Kentico 11 Azure app service upgrade to Kentico 12

Shivinder Singh asked on May 30, 2018 16:57

We were planning to go live with Kentico 11 Azure app service in November. Now we realize that Kentico 12 is supposed to be released end of November 2018.

1) Would you recommend waiting for Kentico 12 release and go live with that instead? If not then what would be the process to upgrade Kentico 11 Azure app service to Kentico 12 at a later date? Would it require a lot of SQL/backend configuration or will the installation take care of the upgrade?

2) We are planning a MVC website in Kentico. I have learnt that the Kentico's Content Admin training (https://www.kentico.com/services/training/content-admin-essentials) covers only a few modules related to MVC scenario. What are your thoughts on training content editors in this case?

Recent Answers

Rui Wang answered on May 30, 2018 17:47

Hi Shivinder

You shouldn't wait for 12. They will be lots of changes between versions (espcially with how Kentico supports MVC). You can check out the MS1 Beta and learn from the milestones (https://www.kentico.com/product/roadmap). DO NOT use the beta for development.

The upgrade details are unknown at the point, but similar to current upgrade process for Azure app service, you will need to download the site to local environment for upgrade then upload back to Azure.

As far as training for content admin. For MVC implementation, admin only need to learn how to manage structured content (page type pages) and media library, as to the portal editing and widgets are not available to them. You may want to consider a custom training for them if you have a group of users.

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Shivinder Singh answered on May 30, 2018 19:38

This is not an answer, I just cannot find a way to reply to the answer by Rui Wang. Anyway...

Rui, once the admin creates the page types and media library, it will be content editors who will be utilizing those to create the website content, correct? If yes, how to best train them before releasing production instance to them? Would it make a difference in content editor training if the Kentico website is portal engine/aspx template or content-only MVC?

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Rui Wang answered on May 30, 2018 22:49

The training is very simple, they just need to learn how to enter content under the form tab of each page (as to they may enter data and use widget under the page tab for portal pages).

There is no difference for how they manage media files in media library.

Another thing they need to be trained on or have understanding is the content modeling part, how does components of a page be managed in the content tree. Because they will be managing components of a landing page via different page type (content model) than working on a landing page directly (portal page).

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Brenden Kehren answered on June 1, 2018 02:01

I'd highly recommend publishing your website in v11 and wait until Jan/Feb timeframe to upgrade to v12. If you have a project ready in Nov 2018, do not wait for v12 to publish that because like any new version of software there are typically bugs with brand new releases. You need to make sure you can do proper testing as well and that can easily delay you up to a month not to mention dealing with API changes.

My suggestion and recomendation to all our clients is to publish v11 and upgrade to v12 in 2019.

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