Migrate FAS6.2 and FAS 6.3 to FAS 6.5 and Above – Rezolve Ai Support Portal

Background

FAS 6.5 comes with a modernised configuration layer, which allows to roll out new features in the next releases.

General installation

The instructions assume that the FAS 6.2/FAS 6.3 is not using the deployment agent, and that the new installation will be using the deployment agent.

Create a capture that includes configuration and the Business Manager user database from your existing FAS installation:
```
bin/capture -c
```
FAS versions before FAS 6.2.7 will not capture the Business Manager user database in this step, and it must be manually copied while the qserver is stopped.
- Stop the query server using bin/qserver stop.
- Copy the database into a temporary directory (below: $BMBD_DIRECTORY).
```
cp -R FAS6_2*/data/bizman $BMDB_DIRECTORY
```
Manually install FAS6.5 without the Deployment Agent.
```
unzip FAS6_5*.zip
cd FAS6_5*
```
Unzip the capture from step 1.
Note: When unzipping the capture the contents of the etc directory should not be unzipped. If you modified files in the etc directory please merge those changes manually.
(FAS6.2.6 and earlier only) Copy the Business Manager user database
- Create the 'data' directory if it doesn't exist already.
```
mkdir -p data
```
- Copy the database from the backup directory .
```
cp -R $BMDB_DIRECTORY data
```
Run bin/install to ensure proper migration .
```
bin/install
```
Create a capture of the FAS6.5 environment:
```
bin/capture -c -D
```
Install FAS6.5 with the Deployment Agent using the new FAS6.5 capture.

Business configuration

FAS 6.5 will automatically migrate your old business configuration (business.xml, etc.) when you start the application, i.e. it won't be done during the bin/install step.

If FAS 6.5 cannot migrate your old configuration, it will write the errors/warnings to FAS/log/fredhopper.log, and leave the original configuration parts. After the first startup of FAS6.5 with your old configuration, please check and resolve the errors by carefully editing the business.xml.

Errors in editing the business.xml can prevent FAS from starting up. We strongly advise to backup the business.xml before editing!
Please keep these points in mind when editing the business.xml:

Do not re-format the file: Reformatting business.xml may break parsing, so when editing, use a proper XML editor and do not reformat anything.
Only change what you need to change: Editing business.xml always has the chance of breaking FAS, so when you need to edit the file manually, keep your changes to the minimum and use the Business Manager whenever possible.
Test your changes: Do not edit business.xml on a production environment; always use a separate test environment.

Business Manager

A major goal of FAS6.5 is to simplify the user interface for campaign management: making daily work easier for marketers. That's the background of the following changes:

All facets/all values: This selection is replaced by "user location", i.e. selecting user location provides the same functionality as before selecting all facets/all values.
Price selection: The operators <>, <~~>, <~~>, <~>, etc. were replaced by an easier to read selection system. If you want to express "products that cost less than 20% more than current product", please select:
```
[price] [less than] [price of viewed item] [+20%]
```
Rank by random: Random ranking was removed to simplify the interface. Natural ranking (or hand-picked) is also a random ranking but has the advantage of not changing on page reload, i.e. it's more predictable. If you want to achieve a certain business goal like maximising margin or revenue, please rank on this attribute. If you don't have such a preference, you can keep the natural order.

API Change Description

Lateral facets

Lateral facets respect now the ranking as defined at Business Manager > Manage Navigation. Earlier releases placed lateral facets after selecting the underlying attribute always on top. If a lateral facet is displayed as both a lateral and non-lateral step the lateral step will be placed above the non-lateral one. At page/universes/universe/facetmap/ the position of filter objects representing a lateral facet changes (from position 1 to the position as configured in the Business Manager)

Availability of an item attribute

The availability of an item attribute can be tested by verifying item/attribute/@isnull. Earlier release may have contained an empty <value/> element for campaign items.

page/universes/universe/items-section/items/item/attribute/value if @isnull was true
page/universes/universe/themes/theme/items/item/attribute/value if @isnull was true

Campaign (theme) types

The campaign type in a Fredhopper query response is always of value facet. Earlier releases had values:

facet-product
facet-image
facet-text
item-product
item-image
item-text
keyword-product
keyword-image
keyword-text
facet
item
keyword.

The flexible Trigger system introduced in release 6.5 makes this simplistic separation no longer applicable.

Fredhopper 7.0: /page/universes/universe/themes/theme/@type has always value facet.

Fredhopper 6.2: /page/universes/universe/themes/theme/@type has one of the values: facet-product, facet-image, facet-text, keyword-product, keyword-image, keyword-text, item-product, item-image, item-text, facet, keyword, item.

Fredhopper 6.2 code to render themes:

if type contains "image" then:
  render_image(theme.static_content)
else if type contains "text" then:
  render_text(theme.static_content)
else if type contains "product" then:
  render_items(theme.items)

Fredhopper 7.0 code to render themes:

if theme hasChildElement "static-content":
  if static_content@type equals "image" then:
    render_image(theme.static_content) else
    render_text(theme.static_content)
else:
  render_items(theme.items)

Reporting

Fredhopper Reporting has been deprecated in FAS 6.3 and is removed from the FAS zip in FAS7 and higher, we strongly advise migrating to a 3rd party analytics solution.

Customisation

Please carefully test all extensions in FAS/custom such as attribute type functions, web service extension and custom passes. Internal interfaces on which these customisations rely may have changed.