Upgrading HotDocs Advance

Note: the steps for upgrading from Advance v1.1 and later are different to the process of upgrading from Advance v1.0. Please see the section that corresponds to your currently installed version of Advance.

You can upgrade HotDocs Advance to a later version by following the procedure below.

Prerequisites

Before you begin the upgrade procedure, you should have a copy of the Advance deployment zip file, containing all necessary installation files.

Upgrading Core Assembly Service

Upgrading from v1.1.82 or earlier

If you are upgrading to v1.1.84 or later from an older version of Core, you must install Core v1.1.83 as an intermediate upgrade step. 

Upgrading from v1.1.81 or earlier

For users of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 or Microsoft SQL Server 2014: if you upgrade to Core v1.1.82 or later, you should ensure that existing interviews in Advance are completed before upgrading. Some in-progress session data in SQL Server 2012 cannot be migrated following an upgrade. Completed sessions are unaffected.

Upgrading from Advance v1.1 or later

1. Backup the Advance installation folders

You should make a backup of the existing HotDocs Advance installation folders before you upgrade Advance.

2. Stop the site under which Advance is installed

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  2. In the Connections pane, navigate to the site under which Advance is installed; for example, Default Web Site.
  3. In the Actions pane, click Stop.

3. Run the Advance installer

  1. Unzip the Advance Installer zip file.
  2. Open the Windows Command Prompt as an administrator.
  3. Navigate to the unzipped HotDocs Advance folder.
  4. Navigate to the bin folder.
  5. Type the following command to upgrade all the Advance applications:
    HdaInstaller upgrade
  6. Press Enter; the installer checks the prerequisites for Advance and installs the Advance applications.

4. Restart the IIS site

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  2. In the Connections pane, navigate to the site under which Advance is installed; for example, Default Web Site.
  3. In the Actions pane, click Start.

Advance is now upgraded.

Upgrading to Advance 1.30 or later

For customers upgrading from versions 1.29 and lower, to version 1.30 and higher, HotDocs requires setting the UI URL in the HDA Api settings file.

When upgrading, use the following parameter to set the UI URL in the HDA Api settings file:

HdaInstaller.exe upgrade --setting UiUrl=https://{tenancy}.appDomain/UIApplicationPath

For example:

HdaInstaller.exe upgrade --setting UiUrl=https://{tenancy}.yourorganization.com/HdaUi

This setting is additional to any other flags or parameters used on upgrade.

Upgrading the client interview application

You can choose to upgrade only the client interview application. If you are using a separate Core Assembly Service installation, take care to ensure you upgrade both when upgrading the client interview application.

Follow the procedure to upgrade Advance, replacing the command with:

HdaInstaller upgradeclientinterviews

Rerunning migrations

Occasionally migrations may fail on upgrade. In the case of a migration failure it is necessary to fix the cause of the failure. Access the logs and the database, examine the upgrade logs and locate the failure. Causes for failure may include permission issues preventing access to a database or particular parts of the schema, or certain data may have triggered the issue and can be carefully amended.

Once you have addressed the cause of the migration failure, rerun the migration.

To rerun the migration:

  1. Open the Windows Command Prompt as an administrator.
  2. Navigate to the unzipped HotDocs Advance folder.
  3. Navigate to the HubApi folder.
  4. Type the following command:
    dotnet HubApi migrate

The installer attempts to rerun the migrations and complete the upgrade.

Upgrading from Advance v1.0

1. Backup HotDocs Advance installation folders

You should make a backup of the existing HotDocs Advance installation folders before you upgrade Advance.

2. Edit the installation configuration file

  1. Unzip the Advance Installer zip file
  2. Edit the installation configuration file HdaInstallerSettings.json
    • Ensure the same setting values are used as for the original installation.
    • Do not remove any new settings that are in the new configuration JSON file.
    • Set the ApiSiteSettings.AppSettings.ReseedClientCredentialsEnabled option to true.
    • Set the AuthSiteSettings.AppSettings.AdminAuthScheme option to password.

    • Set the ApiSiteSettings.AppSettings.ReseedClientCredentialsEnabled option to true.

  3. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  4. In the Connections pane, navigate to the site under which Advance is installed; for example, Default Web Site
  5. In the Actions pane, click Stop.

3. Run the Advance installer

  1. Open the Windows Command Prompt as an administrator.
  2. Navigate to the unzipped HotDocs Advance folder.
  3. Navigate to the bin folder.
  4. Type the following command:
    HdaInstaller install
  5. Press Enter; the installer checks the prerequisites for Advance and installs the Advance applications.

4. Restart the IIS site

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  2. In the Connections pane, navigate to the site under which Advance is installed; for example, Default Web Site
  3. In the Actions pane, click Start.

5. Log in to Advance

  1. Login to the Advance Root Application; this launches any necessary automatic database updates for root.
  2. Login in to a tenancy; this launches any necessary automatic database updates for your tenancies.

HotDocs Advance is now upgraded.