Migrating data affected by serialization format changes
In Sitecore XP 10.5 onwards, the serialization format of data residing in storage locations mentioned below has changed:
- Users stored in generated Sitecore packages (
\App_Data\packages[package file name].zip\package.zip\security\users\sitecore\[user]) - Serialized user files in
\App_Data\serialization\security\sitecore\Users - Data stored in
[ClientData]table in master/web database - Data stored in
[VisitGeoIpData]table in web database
Most of them require minimal to no migration efforts. However, for all of them, once your existing data are migrated to Sitecore XP 10.5 from older Sitecore versions, they are no longer readable by older Sitecore versions once overwritten. Additionally, this behavior also applies to any of them freshly generated on Sitecore XP 10.5.
If you have business-critical data located in any of these locations, then it is advisable to test and ensure that they can all be successfully read after the migration.
For your existing Sitecore packages and existing serialized user files created from lower Sitecore versions, they can be installed on fresh Sitecore XP 10.5 instance as-is. To confirm that the migration is successful, you should be able see the fields in the migrated users populated with your existing data, whether they are coming from your existing serialized user files or your existing Sitecore packages. It is also a good idea to test that your users can login using those users and perform actions that they should be able to perform based on the roles assigned to those users.
Although backward compatibility is provided, we recommend clearing existing data from the [ClientData] and [VisitGeoIpData] tables in the databases listed above. The impact should be minimal: some Sitecore Client UI preferences will be reset, but these contain only temporary client state and do not affect core functionality. Initial GeoIP lookups may take longer to resolve until the [VisitGeoIpData] table is repopulated. If you have any customizations related to these data, then it is recommended to test that they can still be read by your solution after performing the upgrade.