The problem of upgrading all users in a team (so we can use 7.6’s new features)

Question

The instructions for 7.6β say:

You must ensure that the other members of the project team have upgraded
Paratext before you opt-in these features on the shared project.
Upgrade options are:
Upgrade team members to 7.5.100.46 or later.

    Team members will be unable to use Project Interlinearizer, Word

List, and Guess Translations, but can do other work. -or-Upgrade team members to the 7.6 Beta Test Version.

    Team members will need setup and training, will be more at risk 

of unexpected problems, and you will need to support them.

We have a lot of observers on our project, and none of them are in the same geographical location. I also have no way of knowing what version they currently have, apart from emailing them (and then, for some of them, emailing them again and again before I get an answer).

Or is it OK for users in an Observer role to have PT <7.5.100.46, since they can’t edit the text?

The feature where PT 7.6β2 flags out of date copies of PT in the summary it gives after an S/R is really nice … but it would be even nicer if it could tell you the PT version of all the users (the version they had the last time they S/R’ed). Then I could tell the relevant users to upgrade and do an S/R, and I’d know for sure that they really were on the latest version.

Answer 1

People who do not upgrade to 7.5.100.46 or later will be unable to open the project at all whether they are an observer or not. You can use the project without enabling the new 7.6 features and the project will continue to be able to be opened by previous versions of Paratext.

There is a way (more of a workaround ) to see the versions of all users on your projects in 7.6 by opening Project > Recent Changes and selecting a date that is far in the past.

Comments

anon291708:

People who do not upgrade to 7.5.100.46 or later will be unable to open the project at all whether they are an observer or not. You can use the project without enabling the new 7.6 features and the project will continue to be able to be opened by previous versions of Paratext.

Looks like I was being too pessimistic: I thought that there was a danger that users of the old version would corrupt the project (I think there was a PT upgrade once that was dangerous like that). Thank you for giving more detail than the beta instructions did!

anon291708:

There is a way (more of a workaround ) to see the versions of all users on your projects in 7.6 by opening Project > Recent Changes and selecting a date that is far in the past.

Nice hack. Though it’s not going to catch those observers, who never make changes to the project .

The beta help also says:

After the team member computers are upgraded per either option above:
I. You opt-in on the project, and complete the Send/Receive that is initiated.
But don’t use the new features yet.
II. Then have all team members Send/Receive the project.
III. Then you may use the multi-parse and infix features.

We have 27 project members, of whom only 7 are currently in our office. I really don’t know how I’m going to determine when everyone has done an S/R. The instructions also don’t tell me what would happen if I use the new features when one user still has not done an S/R.

I’d love a feature in PT that says: “Inform Administrator when everyone has done an S/R”!

Answer 2

wdavidhj:

is it OK for users in an Observer role to have PT <7.5.100.46, since they can’t edit the text?

I’m still looking for an answer to this. It’s hard for me to force our ten Observers to upgrade in a timely manner. Some of them are occasional users; some go on extended leave and don’t read the emails I send them; etc.

If, after I opt-in, an Observer with PT <7.5.100.46 tried to open the project, they will presumably not be prevented from doing so, since their old version of PT will be unaware of the new feature. Will they mess up the SFM files as a result? Or does the fact that they can’t edit the text protect the files from corruption. That’s the key question!

Comments

If the user has a version before 7.5.100.46 (or maybe a little before this,
we did several changes related to accessing 7.6 versions in 7.4 and 7.5),
they will get a message saying that the project can’t be opened and it will
not be in the list of available projects that they can view.

The final out come was that 7.5 users will be able to open a 7.6 version
project (the version after opt-in is done), but will not be able to open
interlinear related forms since 7.5 doesn’t support the new format.