Actinic Knowledge Base

This guide covers upgrading from v8 upwards. If you upgrading from v6 or v7, many of the techniques will still apply. The difference is that if you have performed a lot of customisations to your v6/v7 HTML templates, Actinic may struggle in converting these to working v9 layouts. Many users have found it more successful to accept a default v9 design when prompted during the upgrade, and then just re-apply their customisations to the standard v9 layouts.

Upgrade

The best way to upgrade to a new version of Actinic is to install the new version and then import your site snapshot into to the new version to upgrade it.

The instructions for doing this are as follows:

• Install the new version of Actinic onto your PC.
  
• As you start the installation process, you will have the choice to either 'Install New' or 'Upgrade Installation'. Select 'Install New'. This will install a new clean default Actinic site on your PC.

This means that you can take the opportunity to learn the new features before starting the upgrade process.

To start the upgrade:

• Export a snapshot of your current live site with 'File | Export Snapshot'
• Import this snapshot into the latest version with 'File | Snapshot | Import Site'.

You will see a message about upgrading your database and then you'll see a message that says 'Your design layouts have been upgraded'. During this process, your layouts will be upgraded by an upgrade engine that finds the correct part of your layout and intelligently adds the new code in.

v6/v7 customers will be offered the chance of using a default design at this point. This is a good idea to consider if your store has been heavily customised. If you had your store design created for you, it might be a good idea to talk to your designer before upgrading.

After this, a 'Site Upgrade' will happen, where Actinic copies in all the new 'Perl' scripts it requires. All your old scripts will be backed up within the '\Actinic v9\SiteUpgrade' folder within your installation directory.

Sage Pay (Protx) Users: Once you've upgraded, you will need to re-edit the OCCPROTXScriptTemplate.pl file to add in your Sage Pay/Protx account details.

PLEASE NOTE: This is only relevant if you are upgrading to a version prior to v9.0.4 as from this version forward, all of the script changes are included within the software.

Your store will now be upgraded to the new version, but you need to make sure you thoroughly test the new version before putting it live. There are some techniques for this below.

Note: You should now refrain from making any changes to your Business Settings (e.g. shipping charges) and your store design until your store is live in the new version. Any changes you make in your live store in these areas could be lost when the site switches to the new version.


Testing

The first thing to do is to put your new version into 'Test Mode' by going to 'Web | Switch to Test Mode'. This will make sure that when you publish the new version to the web, it won't overwrite your live site yet.

The next thing to check is the design with a 'Web | Preview Store'. You will be able to see any obvious issues with your design. If there are problems with the design, you can go to the library and see at a glance the layouts that have been changed by the upgrade.

• Go to 'Design | Library' and select the box labelled 'Highlight new or edited layouts that have been recently upgraded'. 
• Actinic will highlight the group containing the highlighted layouts, as well as the layouts themselves.
• If you come across a layout that's marked as upgraded, right click on it and select 'Compare with Previous Version'.

You can then upload your new test site and test all the online functionality. Make sure you test in Internet Explorer and at least one other browser (e.g. Firefox, Opera or Safari).

Test the following:

• Adding to cart
• Searching for products
• Customer login (if you have customer accounts)
• Placing and downloading orders
• If you are using a Payment Service we suggest you create a tiny test product (i.e. 0.01 in value) and place a live order for that product so you can absolutely be sure the integration is still working.

Switching the Live Site to the New Version

The process of switching to the new version can potentially take a few hours, so make sure you do it at a quiet time of day for your business.

Once you start the process of switching, you cannot make any changes to the products and prices in your store until your store is fully live on the new version.

To switch to the new version you first need to disable ordering on the live site, so you don't run the risk of people placing orders during the upgrade that might be lost.

• Within your currently live copy of Actinic, download all the latest orders from your website
• Go to 'Business Settings | Ordering' and tick where it says 'Suspended' and upload. This will replace all your 'Add to Cart' buttons with a message saying 'CATALOG SUSPENDED'.
• After suspending online ordering, wait half an hour and download orders again to ensure there are none up there.

Note: You can edit the text of the 'CATALOG SUSPENDED' message in 'Design | Text'

You next need to bring your up to date products and orders from the old version into the new version, while making sure your upgraded design is left intact.  There are two methods for doing this. Both work roughly the same.

Before doing either method, back up your current v9 site with a full site snapshot so you can start again if required.

Method 1: Using Snapshots

• In v9, go to 'Design | Export Design Snapshot'. This will just export the upgraded design from your site.
• Once you are sure there are no orders left on the live website to retrieve, export a full site snapshot from your live store.
• Import this snapshot into v9 and allow the upgrade to run again.
• Import the Design Snapshot you took of your upgraded store design. This is done by going to 'File | Snapshot | Import Design'. This will then put your latest upgraded design with your latest live store data.

Method 2: Using Import Files

• In your old version of Actinic, go to 'File | Export' and export a hierarchical file containing all the product data.
• You can then import this up to date product data into v9 by using 'File | Import' and choosing to import a hierarchical file. (This doesn't work when upgrading from versions earlier than v8). Make sure you choose to 'Replace' all your data with the new data.
• Next you can go to 'File | Import Orders'. Click 'Browse' and select the 'ActinicCatalog.mdb' file for your current live site and import the orders from it. This will overwrite all your order data currently in v9.

All your up to date store data and order data is now in your new version of Actinic. You are now ready to do the final checks and put it live.

• Check the look and feel of the store with a preview ('Web | Preview Store') and make any required final changes.
• Go to 'Web | Refresh Website' to upload the site.
• Once it has uploaded successfully, go to 'Business Settings | Ordering' and un-tick 'Suspended' and then publish the site again in order to make the site active (if you ticked this box earlier).

Your store is now switched to the new version.