Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Ver 6.5 Upgrade

Today I received an email from AC advising me about the impending upgrade of my version to 6.5. I think we're now at 2 months from when it was first released. In the email was a link to watch videos on the process. I'm told I will be invited to upgrade in the next few weeks.

Having watched the videos, the process is quite elementary and can safely be accomplished by a dumb high school graduate. Why is AC instituting this silly process? Why do I need a tech support appointment for about 3 hours? I personally find this quite silly and incompetent. I'm sure others have been similarly frustrated. What explanations have you received?

My guess is that it is like surgery. Everything is straight forward right up to the instant things fall apart. They just don't want to deal with 10 people who are down at 8:00 am on a Monday.

It can be easy if it all goes well.
If there is a glitch it is nice to have AC on the line to fix it right then.

Hope tech support is available at 4 AM cause that's when I have time to computer fiddle, otherwise 6.3 will have to do for a long while unless 6.5 has such rave reviews that it is a no brainer upgrade.

I've been working in IT for a long time. Longer than I care to admit, but not as long as others. Over the years, I have seen so many processes that appeared to be simple but turned out to be everything but. I'll admit there have been a few times I have looked at a client or manager and said something along the lines of, "Sure, I can knock that out in a few minutes!"

FIVE HOURS LATER.....

Things like that happened to me not because I'm some incompetent moron, but because even the very wise cannot see all possible ends.** When considering the vast array of the AC client base, there are literally tens of thousands of possible configurations that the clients may have any of which could sour an upgrade.

1. Different versions of Windows from XP all the way to Windows 8 all at different service pack levels.

2. Some domain networks some peer-to-peer.

3. All kinds of different anti-virus.

4. Different levels of maintenance on the computers. Some will be fully up-to-date others will be grossly up-to-date and everything in between.

5. You are upgrading from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2012. Those XP/2003 server machines will have to go so that may mean a full server upgrade in the process. I fully expect quite a few clients to be told their upgrade will have to be postponed until they can purchase a Windows 7/2008 R2 or better machine.

6. All kinds of different applications on the server machine that may interfere or be interfered with.

I could go on with that list for a very long time.

As for the video, of course it looks simple because no marketing person in their right mind is going to post a video of an actual upgrade that includes the possible problems that may arise. Think about it. If they did that then you would see the polar opposite of ClementB's post which would say something like this:


JamesNT

**MOVIE REFERENCE

The GUARDIAN ANGEL SUPPORT that AC provides is one of the KEY FEATURES we LOVE about Amazing Charts. I am a solo doc with no in-house tech support. The willingness to help and the support has been invaluable.

As far as I know, there is nothing to stop you from doing the upgrade yourself. Personally have appreciated the support.

This upgrade can be much more difficult with the SQL upgrade - on some computers can actually take up to 2-3 hours and they are planning on doing night and weekend upgrades. I think until things are sorted out I would let them do as they are planning. For people who are comfortable I guess it would also be okay to do yourself but understand it may not be as easy as in the past. I have upgraded many, many times and have almost never had many serious problems but once or twice I have had to have Guardian Angel bail me out.

Apparently this is a somewhat more difficult upgrade than before.

I upgraded my test computer (home with a backup database from the office) with AC support. I was coming from V7.0.10.

It had to be done with an extra separate conversion step than usual. I am unsure whether this was a V7 thing or even V6 would require this. One issue, I know, was correctly transferring co-pays. Because this is not being used as a PM machine (I was not doing that in the office either) any issues with co-pays was not a big deal with me, I have other ways of tracking them.

Another issue is that SQL 2012 is NOT supported on XP and server 2003, there are a few other issues as well, including possible errors if all Windows updates are not done prior to the AC installation.

I've never seen AC specifically recommend doing the upgrade with support. I did have issues with the upgrade from V4 to V5 and required help. Perhaps they are becoming more conservative, but my suspicion is this is, at the least, a more tricky installation.

I would take them at their word and use support.

Its good to know the Version 7 downgrade to 6.5 has started now. Hopefully I'll get word soon about the downgrade. I'm actually looking now at possibly merging the two different databases into one as well now. I'm finding the two separate office databases are getting annoying and makes no sense as we're one physical office now.

Shankar
Family Med
Lawrenceville, NJ

I agree with Wendell - mine was a downgrade from Version 7 to 6.5.4 and was a bit more complicated - I think it will get easier as they become more comfortable with installation but since AC allows us to use off the shelf software we can certainly expect more hiccups with all the variations of machines out there.

I've never heard of a dumb high school graduate.

How about a dumb med school graduate?????

Gene

I think we've all seen people that were dumb in all walks of life and in all situations.

Look at the political arena.

JamesNT

How's about a graduate from an American high school that, when asked how many inches were in a foot, stated that they did not know? Now, since they did graduate (no, not even just GED, they graduated) . Is this considered "dumb?"

Just asking.

what about a bank teller, who, when asked about interest rates, didn't understand how to calculate what I did mentally, and whose supervisor was surprised by my response.I was next in line and overheard the question.

Man, I'm impressed. I can't even remember Napier's number, let alone do exponents in my head!

Moving, if I may, back to the thread, as we approach retirement (read decrepitude), we are happy that we haven't received the upgrade call yet. For us, the purpose of joining the AC family, was to satisfy University Physicians Network's connectivity requirements (HIE). They're not bugging us yet, so we remain blissfully using ver 6.1, live long and prosper!

If I may make a recommendation:

I would recommend moving to 6.3.3. AC may not support skipping versions when upgrading.

JamesNT

James
do you know this to be a fact? Other than upgrade path are there advantages to 6.3.3 vs 6.1? It works reasonably now. Tanks for all of your education on the UB!
Marc

I do not know that for a fact. Rather, it is based more on what I have seen in the industry.

I cannot speak to any significant advantages of one version over the other since I am not an end user, doctor, or someone seeking MU certification.

My recommendation is based solely on the "better safe than sorry" approach. It would, after all, be annoying to find you cannot go to version 6.5 without first upgrading to version 6.xx. That would most certainly double your upgrade time and introduce many more changes your staff would have to learn about at once.

JamesNT

Hi James,

You are the pro, not me, so if I'm way off base let me know.

I was under the impression that, generally speaking, new releases where the first number changes (version 5.XX to version 6.XX) represent more significant changes, and that in general, trying to leapfrog and skip several at a time may cause problems. (Having said that, last year we upgraded QuickBooks, and skipped over, I believe, about six releases. We were very fortunate, no problems at all.)

I thought that upgrades involving only the numbers after the decimal points (version 6.1.XX to v 6.5.xx) generally would not be a problem.

Realizing that every generality has many many exceptions, is the above true?

Thanks.

Gene.

Gene,

Generally, you are quite correct. Those rules (read: Guidelines) apply to many softwares I know. But version numbering is usually up to the developers and some developers have a much different idea of minor versus major versioning than others.

For example, I consider the move from SQL Server 2005 all the way to SQL Server 2012 to be very significant. We are, after all, skipping two versions of SQL. That alone, to me, would warrant calling the next release version 7.0.

JamesNT

thanks James, I guess I'll try asking support that Q, but, I appreciate your experience and input.

Yes, Marc, I think that would be a good question for AC.
For what it is worth, I also think that the changes in 6.5.5 are significant enough that this would have been called V7, but for the whole PM fiasco (PM was to be V7).

Just upgraded 6.3.3 to 6.5.5 with assistance of Ivan @ Amazing Charts Guardian Support (Thanks!) . Took 2 hours and 5 minutes (Windows 7 Peer to Peer network, seven computers). No issues during installation and no issues so far.