The New

Costpoint 8.1 is Here!


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Welcome to Costpoint 8.1


Deltek University is here to support your transition to Costpoint 8.1. The information below is intended to help manage your Costpoint environment whether you are converting from Costpoint 7.1.1 or Costpoint 8.0. See our Before you Upgrade section with links to technical documentation and other resources specific to upgrading, with a special focus on our on-premise customers.

The amount of time required to prepare, test, and ultimately Go-Live will vary from company to company, but our Helpful Materials section includes recaps of new features to expect in 8.1, and we follow that up with some quick FAQs.

To continue to support you after your Upgrade, you can find more courses in the Deltek Learning Zone (DLZ). There are a variety of training types available to support your learning from video materials to on-demand Live classes, helping you make the most of the new features and functionality. We also provide a range of Quick Reference Guides and Infographics you can download to assist with your daily tasks.


Before you upgrade

The upgrade direct from Costpoint 7.1.1 to Costpoint 8.1 involves some special considerations; please see the section below dedicated to this topic and visit the Costpoint 8.0 page for important updates.

We’ve also provided information for those of you upgrading from 8.0 to 8.1 – either way, our Prior to Upgrade section is important to view first, with an overview of all the new functionality coming in Costpoint 8.1 and a link to a webcast outlining one of the most important considerations of the upgrade: the cleanup of Time and Expense (T&E) data. The webcast will help you understand if the cleanup applies to you.

*NEW*

What’s New in Costpoint 8.1 - Functional Reference Guide

Learn about Costpoint 8.1's new enhanced features and how they relate to the current version. It covers updates to all domains: Accounting, Contracts, Projects, Planning, People/Regulatory, Materials, Time & Expense, Reports & Analytics, and Admin.

Roles: All Roles

Launch


Costpoint 8.1 Upgrade Preparation: T&E Data Cleanup Webinar

Some organization’s systems may require a data cleanup prior to the 8.1 upgrade. If your organization used Time and Expense when that data was kept separate from Costpoint, and a data cleanup has not yet occurred, that should be started at 60 days before Go-Live.

Launch

Technical Information If you are upgrading from Costpoint 7.1.1 the following resources will be helpful to you.

CP711 Upgrade

Instructions for the collation conversion. Click on the button to get a copy.

Download

CP80 MR Install

Interim step to upgrade to Costpoint 8.0 before 8.1. Click on the button to get a copy.

Download

Costpoint BI Upgrade Installation Guide

If running Cognos Analytics 11.0.13 you will need to upgrade to Cognos Analytics 11.1.7-Both Costpoint BI 8.0 and 8.1 use the same Cognos Version.Click on the button to get a copy.

Download

Upgrade considerations from 7.1.1 to 8.1

Click here to access the Deltek Support site; once logged in, the buttons will take you to the suggested Knowledge Base (KB) Articles.

KB 107775: Covers the collation for 8.0 Upgrade.

Launch

If you are running Time & Expense and Planning separately there is documentation for upgrading TE 10 and Planning 7.

CP81 MR install

Click on the button to get a copy.

Download


Costpoint BI Upgrade Installation Guide

The Costpoint BI Upgrade Guide Leverages the same Cognos analytics version as 8.0, version 11.1.7. Look on DSM for latest fix pack install.

Download


Important Knowledge Base Articles to consider when upgrading from 8.0 to 8.1.

Click here to access the Deltek Support site; once logged in, the buttons will take you to the suggested Knowledge Base (KB) Articles.

KB 106137: Costpoint 8.1 Availability Announcement

Launch

KB 105326: Important Changes Coming to Costpoint 8.1 Web Service

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KB 106020: Costpoint Time/Expense Toolkit and its Importance

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KB 107305: Changes in Planning Tables in Costpoint 8.1 might impact BI Reporting on Planning

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Remember to run the Post Upgrade Toolkit after you upgrade your system to 8.1!

In addition to the pre-upgrade TE Data Clean-up toolkit, a separate post-upgrade toolkit is required to be run as part of your 8.1 upgrade. For additional information for the post-upgrade toolkit, please read KB Article # 107903.

Costpoint 8.1 Release Notes

This document details all of the enhancements contained in this release, organized by domain. Click on the button to get a copy of the CP8.1 Release Notes.

