Leading Practices When Upgrading Coveo for Sitecore

Leading Practices When Upgrading Coveo for Sitecore

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

To take advantage of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes that come with new releases of Coveo for Sitecore, you’ll need to eventually upgrade it. This page describes the leading practices that you should consider when upgrading and going live with your deployment.

General Leading Practices

Best Practice #1: Carefully Read and Follow the Instructions of the Upgrade Procedure

Each release of Coveo for Sitecore has a procedure describing the specific steps necessary to upgrade from the previous release.

If the release you need to upgrade to isn’t strictly consecutive with the one you have already installed, then follow the steps of every upgrade procedure between those releases. For example, if you’re planning to upgrade from the April 2016 release to the July 2016 release, make sure to execute all these procedures in this order:

1. Upgrade from April 2016 to June 2016
2. Upgrade from June 2016 to July 2016

Alternatively, if there are too many releases between your current release and the most recent one, you can:

1. Keep a copy of all the Coveo configuration files.
2. Upload and install the most recent Coveo for Sitecore package.

3. Using a merge tool, manually merge your custom changes made in your backed up config files to the new config files.

   Never directly modify a Coveo file or item. The Coveo configuration files will be installed in the /App_Config/Include folder of the Sitecore instance. Like for all other Sitecore configuration files, don’t edit them directly. Instead, use patch files to update, add or delete content. Main configuration files have a companion file with a .custom.config extension. These files are patch files to be used without danger of overwriting during an upgrade. However, items and code files (.aspx, .cshtml, etc) can’t be patched. Before customizing those files, create a copy of them.

Best Practice #2: Test the Upgrade in a Non Production Environment

Upgrades often require a few changes to the configuration files, so upgrading a production site may cause some downtime on your search pages.

Upgrade Frequency

When actively developing a website, we recommend that you upgrade to each new monthly release of Coveo for Sitecore. Then, once you go live, We recommend that you upgrade only once or twice a year to make sure that you take advantage of the latest enhancements and bug fixes. While you might not want to upgrade a site that’s running smoothly and without issues, these recommendations are based on the fact that upgrades become more complex as your current release becomes older.

If you encounter a problem or a bug that needs to be fixed, see the releases notes to find out if the issue has already been fixed. If so, you need to upgrade to the associated release. If not, look at our Q&A portal to find an appropriate solution. Alternatively, you can report the problem to our support team. Issues fixed in the product are usually available in the next monthly release, or in hotfixes for critical ones.