Rollout Plugin and DHFC Installer

Rollout functionality allows your organization to determine whether or not your users are going to receive automatic updates to their devices. You can elect to ‘pin’ an app to a particular version. Electing to pin a version or use the latest version of an app is an easy process that takes just a couple of steps, outlined below.

IMPORTANT: Using the latest version is recommended to ensure your users receive the latest updates and patches, as they won’t be available on any versions other than the latest.

Click here to take it for a test drive.

This opens Solution Center straight to the Rollout configuration page.

For example, in a typical controlled rollout, here is what happens:

You set your Rollout Version Policy to pin to a specific version (or patch). All of your client machines on your tenant adhere to this pinned version.
If Schneider Electric releases a new version of the application, no updates are applied to any of your client machines on your tenant.
On your chosen date, change your Rollout Version Policy to the newer version (or patch) of the application. This unpins the old version and pins the new version.
From the client machine’s perspective, it ultimately takes two logins for the upgrade to occur.
- On the first login after the upgrade, the client opens to the previous version but recognizes a new version is ready for install.
- On the second login after the upgrade, the new version is fully installed and ready for the end user.

Decoding the version string: The 1st number represents the major build, the 2nd number represents the minor build, the 3rd number represents the patch build, and any content after the “-” is the pre-release version number. The version string follows SemVer v1.0 (http://semver.org/spec/v1.0.0.html). In the list, the marketing version comes first, followed by the application version in parentheses. Before version 11.4.1, the marketing and application versions were the same, but after version 11.4.1 they differ.

At the bottom of the Solution Center interface, click the View Release Notes button to read release notes located on myArcFM.

MSIX Installer Notes

As stated in Microsoft’s help document What is MSIX?, MSIX is a Windows app package format that provides a modern packaging experience to all Windows apps. For more information about how MSIX directly applies to DHFC, see the myArcFM article Designer HFC MSIX Migration.

With this new technology, keep the following points in mind:

You need to download and install Microsoft’s App Installer prior to installing the DHFC client.
The first time you upgrade to an MSIX version (for example, moving to DHFC version 11.4.1 and beyond), there are a few changes made to the system:
- You are notified that the DHFC icon has moved from the Desktop to the Start Menu.
- The former Squirrel installation and config files are cleaned up, but some files are left behind. These can be personally removed.
- The log and log4net.config are now located in C:\ProgramData\Schneider Electric\SE.Coax.NetworkDesigner.
If using the latest version, there are no longer notifications within the application regarding new builds. You can always check the Backstage > About to view your current version.
- If using the latest version, the application checks for updates every 12 hours. If you need an update sooner, you can use the steps as described in the topic Install the DHFC Client Application. Likely, you need to restart your machine after installing the new version.
DHFC no longer displays in the Control Panel. Instead, it is under Apps & Features.

In the image above, notice the different colors of the icons.
- The lighter shade for ArcFM Designer HFC indicates an app that auto-updates via MSIX.
- The darker shade for ArcFM Solution Center indicates an app that does not auto-update via MSIX, but instead updates via a different technology such as Squirrel..

Use the Latest Version

By default, Rollout is configured to use the latest version. Under the Rollout version policy field is information showing the specific version that matches your current selection for the rollout version policy.

Pin to Major and Minor Version

Open the Rollout version policy to view a list of available major and minor version choices. Select the desired version to pin. For example, selecting 11.4.* allows patches, but major and minor updates are not applied. Users are locked to that version until such time as the policy is changed. After selecting the desired version, click Save. Click Cancel to disregard changes.

Pin to a Specific Patch

If you want to pin the version to a specific patch, click the Specify patch version box. This affects the Rollout version policy drop-down list, displaying all available patch versions, as shown below. When specifying a patch version, note that users receive no updates at all until the rollout version policy is changed to a later patch, a different version, or the latest version. After selecting the desired version, click Save. Click Cancel to disregard changes.

If you pin to a specific patch version, you still automatically receive any security fixes issued by Schneider Electric. When Schneider Electric releases a security fix, the application build number increments and all customers, regardless of what version you have pinned, receive the fix. As stated above, in the drop-down the marketing version comes first, followed by the application build number in parentheses. Regarding the security fix, if you, for example, pin to 11.4.1 (50.0.0.342) and then Schneider Electric issues a security fix, your full version increments to 11.4.1 (50.0.0.343). Notice the marketing version does not change, but the application build number incremented from 342 to 343.

Copy Download Link

This copies a download URL to your clipboard. This is the URL for the appinstaller file. It is not the MSIX package URL. If you run the appinstaller file, it enables the auto-update that respects the controlled rollout settings discussed above. Paste it into a web browser to start the download of the appinstaller file.

IMPORTANT:

If you are deploying on a server machine (or if you want to explicitly manage the application deployment), then you should copy the actual MSIX package URL, which is inside the appinstaller file or part of the deployment script. See the myArcFM article Installing the DHFC Client on Windows Server for more information.
Is your Copy Download Link button disabled? The most likely reason is that you have changed the version in the drop-down, but you have not yet clicked Save at the bottom of the interface. If you want to download an older version, first choose it in the drop-down, click Save, then click Copy Download Link.

Roll Back to a Previous Version

To roll back with MSIX, change the version in the drop-down to an older version. This automatically downgrades all users the next time they launch the application.

IMPORTANT:

Different versions have different functionality, and some functions require different configurations. Thus, rolling back to a previous version should be taken with care. If your company has made configuration changes to support a recent release, earlier versions might not support those configurations because they do not have the same functionality.
Further, if you are currently on an MSIX version of 11.4.1 or after, it is not possible to roll back to a prior version in the manner stated above. In that case, you need to set the rollout version policy to a version prior to 11.4.1, uninstall the MSIX, then re-install the previous version of the client (which used a different installer technology).
Rolling back to a previous version using the Rollout plugin only works if you have installed DHFC using the appinstaller file. Rolling back does not work if you deployed DHFC using the MSIX package URL (for example, if you installed on a server machine).

Personally Upgrade to a New Version

Pinning to the most recent version allows the application to upgrade without your involvement. However, sometimes you need to run an upgrade yourself, especially if the application upgrade is part of a packaged upgrade at your company. To accomplish this, first choose the version from the drop-down, then click the Create Deployment Script button. This generates a PowerShell script, and the last line of the script contains the link to the MSIX for the version in the drop-down.