Designer XI Product Life Cycle Support Policy

Designer XI Client App Support Policy

Starting with the 11.5 Release of Designer XI on June 15th 2023, a new strategy was implemented (along with the technology to support it) to get critical patches to all users of DXI and also allow you to choose how often you want to receive updates based on your utility’s needs and willingness to upgrade.

There are now 3 different types of releases that we will be doing for the Designer XI Client App (services, both hosted and on-premises, will release on a continuous basis and is not subject to these definitions).   For information on the Hosted Edge support policy that changed in December 2024, please go here - Hosted Edge Support Policy 

Here are some definitions of the types of releases we will have -

Major Releases 
Occur about twice a year. These are the releases with new, larger functionality. These will typically be released every April/May and September/October. Each major release will be supported for 1 year after release. This will allow you to maintain and plan for a regular major upgrade annually or alternatively every 6 months.

Minor Releases (Service Pack) 
These will occur on the most recent major release. These releases will include small customer enhancements and non-critical bug fixes. Expect minimal UI changes (additive only or configuration driven).  

Patch Releases (Hotfixes)
These releases are ad-hoc hotfixes to address critical security issues and bugs. You will receive these automatically given the severity of the issues addressed in these patches. These patches will address issues such as unusable or severely broken functionality (high frequency crash reports / azure alerts), security updates, data loss, severe performance, etc. Patches will be applied to the 2 most recent major releases and the most recent minor/SP release on those versions. To clarify, once you upgrade to a minor version, our expectation is for you to continue to upgrade to the latest minor release. At most we would be patching 4 releases. 

With the 11.5 release, we also made changes to the rollout plugin which affect the version a tenant can be pinned to -  

Hotfix and Service Pack Preview Testing Window
Since hotfixes are updated automatically and service packs can be as well (depending on what you have pinned your client to), you will have the opportunity to test these releases prior to them rolling out. Once a hotfix or service pack is ready to be delivered, an announcement will be made in the Solution Center Announcements plugin. That announcement will contain the version(s) it applies to, along with a summary of the changes and a link to download a preview of that release. You can download the installer and apply it to some machines in order to test it out and report any issues prior to it being released. You can configure the announcements plugin to send emails out to a specified list of people to help with the communication process.

For hotfixes, you will have 5 business days to preview the release as these are generally critical in nature and very targeted to specific issues. Please note that if a critical security issue is being patched, Schneider Electric reserves the right to limit that testing window to 1 day or less. For service packs, you will have 10 business days to preview the release as these generally will have small enhancements in them.

Client Release Pinning 
Your utility can pin to either a major release or pin to always receive the latest version of the service pack. For instance, if a client is pinned to a major release and we release a service pack, that client will not be automatically updated. If a client is pinned to service pack releases on a major release, and are on SP1, they will be automatically upgraded to SP2. They will not be automatically upgraded to the next major release. 

With those definitions in mind, let’s look at a practical example with some releases that are already out -

11.5 (2.19.0.15) – Major Release - released on 6/15/23
11.5 SP1 (2.19.1.X) – Minor Release (Service Pack) – released on 7/28/23
11.5 Hotfix 1 (2.19.0.16) – Patch Release (Hotfix) – released on 6/27/23

In the rollout plugin, you will have three options to choose from when going to 11.5 -
 

NOTE – It is NOT possible to pin on a specific Service Pack, if your utility would like to receive the small enhancements that are in a Service Pack, you will need to continue to receive future Service Packs for that major release.  It would be possible to skip an SP1 and wait for SP2 before getting on that “release train” if desired.

Here is a table to visually show whether your utility will get a release.  It includes the 3 releases that are out already, plus some hypothetical releases that could happen.  Assume that the releases are listed in chronological order by release date.

Yes = Will Get this Version          No = Will Not Get this Version

If you have any questions, please contact support.