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Upgrade Advisory Notice 9.2.0

Owned by Matthew Wren
Jan 29, 2024
3 min read

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Upgrade Advisory Notice

Upgrades from versions earlier than 9.2.0

If you are upgrading from a version prior to 9.2.0 then the following points apply:

ADVISORY NOTICE

SOAP Interface Update

ServiceScheduling 9.2.0.0 has made non-backwards compatible changes to the SOAP API interfaces. Users upgrading from a version prior to this release are required to consume the new WSDL and re-compile (if required) for their integration.

It is highly recommended that all integrations with the SOAP API interfaces are then re-tested. Details of changes to the SOAP API interfaces can be found in the ServiceOptimizer Integration Guide.

Change to MPX structure

One of the changes made to the SOAP API interfaces in ServiceScheduling 9.2.0.0 was the addition of a new listReqEmps structure for the management of mandatory, preferred and excluded (MPX) employee details in the Request Appointments SOAP API, Book Appointment SOAP API, Book Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API, Book Split Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API and Book Non-Appointment Job SOAP API request structures and in the Get Job SOAP API and Get Employee Jobs SOAP API return structures.

Although the new listReqEmps structure (which supports managing the MPX details for up to 10 employees) has replaced the previous reqEmps structure (which supported managing the MPX details for up to 2 employees) in the documentation, the SOAP API WSDL includes both structures for setting of MPX details in the Request Appointments SOAP API, Book Appointment SOAP API, Book Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API, Book Split Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API and Book Non-Appointment Job SOAP API request structures.

The old reqEmps structure has been retained in the WSDL to allow previous integrations with these APIs to continue to book up to 2 MPX employees without the need to change this particular integration point. However, users of ServiceScheduling who elect not to upgrade to use the newer listReqEmps structure should be aware of the following:

  1. ServicePower will deprecate the reqEmps structure in a future major release of ServiceScheduling.
  2. Integrations with the Get Job SOAP API and the Get Employee Jobs SOAP API may need to be updated, as only the new listReqEmps structure is supported.
  3. Jobs booked with MPX options using the old reqEmps structure through the Request Appointments SOAP API, Book Appointment SOAP API, Book Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API, Book Split Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API or Book Non-Appointment Job SOAP API will not have their MPX information visible in ServiceGANTT. The MPX data will be stored in ServiceScheduling and respected by ServiceOptimizer when optimizing schedules; it is just that the details of the MPX data will not be able to be seen or updated through ServiceGANTT.

To overcome this limitation, users of the Request Appointments SOAP API, Book Appointment SOAP API, Book Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API, Book Split Dependency Group Jobs SOAP API or Book Non-Appointment Job SOAP API must update their integration to the new listReqEmps structure.

ADVISORY NOTICE

First Initialization Performance Note

The very first time that ServiceOptimizer is run, initialization can take considerably longer than normal

ServiceScheduling 9.2.0.0 introduced a need to do some one-off processing to populate new tables in the ServiceScheduling database. As a result, when ServiceOptimizer is run for the first time only, a performance overhead in start-up time will be experienced. 

The size of the performance overhead is dependent on the number of days in the memory horizon and the total number of engineers posted to active FRUs within the memory horizon. In tests we found that this added between 2 and 8 minutes to the first startup of each FRU.

Although ServiceOptimizer components may take much longer to initialise you should not need to adjust any of the timeouts and settings configured.

ADVISORY NOTICE

SSL Support for the SOAP API Introduced

ServiceScheduling 9.2.0.0 introduced SSL support on web services alongside the old, non-SSL, interfaces. A separate port type is provided to support this. Customers requiring to use this feature need to ensure they follow the directions given in the ServiceOptimizer Admin Guide .