What is it?

Drake Update Manager is a utility we built to make updating Drake Tax easier on your verito server. When Drake releases an update, the update won't install if anyone is still logged in. Instead of trying to guess which of your user/s logged in to drake tax or spending extra time raising a ticket, you can use this utility to handle it quickly by yourself.

Steps to use it

When you open the Drake Update Manager, please proceed as per below steps:

1. Pick the year. You'll see a tile for each Drake Tax year (2023, 2024, 2025). The newest year is selected by default. Click the year you want to update and then click Continue.

2. Review who's currently using Drake. The next screen shows everyone who's logged into Drake tax for that year right now. You'll see their username and whatever drake tax instance they have open. 

⚠️ This is the most important screen. Read it carefully.

If the list shows any users, those users will be disconnected from Drake when you click Start update. Any unsaved work they have open will be lost. Hence, before proceeding, make sure either:

• The list is empty (no one is in Drake), OR
• You've personally checked with everyone on the list that they've saved their work.

If you're not sure, don't click Start yet. Reach out to those users first, then come back and click the refresh button (the circular arrow icon near the top right) to update the list.

When you're ready, tick the checkbox at the bottom that says "I have notified these users and confirm I want to proceed" and click Start update.

3. Wait for it to finish. A progress screen shows what's happening. This might take a minute or two. Don't close the window during this step.

4. Done. A green checkmark and "Update complete" message means everything worked. Users can log back into Drake at this point. Click OK to close the tool.

Common errors

If you see any error message at the end instead of the green checkmark, the update didn't finish. The message will tell you what happened. The most common ones are:

• "Another administrator is already running an update" — someone else in your team is using the tool at the same time. Wait a minute or two and try again.
• "The update service did not respond" — there's a temporary issue on the server. Try again, and if it happens twice in a row, contact verito support.

Disclaimer

Always read the active users list before clicking Start. If anyone is in the list, ask them to save their work and close Drake. Then refresh the active users list to confirm its closed.

This tool allow disconnecting active users from Drake Tax in order to perform updates. By using this tool, you accept responsibility for ensuring that:

• All users in Drake at the time of update have been notified before you proceed.
• All users have had a reasonable opportunity to save their work.

Neither this tool nor the IT team can recover unsaved work that was lost because a user was disconnected during an update they weren't aware of. The confirmation checkbox on the second screen exists specifically because clicking it is your acknowledgment that you've handled the notification step yourself.

As this utility does not require any special permissions, please ensure that either you, the account owner, is the one using this utility or you have provided it to an authorized team member responsible for always checking with active users before running the update to ensure no data loss occurs.

Questions or problems?

If you run into anything you're not sure about, or if the tool doesn't behave the way this guide describes, please send an email to support@verito.com. 

Include:

• Which drake year you were trying to update
• What screen you were on
• Any error message/glitch you saw (a screenshot is ideal)

We'll get back to you as soon as we can.