The Involv Auto-Updater: what does it involve?

What does the auto-updater do?

The auto-updater performs a number of technical steps to keep Involv Intranet up to date:

1. Adding and publishing apps to the app catalog (at tenant or site collection level).
2. Provisioning of components, including:
3. Adding apps to sites
4. Adding or updating fields (site columns)
5. Adding or updating content types
6. Adding or updating lists
7. Adding data rows (list items)
8. Adding site pages (existing pages are never overwritten or modified)
9. Indexing fields in lists, to keep filtering possible in lists with more than 5000 items.
10. Updating the search schema, so that search results continue to work correctly after the update.

Is there any downtime?

No. The update runs entirely in the background, without your environment going offline or becoming inaccessible.

What will I notice as a user during the update?

Since a large number of Involv components are search-based, it’s possible that search results are temporarily unavailable or incomplete while the update is running. This happens because the search schema is being updated behind the scenes at that moment.

This is a normal and expected effect, and resolves itself within a few minutes. A simple page refresh is enough to bring everything back to normal.

What is the impact on my environment?

The exact impact is difficult for us to predict in advance, but in practice:

• Standard environments (with no or minimal customizations): the impact is negligible to very small.
• Environments with extensive customizations or custom CSS: here there’s a slightly higher chance that a small correction is needed on our side to fine-tune everything after the update.

The more an environment deviates from the standard configuration, the higher the likelihood that follow-up action is needed. We monitor this closely.

How long does an update take?

A full update typically takes no longer than half an hour.

Can an update be rolled back?

Yes. If necessary, a full update, or a specific package within it, can be rolled back. Based on experience, however, this is rarely needed.

What happens after the update?

After each update, we carry out a brief check on our end to confirm everything has run correctly. That said, we recommend taking a moment to go through your own environment as well, especially if you use extensive customizations or custom CSS. If you notice anything that doesn’t look right, we’re happy to fix it for you.

Summary

If you have any further questions after reading this article about an upcoming update, please feel free to contact our support team.