EG Hotfixes

[twocanbazza]

Hi.

Since there isn't a forum for administrators I thought I would post here.

How do most of you handle hotfixes for EG, do you apply when they are released, of wait until you encounter a specific problem or something else.

The reason I ask, is that we have just (last week) upgraded to 9.2, and we are already behind in the hotfixes.

This can be easily applied to other SAS products as well.

Regards

Barry

[Jay]

Apply when released, just part of normal software control and change control practice.

Coming from an engineering / manufacturing background, it's they same as knowing you are working to the current specifications or drawings.

Only way to avoid getting behind.

[sbb]

Ideally your site has some type of "early adopters" who would have an opportunity to test-drive any software maintenance, including SAS and especially consideirng the varied components and capabilities the SAS product suite provides to an enterprise. Of course, the amount of time invested with suitable testing and follow-on re-testing is an unknown and must be weighed on merits related to any particular software vendor and their track-record.

I'd suggest that you will want to propose, develop, maintain and execute some type of SAS software maintenance/fix/upgrade initiative and methodology document -- one that is well-aware by your mgmt, with written concurrence.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

[boschy]

I asked a similar question in another thread.

We're trying to roll out EG via a LAN install package, with the latest hotfix in the package, and new ones replacing it as time goes on and newer hotfixes are released.

We have a non-trivial number of SAS EG users who don't have PC admin access, so they can't run the V4.22 hotfixes themselves....or can they?

For V4.1 us support staff did them manually if we were already on the user's PC.

_Boschy_

[Doc_Duke]

We do it for all SAS products on an AS NEEDED basis. We do this for two reasons:

-- most of our work is done under 21 CFR 11 regulations (FDA), which requires running validations after any change to the system. So we have to re-run the validations after any hotfix application. EGuide is a little "easier" because it doesn't do any processing on it's own.
-- we have been burned with hotfixes that broke something that worked (see Steve's comment about early adopters). For instance, one hotfix broke the EGuide 4.1 "e-mail as a step in the project" task and we had to roll-back a couple of levels to fix it.