Download



Helpful Materials - CP8.1 Upgrade Sessions




Frequently Asked Questions


Yes, you can upgrade to 8.1, however the process has several steps. SQL Server customers will need to make sure that DELTEK, CPADMIN, CPSYSTEM, BP, TE are all collated to Latin1_General_Bin. This is essential before you go to version 8. Additionally, you will need to first upgrade to the latest MR of 8.0 and then you can upgrade to the General Availability release of 8.1 (8.1.5 or after). Please note that if you are still running Cognos Analytics 11.0.13, you will need to upgrade to the latest 11.1.7 (with the latest fix pack).
No, on-premises customers will not have the option to install individual hot fixes since fixes will be packaged together as a cumulative maintenance releases.
No, regulatory updates will be packaged with other bug fixes and releases as cumulative maintenance releases.
New feature releases like 8.1 or 8.2 will be supported for up to 24 months, but please refer to the Costpoint Support Lifecycle page for official dates.
The latest version of Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge will be compatible with Costpoint 8.1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 will not be officially supported, as it reaches end-of-life in 2022.
The Project Long Name field, introduced in Costpoint 8.1, is new to the Details “Tab” of the Manage Project User Flow. This is a place to put a longer project name or description, which can now be up to 120 characters in length. A benefit to this is if your Time and Expense application is co-deployed with Costpoint, or part of your Costpoint menu, the Long name will be used as a descriptor in Time and Expense. If your Time and Expense application is a separate database, an option to export Long Name will be available. This is a required field that is referenced for Time and Expense associations in each project, and will take on the Project Name by default, but can be manually adjusted. This field should be added or updated on all projects for correct Time and Expense references.
Based on how your organization used Time & Expense and Costpoint when they were separate data sets, your system may require a cleanup prior to the 8.1 upgrade. The data cleanup will need to be done in all of your system’s databases.

There are two types of Data discrepancies at play:

  • Major Discrepancies: Records that exist only in T&E data, not in Costpoint itself.
  • Minor Discrepancies: Records that have a different value between T&E’s data and Costpoint’s data, such as in the Active Status or Description not matching each other.
  • The Release of 8.014 included a CP/TE Diagnostic Toolkit to better identify all the data discrepancies. When run, this utility identifies all data discrepancies that exist, making it easy to fix both the minor and major discrepancies in the data. This can be found in: Time & Expense > Configuration > Utilities.

    Once the discrepancies are identified and fixed, it is a best practice to re-run the CP/TE Diagnostic Toolkit to confirm that all discrepancies were corrected.

    Yes, there are a couple special considerations when upgrading to Costpoint BI 8.1. Note that there is not a Cognos Upgrade in this release, the current release is Cognos Analytics 11.1.7. Please refer to Knowledge Base (KB) Article # 107305 which covers that Costpoint Planning for Projects has removed a few tables/fields as part of the elimination of the refresh process. We have adjusted our out of the box planning models for these changes. However, if you have your own custom Planning models or BI reports that contain custom SQL, it is recommended you assess the impact of these changes (as outlined in the KB article).

    If you are using the Costpoint BI Secured Packages, it is important to note that the restriction of writing custom SQL against those packages has been removed. We have established a new Advanced User Lite group whose members will not be able to write custom SQL at all. In the upgrade guide note the new extensions that can be installed: one is graphics for the new HR Mgmt Dashboard in Smart AI; another is a Cognos extension that allows adding linking objects to dashboards, which could run a report from a dashboard. Finally, please note that we are now recommending a setting that changes the formatting of a csv generated file to UTF 8 format from the original UTF 16.



    Who to Contact:


    Support

    For questions specific to your system, or about upgrading in general, please check out our knowledge base articles or email, chat, or join a call with the support team.

    https://deltek.custhelp.com/
    Deltek University (DU)

    For questions about the Deltek Learning Zone platform, please reach out to our Deltek University team at:


    DeltekUniversity@dlz.deltek.com
    Costpoint Curriculum

    For questions about the Costpoint curriculum or materials found in the Deltek Learning Zone, please reach out to a member of the Costpoint team at:

    DLZCostpoint@deltek.com