BIA Reporting upgrades provide enhanced functionality and bug fixes. As such, it is beneficial for a project to implement a BIA Reporting based solution in such a way as to facilitate taking on a new release of the framework. To support an upgrade, there are a number of steps that should be taken before development is started. These steps include understanding the BIA Reporting directory structure, implementing source code control, and using prefixes for all new artifacts.
At the start of a project, as well as throughout the life cycle of a project, the way in which custom functionality is developed greatly impacts the success of an upgrade. Building custom functionality basically comes down to modifying instances of BIA Reporting source artifacts or creating new instances of these artifacts.