Is it time to upgrade your IWMS?

Whether you use Archibus, IBM TRIRIGA, or another integrated workplace management system (IWMS), there are myriad risks when you delay timely upgrades. Many organizations are two or more upgrades behind, which compounds the disruption—and cost—if problems arise.

The University of Nebraska experienced significant costs and loss of productivity when it couldn’t collect accurate, reliable data from five separate IWMS deployments across multiple campuses. Upgrading its IWMS to a single, cloud-based platform boosted efficiency, reduced costs, and provided better data for decision-making.

The benefits of upgrading your IWMS far outweigh the risk of delaying.

Without the latest security patches, your organization’s IWMS is vulnerable to security breaches. You need to continuously monitor and manage each network node and application component for any potential issues to minimize vulnerabilities.

Without the most current updates, your IWMS application performance suffers, which diminishes your experience and adoption and leads to employees seeking manual workarounds and custom configurations. As a result, you may have to spend time and resources dealing with unapproved solutions and new security risks as well as lower team member performance.

By delaying your IWMS upgrade, you risk not having access to the best-in-class solutions that solve your most pressing problems. Your trusted solution providers invest in their products as the needs of the industry and customers change, so you have the tools you need to operate efficiently and meet your business goals without costly interruptions.

By not monitoring and updating downstream dependencies—such as databases (Oracle, SQL Server) and application servers (Tomcat, WebSphere), AutoCAD/Revit, iOS/Android, and Office365E—you risk unnecessary downtime caused by incompatibility with your required platforms. Your IWMS partner must regularly update native libraries to ensure compatibility with dependent products.

By not remaining current on your IWMS version, you risk not having support when you need it. Most product manufacturers drop support on their products after two major versions. This means if a bug is found that is interrupting your business, the manufacturer may not be required to fix it, which could lead to a costly emergency upgrade and lost productivity.

Choosing the right type of upgrade depends on your unique situation. Options vary. For example, IBM TRIRIGA offers two different types of upgrades:
 

• A platform-specific upgrade keeps your IWMS platform on current Java, HTML, security support, and database platforms (SQL server, DBS, Oracle). Platform upgrades are very simple and more like routine maintenance..
• An application upgrade is where the most critical changes exist due to rich application feature sets and the degree of version variance.
   

1. Comparison report: During the IBM TRIRIGA application upgrade process, your IWMS partner should provide an Upgrade Assessment with a comparison report (part of the IBM TRIRIGA toolkit) and an overview of what features can be merged or potentially replaced with new application features.
2. Technical debt review: Your IWMS partner should give you visibility into the customizations that may impact your upgrade path for future releases—and a plan to optimize the code. Your IWMS partner’s ability to assess and review the customization and optimization of your code is a crucial benefit you should request when you are implementing application upgrades.

The price of not upgrading your IWMS is more than monetary. It can also cost you time, resources and productivity. Putting an ongoing upgrade plan in place helps ensure you are prepared and not caught off guard in an emergency.