First Time Using Upgrade Plan Help

[frank121]

Hello, we are upgrading to Vancouver and this is the first year we want to utilize upgrade plan. I watched the toolbox video and I still have a question. 

1. If we have a 3 Stack Dev - TEST - PROD how would it work if we upgrade DEV/TEST together? The way I understand it is you need to publish an upgrade plan BEFORE upgrade. Im upgrading DEV/TEST together so how do i get the updates from DEV to TEST once im done with my skipped updates? Can i consume the upgrade plan after I have upgraded already? I upgrade DEV/TEST together because we have our process owners do testing in TEST and our developers work on any issues in DEV. We still need time to look at the skipped updates BUT need TEST upgraded so our process owners can test. 
2. Can we add update sets to our upgrade plan? If a process owners defines a problem due to upgrade we want to fix it with an update set. Can we include that update set to plan or do those fixes need to be manually imported?

[Brandon Davis]

I've noticed the global customizations is quite large as well, but I think that is because it makes for easy fixes during the upgrade cycle. As an example, we are going to Washington DC and are going to knowledge v3. Our portal is considered custom so when I updated the knowledge home and refreshed the upgrade plan, that change was captured while the change to the system property, to force redirect was not (I added that to an update set). I have noticed that as you upgrade plugins and refresh the plan those plugin updates are being captured as well.

Based on the behaviors observed I'd say it's vital that, before you upgrade any lower environment, you do a fresh clone down (which is what we did) so that your plugin versions now match what your upgrade plan captures.

[Adam43]

here's a question- we scheduled all our upgrades on sub instances first- roughly a week between each.  we have a sandbox, a dev, uat, and prod.  cloned and upgraded sandbox- set as the builder.  processed skipped records, published the upgrade plan.  Now we've gone to dev, and I retrieved and installed the plan.

Next I go to Upgrade Preview and expect to be able to refresh the preview and see the 'upgrade plan' date show up in the 'preview version'.  it does not.  that same page is also not reflecting the scheduled upgrade that does show in HI portal (where we scheduled it previously).  My refreshed preview (of the same version that the plan is for- vancouver patch 😎 is definitely installed- when i go the plans table and view it- all the items are installed successfully.

Thoughts?

I"m hoping since it's installed, the plan will get picked up anyway when the upgrade initiates tomorrow morning.  I'm wondering if it's significant that we didn't create the schedule for the upgrade from inside our instance on this upgrade preview page.  maybe somehow the connection between HI portal and instance isn't there.  I also did not use the "preview" page to retrieve the plan, I just went straight to the "plan" table and used that UI action button to retrieve.  

Hopefully someone has insights to share- thanks.

[Kristin J]

Hello! We've had basically the same experience. I think the docs/video say that you'll see the upgrade plan in the preview version, but I don't think we ever have. We have also had inconsistent visibility into the Scheduled Upgrade. Sometimes it's there, then it won't be there and I'll be wondering if it's going to happen.

So far, it has happened even though it looks like it isn't going to.

How did it go for you this morning?

[Michael Leone]

Echo your statement about the upgrade plan not showing on the upgrade preview.  It was confusing the heck out of me i logged a HI ticket but they haven't been much help.

I just went for it and upgraded my temp instance as a test and it worked.

I used a temp instance to create my upgrade plan.  My steps were below.

1. Clone Prod to a fresh temp instance.

2. Upgrade temp instance to Washington.

3. Create upgrade plan and review skipped updated.

4. Publish.

5. Clone prod back over temp.

6. Install Upgrade Plan.

7. Schedule upgrade.

All went well and it showed auto resolved for the things that i selected.

Documentation is lacking badly though... 

[Brandon Davis]

I've seen this behavior too. Let me know how that went for you, I'm wondering if I have the schedule the upgrade from the module vs the ServiceNow Support Portal.