This guide will take you through the process of updating your PPS system when a new version is released. New updates are only made available to systems where there is a valid and up-to-date support contract in place so you will need to ensure that you have one of these before continuing.
Important- PPS Local Users: In order to successfully update your PPS system you must be logged into the PC as a Windows Administrator. This is applicable on all machines networked to your PPS database as well as the main database itself. Running the PPS exe. as an admin via the right-click function is useful for guaranteeing the update process has access to admin permissions.
For PPS Local Users we also recommend taking a full back-up of your PPS database before proceeding with the update process.
Section 1 - PPS Sync Server Users
For any systems that might sync with another PPS system, you should prepare for and plan to update all systems to this new version to keep your systems syncing.
You will receive a notification from Sync Server to let you know that the systems will not sync until they are all on the same version again.
Failure to do so can cause system and version incompatibility which may result in data integrity issues.
If you synchronise with a Call Handling, Express, Online Booking, or Hosted Back-Up system on our servers that you do not have access to then contact our support team via support@rushcliff.com and we can update these systems for you.
Section 2 - Updating PPS
We recommend commencing the PPS update process when no other users are logged into the system, as essential maintenance procedures involved can only occur when only a single user is accessing PPS and these should not be delayed once the update has been applied.
It is important that your PPS system is re-indexed as soon as you complete the update process, no other users can be logged in while you do this. There is also an update process that occurs when a single user logs into a system nobody else is logged into, and this process is vital after an update. It will run automatically when the sole user logs in after the update and should be followed by the re-index. Find more details on this in Section 3.
Applying the update on one PPS machine/user will roll it out to all other users of your particular system. Once the update is done on one machine/user any others will need to update before they can log in. For PPS Local systems all machines will need administrative access to complete the update or they will be unable to access the system.
a. To begin, navigate to Help > Check for Software Updates. From here, you can access Release Notes for past versions of the software in addition to the latest release.
b. When a new release becomes available you may first need to download it. If the latest version is already downloaded it will show in the "Update already downloaded" section and you can skip ahead to step c. To download the latest release press Download.
Choose to Download via HTTP
The below prompt will appear. It is important that the PPS system is left to complete the download. Do not attempt to close PPS or restart your machine during this process. Press OK.
You will remain on the below screen while the update is downloading.
Click OK when the download has completed.
c. Now that the update is downloaded you can install it using the Install option.
Accept the install by pressing Yes and then OK.
Once the update is complete sign out of PPS using File > Exit and log back in to complete the process. Accept the prompt to finish the update when you log back in and any subsequent prompts that may ask you to allow registration of new files.
If you are updating from a 4.0 version to a 4.1 version there will be an additional step in the process to update certain changes in the database structure.
After installing the update and then logging out and back in again you will see the following message:
These updates might take a while but you will be able to log in again when you see the following:
Please Note - Some updates might still continue in the background, even after you have been able to log back in. The time it takes for these updates to complete will depend specifically on the size of the custom forms files in your database. While these updates are being done you will not be able to access the custom forms in the system or re-index. The re-index is needed after the update (see Section 3), but you will need to wait till all the updates are done.
Section 3 - Table Updates and Re-indexing
Important: It is vital that a re-index is run once you have completed an update of your PPS system. In order to do this, all other users will need to log out of the system completely and you will need to close Sync Server if you have it.
Ensure all users are logged out of PPS. One user should then log in. It's important that this user log in anew when nobody else is in the system as checks are performed when a singular user logs in and necessary updates can only happen at this time. These cannot be done if the singular user remains logged in while others log out, they'll need to close PPS and log back in.
Once logged in, run the re-index in the normal way via Tools > Database Maintenance. Details of how to do this can be found in our re-indexing guide.
If you see the following message when trying to run the re-index after updating from v4.0 to v4.1 then this will indicate that there are still updates being performed in the background to update the custom forms files:
If you see this message you will need to close the re-index and come back to it a bit later once the updates are completed. You will still be able to use the system in this time.
Section 4 - Update Failed
If your PPS update fails to complete then we recommend that you check the following:
- The machine attempting to update is logged in on an Administrative Windows account.
- Your Antivirus or Firewall is not blocking the PPS update process.
- A second instance of PPS or the PPS update process is not open already on the machine you are attempting to update on. This includes on other Windows user accounts.
Section 5 - Sync Server Versions
After you update you may notices that your Sync Server has a message regarding versions needing to match. This is informing you that not all of the PPS systems you synchronise with are on the same version. It's important that this is not the case as with new PPS releases there are often changes made to the way data works and is stored. Having systems on different versions means older systems may not be able to adequately display or store data from newer systems. If this message appears then ensure all your PPS systems are up to date and on matching versions as soon as possible. If you sync with a PPS Express or Online Booking system that you do not have access to then email our support team at support@rushcliff.com and they can conduct the update for you.