Documentum Webtop Upgrades 6.5 to 6.7 Considerations

With the support deadlines on the Webtop 6.5 platform being August 31^st, 2012, many Documentum users are considering an upgrade to the current 6.7 platform which is supported through April 29^th, 2015.  While EMC has released 6.6 and 6.7 as minor releases with very little new functionality, it is worth noting the differences when planning an upgrade.  This post will discuss changes from Webtop 6.5 to 6.7.

6.6 Release Additions

• Kerberos support (SSO Solution)
• DRLs resolve properly even when old document versions are deleted from the repository
• Ability to sort groups and users within groups
• Windows 7 support
• 123 Bug Fixes

6.7 Release Additions

• IBM Tivoli Access Manager for e-business WebSEAL integration with Documentum Webtop
• Java 2 Security
• Software usage tracking
• Documentum Application Connectors supports Microsoft Office 2010
• Section 508 (accessibility) Compliance
• 35 Bug fixes

While the look and feel of Webtop remains almost identical, the codebase between 6.5 SP3 and 6.7 is dramatically different.  Just to get a feel, here are the results of a comparison between the out of box WAR of the 2 versions:

While 16% change in the codebase may not seem like an overwhelming number, it is enough to raise concern when performing an upgrade to a highly customized environment.  When performing an upgrade, it is recommended that all customized components, classes, JSPs, and property bundles be analyzed to confirm that 6.6 or 6.7 functionality and bug fixes are not lost.  Here is an example:

For example, if your instance of Webtop has a customized inbox, that the component has changed with a new parameter added:

If we take a look a step further we can see that the JSP has updates as well:

If any customizations  were made to the JSP, it most likely started as a copy of the out of box JSP and then changes were applied.  If the updates from the 6.7 upgrade are not identified, and applied to the custom JSP, then at the very least the environment would not benefit from the bugfixes and enhancements of 6.7 and could potentially cause issues with conflicting code.

Since there are so many files that have changed, I can’t list out all of them, but after perusing the differences between codebases, I can highlight some of the areas that may need some extra attention in an upgrade:

• Login
• Menu Bar
• Search
• Relationships
• My Objects
• File Check In
• ContentXfer
• Queue Management

The purpose of this post is certainly not to indicate that a 6.7 upgrade is going to be a massive effort.  By all means compared to a 5.3 to 6.x upgrade, minor release updates are relatively simple.  There is also a decent chance that none of your upgraded components were modified by the upgrade.  The underline message here is to be sure to check all custom code when performing any upgrade, to ensure no bug fixes or added features are lost.