I wanted to make you aware of a project we are having to prioritise on the Merchanter/UT400 development cycle.
As we may have mentioned recently, the system is developed on a Mendix platform, which currently runs on version 7, which is due to go end of life at the end of this year.
We have been testing and making arrangements to move the system up to version 9 of Mendix since summer 2023, and had scheduled in that process once we had finished Transport Scheduling, and a couple of other major projects, over the summer. However, we found out on Friday 10th May that we now only have until July to make the move. From July, the version 7 generation of the system will continue to run until the end of the year, but we cannot build any new features or fixes to it after July.
For this reason we are having to urgently prioritise the project to move to version 9 over the next 6 weeks. This will have an impact on the development projects we had scheduled in for that period. We wanted to let you know of this delay, and to assure you we will be moving as fast as possible to catch up once we have made the move. It will mean that developments we were looking to deliver in May/June are likely to be pushed back to July/August.
We haven’t made a platform generation change on Mendix before, so we don’t know everything we are letting ourselves in for, and whilst initial testing is looking very promising, I would rather block out a good chunk of time for the move and be able to let you know if all goes quicker than we expected, than have to keep coming back and pushing back delivery times on your new features several times.
When we make the update to your system from version 7 to version 9 there will be no disruption in service, it will be the same as any other update, and in many ways the system will not look or behave differently to the current version.
There is a silver lining to this disruption, that once we have the system on version 9 of Mendix you will see performance, security, integration and functionality improvements and there will be greater scope for developing mobile versions of the features you already use and better native apps for jobs like driver deliveries and mobile stock checking.
Thank you for your patience,
Ian Oldrey
Managing Director