New as in you've never had footprints? If so, i'd say yes.

If not, what other verisons of footprints have your worked with?

Im currently stuck on 12.1.05 due to functionality that is broken in 20.18.03. If i didn't have that functionality, we'd be on the latest verison. Desipte our issues, i'd say 20.18.03 is the best version of FootPrints.

Yeah, in that case i'd suggest 20.18.03. Can't think of a reason not to.

I guess the cat is out of the bag.

Yes, version 20.18.03 was soft-released a few days ago. It does address at least 52 defects. The release notes show 52 however BMC in various topics have mentioned other defects have been addressed. Many of these defects are fairly important to us so I do feel this version is good.

The defect Vern refers to is not something broken in 20.18.03 per se, but rather something that was broken in 12.1.06 (AFAIK) and still not resolved. I believe BMC had mentioned they are planning on addressing that one in 20.19.01.

I have done some testing with 20.18.03 while it was in beta for partners and found no glaring issues, however as always, this is not a guarantee since ITSM systems are such complex animals that there may be problems, so the onus is absolutely on the you to do your thorough testing in a dedicated test environment before rolling it out to your production environment (again, true of any ITSM system, not just FootPrints)

I have noted three issues with the installer which you should be aware of. BMC is aware of this and hopefully should have it fixed very soon. These three issues affect upgrade installations of FootPrints, however one of them (the last one) also impacts new installations.

1) You need to install and configure Tomcat 8.5 before running the installer. The installer will not inform that you need Tomcat 8.5 (on upgrades only)

2) You need to copy the Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\conf\Catalina\localhost\footprints#servicedesk.xml file from the Tomcat 7 directory to the Tomcat 8.5 directory. The installer does this on new installs but on upgrades it's never touched this file. It's never an issue unless you're on this version where the Tomcat version changes.

3) The back-end build number of this version is 0.0.0.3161 which - to me - appears invalid (this is a build number generally associated with betas). BMC is checking on this to confirm this. I was expected the build number to be 49.x (version 20.18.02 was build 47.7). If I am correct, this shouldn't cause an issue with the install, but could cause issues upgrading from 20.18.03 to a future version.

I'm keeping a sharp eye on this and will update you guys as I get anything.

Thanks for this info, Nicolas.

Do you know if Tomcat 8.5 (and Footprints 20.18.03 for that matter) supports Java 9 so customers won't have to buy a corporate Java 8 license?

I know the documentation for Tomcat 8.x says it supports "Java 8 and up". I'm just wondering if anyone's tried installing/upgrading Tomcat/FP using Java 9 and what the results are before I do it myself.

FootPrints still only supports JRE8. I did notice two things though on a recent update to JRE 8 update 201... it stated the deadline had been pushed to April 2019 and that "this version is unaffected" or words to that effect. I've yet to fact check that though.

Vern Meyer, If you don't mind could you please tell me what is the functionality that is broken in 20.18.03?  Every-time we upgrade even with all the testing, we get issues (major and minor ones) all the time.  (IMO) Upgrading the FootPrints is a nervous tasks for many users as it introduces new issues while resolving the old ones.

Dan SadhaSivam, see my comment above. It's not that 20.18.03 broke something per se. It's that 12.1.06 broke something (if I'm not mistaken) and it still has not been fixed in 20.18.03, though BMC had mentioned in another topic that Vern's particular issue is targeted for 20.19.01. Vern, is that correct?

Nicolas Roome wrote:

 

Dan SadhaSivam, see my comment above. It's not that 20.18.03 broke something per se. It's that 12.1.06 broke something (if I'm not mistaken) and it still has not been fixed in 20.18.03, though BMC had mentioned in another topic that Vern's particular issue is targeted for 20.19.01. Vern, is that correct?

Thats correct! 20.18.03 didn't break anything for us, but rather still contained a defect from 12.1.06 that affects us.

I want to mention that BMC updated the installer for 20.18.03 yesterday. If you downloaded it prior to yesterday, please re-download it. Nothing major. Essentially they fixed the build number in the back-end, and added more verbose info in the installer about needing Tomcat 8.5.

Dears,

After we upgrade footprint from version 12.09.001 to version 20.18.03

we faced some issues as follows

1- when Authorized  agent press approve from the dialog box

the status didn't changed to next approval rule and the dialog box still appear with these  two buttons

revote and show history Buttons

2- some of Business rules that related to Change Assignees on Status Specific criteria doesn't work

Nicolas Roome Vern Meyer

I have updated to the newest version and didn't have to touch my JRE installation.

Could you advise if 20.18.02 runs with Tomcat 8?  We have just gone across to this version so I want everyone to settle before I start upgrading again.  If Tomcat can be upgraded in advance it would be helpful.

Thanks

NO 20.18.02 does not work with Tomcat 8. The following Apache Tomcat versions are supported.

Footprints 20.18.03 includes various product changes that were made to work with Tomcat 8.5. We would strongly advice to move to 20.18.03 instead of a direct upgrade to upcoming 20.19.01 release. 20.19.01 release will support a direct upgrade however that means multiple prerequisites requiring updates (Tomcat 8.5 & OpenJDK 10 or higher)

The next update of Footprints will likely see update to Java version. Our intent is to move to OpenJDK 10 or above starting 2019.01