodically merged into Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 and will be eventually available in the upcoming URs. Similarly, if there is a particular hotfix which is available in the current version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, but it not yet available in the previous release, you can also request it to be merged there using the same support process “How to create a new support case”. 

We will continue to release URs for the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 release and future releases periodically, synchronizing relevant fixes between them over time.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 are maintained following the old process – you can request hotfixes on case by case basis, no update rollups available for those product versions. 

The following timeline illustrates the process.

 

Conclusion

It is highly recommended to implement the update rollups. We look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions to how this process could be made more convenient for you to assess and absorb the changes.

 

Kind regards,

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Team

 

Updated on January 16, 2014: We removed two sentences that were misleading around the upgrade rollups and the Upgrade Toolkit. We apologize for the confusion.