Upgrading to Version 9

Macabacus version 9 introduces major improvements to Macabacus libraries and other features. This page will help you understand these changes and facilitate your transition to version 9. Changes that may affect your Macabacus deployment include:

• Company and team libraries have been replaced with "shared" libraries, giving you greater flexibility to manage library content. You can create up to 5 shared libraries with a Professional plan; and an unlimited shared libraries with an Enterprise plan; and 8 shared libraries with a legacy Suite, Modeler, or Presenter plan.
• Shared library read/write access can now be restricted to specific user groups, which are configured in your Admin Console. You can create up to 5 user groups with a Professional plan; and an unlimited number of groups with an Enterprise plan; and 8 user groups with a legacy Suite, Modeler, or Presenter plan. You can still use native Windows folder permissions to restrict library access for libraries in shared network folders.
• End users could previously create and manage team libraries. In version 9, only admins can add, delete, or otherwise modify shared library definitions, but end users can be permissioned to modify shared library contents.
• Tombstones are no longer a specific type of library content, but just one of many possible use cases for new Meta Shapes (although perhaps the most common use case). Meta Shapes are like regular shape content, but are published to libraries alongside metadata used to describe the shape or its contents and facilitate discovery in the Library pane (similar to Meta Slides). You will discover that some references to tombstones have been replaced with references to Meta Shapes or eliminated altogether.
• All features and tools for configuring libraries and manipulating their contents are now intuitively consolidated in the new Library Manager dialog.
• The "active" template is now referred to as the "default" template.
• Some settings have been moved from the Macabacus add-ins to the Admin Console for easier administration.
• Many more settings are now available to share via the Share Settings dialog (formerly the Enterprise Configuration dialog).

Library content published in version 9 will not be accessible to users running older versions of Macabacus. However, content published in older versions will be accessible in version 9 if libraries are upgraded as described below. Consequently, customers may experience problems if some users are running v9 while others are still running v8.

When upgrading from v8 to v9, it is necessary to:

• Upgrade your libraries by clicking the Upgrade Libraries  button in the new Library Manager dialog, accessed from the Macabacus > Settings  menu. This will upgrade your legacy tombstone fields (if any) to the new Meta Shapes structure, rearrange the folder structure of your libraries, and upgrade library manifests to reflect the v9 format. Back up your libraries before upgrading them, and ensure that all users will have v9 installed promptly after upgrading libraries.
• Republish your presentation templates to one or more new content groups. Other types of library content need not be republished.
• Remove any presentation templates published using v8 by deleting the their content groups using the Delete Group  button (red) in the Library Manager dialog.
• Select a default template in the PowerPoint > New Presentations  section of Macabacus' Settings dialog after republishing your template(s).
• Specify the shared settings location in the new Configuration section of your Admin Console if you share Macabacus settings by publishing them to a shared network folder (rather than the cloud). The path to the shared settings XML file is no longer set in the registry.
• Republish shared settings in Macabacus' Share Settings dialog (formerly the Enterprise Configuration dialog) after completing the steps above and considering the recommendations below.

If your organization does not utilize the libraries, Macabacus enabled templates, or shared settings on your account, you do not need to take the above required action to upgrade to version 9.

When upgrading from v8 to v9, it is recommended that you:

• Upgrade all users at once.
• First, uninstall the existing Macabacus (v8) installation, and then deploy the v9 installer.
• Review the new settings available to share in the Share Settings dialog.
• Review options in the new Configuration section of your Admin Console to ensure that they are configured as desired.
• Configure user groups as desired in your Admin Console, if desired. If you do not configure any user groups, all users will have read access to all shared libraries.