What does the Grand Avenue Software Version Number Mean?

Below are two examples of About Grand Avenue Software pages.

About Grand Avenue Software 16.0

About Grand Avenue Software 16.1

Major Versions and Minor Versions

The first two components of the Grand Avenue Software version (e.g., “16” and “0” or "16" and "1") are the major and minor version numbers.

The minor version is changed each time a new version of the software is released.
- Grand Avenue releases new minor versions approximately every 3-4 months.
The major version is changed when the application has a significant architectural or server platform support change.
- Grand Avenue releases new major versions approximately every 18-24 months.

Architectural Changes

Application architecture describes the patterns and techniques used to design and build an application.

The introduction of a new user interface at GAS 16.0 is an example of a significant architectural change that triggered a major version increase from 15.x to 16.x.

Server Platform Support Changes

GAS servers depend on three supporting platforms:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server
Database: Microsoft SQL Server
Development Platform: .NET Framework

By convention, Grand Avenue Software adds or removes server platform support only at major releases.

At the GAS 16.0 release, Grand Avenue announced discontinued support for SQL Server 2012 and added support for SQL Server 2022. For hosted GAS installations, no customer action is required for these platform changes because Grand Avenue manages the platforms in the hosting environment. For an on-premise customer running SQL Server 2012, on the other hand, this would mean a mandatory upgrade of their SQL Server instance to a supported version before upgrading to GAS 16.0.

Additional Numbers Shown in the Application Version

The final two components of that Application Version number are artifacts of our build process that allow us to know exactly which build created the final released version. The released version of 16.1 was 16.1.8519.38409. The "8519" represents the number of days after January 1, 2000. In this case that was April 29, 2023. The "38409" equates to one-half the number of seconds into that day. In this case that was 9:20 PM.