Upgrade Options for Theatre Manager

Compliance Statement Required by PCI Council
The PCI council represents the credit card companies. They dictate to vendors that products must be assessed, certified and approved by them in order to appear on the list of 'Accepted Products'. Theatre Manager is certified to PA-DSS (2.0) compliance. As a requirement of the PCI Council certification, ArtsMan hereby advises your organization of the their compliance statement.

Installing Theatre Manager to be PCI Compliant
Data security is your organization's responsibility. Instructions on how to install Theatre Manager to be PCI compliant can be found at Network Diagram for PCI Compliance

Upgrade Support Services provided by ArtsMan
Contracting ArtsMan’s support services does not absolve your organization of maintaining Theatre Manager in a PCI compliant manner. When an organization requests ArtsMan support services to perform Theatre Manager component updates on your behalf, then it is responsibility of the organization to use the Theatre Manager system in a PCI compliant manner. It's acknowledged and understood that maintaining PCI compliance is a requirement of any and all valid merchant accounts for the processing of credit card transactions.

You have some options available to you when you want to update Theatre Manager.

You may:

  • Choose to self-install all the components required for the Version Upgrade. There is NO COST for a self-install.
    • - OR -
  • Contract Arts Management Systems to perform the work for you on a fee for service basis. This work is no part of your annual support and maintenance agreement as it falls outside of normal support. Upgrading costs $100/hr to a maximum of $400.00. - OR -
  • take a hybrid approach and do some of the work yourself and ask us to do some parts of it

Self upgrade option

We try hard to provide instructions so that a venue can do all updates themselves. However, there may be several components in the general upgrade process that need changed.

Please refer to the Release Notes for the complete installation requirements. Depending what needs updated, the process can take from half an hour to a day, and should be performed by proficient IT personnel.

The following are generally updated for you automatically:

The following may need to be manually updated periodically:

Most of the Theatre Manager components are updated automatically for you - so it is rare to need to think about updates other than database or customized web pages (and only periodically). Please read the release notes

If you choose to self-install, and then require support assistance, the regular hourly billable rate of $100 per hour will be applicable. Please note that support for a self installation is not covered under the After Hours Emergency Support contract. Please plan your time accordingly to ensure that if you do have questions, Arts Management support will be available to assist you.

Enlisting AMS to do an upgrade for you

If you choose to have Arts Management perform this work for you, send a request to our sales office at sales@artsman.com or (888) 536-5244, ext. 2 from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM MST. They will process the request and help arrange scheduling for you.

The actual upgrade process can take up to one business day, depending on what needs to be done. During this time your offices will not be able to use Theatre Manager (even to "look things up"), and web sales (if applicable) will be offline during the upgrade process.

Step #1 - Contact Arts Management

Contact our Sales department at (888) 536-5244, ext. 2, or via sales@artsman.com to get the process started.

Let us know if the update includes switching Credit card service providers and if you have any preferred dates that match up to our available dates.

Step #2 - Scheduling a time for an Upgrade

Step #3 - Advance Preparation for the Upgrade

The check list of things we will need from you in order to do the upgrade efficiently is:
  • Please forward any necessary user ids, passwords and connection information at least 24hrs before the upgrade date. We typically need:
    • local administrator ID and password for each machine
    • Theatre Manager's master user password
  • Please provide us the listing of steps to follow to remote connect to the following machines:
    • the computer running the Postgres Database Server
    • the computer running Nginx Server
    • the computer running the Second Generation web server
  • Please ensure that all users have logged out of Theatre Manager by the scheduled update time.
  • Review the release notes starting at the latest to see if there is anything special that you want us to do as part of the upgrade.

Note: Failure to provide us the required remote access, user ids, or passwords before the scheduled date, may result in the upgrade being reassigned to a different day.

Hardware Requirements

If you are running Mac OSX for your Nginx Server, this computer must be at least a core 2 Intel based machine running OSX 10.8.5 at a minimum in order to deal with TLS 1.2 security.

Step #4 - On the day of the Upgrade

We will need remote access to your database server, TM web server and Apache.

We will be starting the process at approximately 8:00am MST and the process may take approximately 5+/- hours to complete. It should be done on a non-busy day because your box office will not be able to use Theatre Manager and web sales will also be offline. If you do not have a standard method for remote connections to within your network, you can use Theatre Manager's built in Team Viewer sessions to provide the required access.

We will need the following:

  • Remote access to your network setup and working with any required usernames and passwords to connect
  • **Local Administrator name and password for the Postgres Database Server
  • **Local Administrator name for the Nginx Web Server
  • **Local Administrator name for the Web Listener Server(s)
  • Theatre Manager's Master User password

**On windows machines, there are two types of administrator accounts. There is:

  • the Local Administrator which is the account we need you to log in as. It is the original user id and password for the machine.
  • Venues with windows Active Directory set up on a serve can also have a Domain Administrator account.

    We cannot install theatre manager using the domain admin account.

We will be updating (if applicable):

We will be removing and cleaning up:

  • Any older installer versions that are no longer needed
  • Any older databases that are not part of the backup cycle
  • Cleaning up your desktop of any files that might have been placed there by our team that are no longe pertinent to Theatre Manager

The time to complete the upgrade process will depend on:

  • Speed of your remote access
  • Hardware architecture
  • Size of your database

Approximate Timeline, if all goes well

Each upgrade is slightly different, however we do work as quickly as possible to minimize all downtime to the box office and for web sales. We find that most delays in completing the upgrade on time is directly related to remote connections and to network (upload/download) speeds during our remote access. On average the time is approximately 5+/- hours from the time that we gain access to the system to start the process.

We bring the box office back online first, then approximately 1+/- hours later, we bring the web sales online. Our first priority is to get the database server upgraded, then bring the box office online, then finally web sales.

After we have upgraded your system, we'll provide you the installer links to upgrade Theatre Manager on your remaining workstations.

Please note that the estimated time of 5+/- hours is only an estimate. It may be shorter, or If we encounter any troubles along the way, it may take longer.

Step #5 - What will happen after the upgrade?

After we have upgraded your system, we'll provide you the installer links to upgrade Theatre Manager on your remaining workstations. You will be required to physically go to each workstation, log in as the Administrator user and install the Theatre Manager installer. The Theatre Manager installer takes approximately 1 minute to run on each machine. After the installer has been run, you should be able to log into Theatre Manager and perform your normal work duties.

In many cases we will allow you to bring your box office back online within an hour or so of starting the upgrade, then while you are doing that, we will complete the web sales upgrade and bring your web sales back online.