2025.3 Update Guide

Summary

System updates are your first line of defense against security threats while also boosting performance, ensuring compatibility, and unlocking exciting new features that add value to your digital experience. Regular updates not only protect your data and keep your system running smoothly, but they also give you access to innovative tools and capabilities that can enhance your productivity and user experience.

Details

Visual consistency across applications and documentation

Typography and color scheme changes across Stibo Systems' documentation sets (STEP, PDX, and Enhanced Content) were made with this update. Along with documentation updates, the new UI has been updated to match the visual design of other UIs, creating a unified experience across the entire product suite. The update particularly benefits organizations using bundled offerings like our Product Experience Data Cloud (PXDC), where users frequently switch between STEP and PDX interfaces. Refer to the Developments in New UI for STEP update note in the 2025.3 Update Note set for details about the UI changes.

STEPXML schema changes from 2025.2 to 2025.3

• The default template for export of LOVs was corrected and updated in the PIMOutputTemplate.xsd. Refer to the Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes update note for details.

• A new 'InheritPrivilegesFromTargetToSource' parameter for entity reference types has been added to allow STEP administrators to enable privilege inheritance for entity reference types. For details, refer to the 2025.3 Customer and Supplier MDM Enhancements update note.

Changes to datasheet naming

Values configured for the 'Prefix to the Datasheet ID' will now only be prepended to the datasheet IDs and will no longer also be prepended to the value configured for the 'Naming pattern Attribute for PDF datasheet ID.' Prior to this update, this was being done automatically, which was counter to user expectations.

The naming pattern can now be freely configured and will not result in the naming inconsistencies described above. Users must go into the 'Datasheet name' publisher attribute and edit the function in the 'Value Template' parameter to set the Name as desired.

Guardrail introduced from 2024.2 onward to prevent crashing

Although STEP is running In-Memory, values larger than 400 characters are not stored in In-Memory. When this information is processed, the data is copied from the In-Memory database to the heap memory, which can cause performance problems.

From STEP 2024.2 onward, a guardrail has been introduced to help prevent crashing due to running out of heap memory. There is now a 1MB default limit on the value size that can be stored in STEP, and it is marked as private. Should the value size exceed this limit, an error message will display like the one below:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Value too long. Length=1200000 max length=100000 for attribute OLEH_MV. on object com.stibo.core.persistence.NodePO-2101747, see config option: FrontCompactSoftSingleValueImpl.MaxValueSize=100000"

It is strongly recommended to keep the default value size. However, if the default value size limit needs to be temporarily changed, contact Stibo Systems Support.

For use cases where certain attributes need to have a larger value than 1MB, they can be temporarily excluded from this check. However, attributes should only be excluded from the check after careful consultation with Stibo Systems Support and with a known point of return to the default value size.

Additionally, for multivalues, the maximum number of values is limited to 10,000. Multivalues that exceed this limit will result in an error message like the one below:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: There are already 10000 multivalues for com.stibo.core.persistence.NodePO-2101747 for the attribute OLEH_MV. Maximum number of values are 10000. See config property:MultiValue.MaxValues=10000

These errors display in the applicable STEP user interface or in the logs of the environment where the error occurs.

Changes to background process framework

The background process (BGP) framework introduced in 2025.2 is now enabled by default. This framework handles intermediate BGP files in temporary storage. As a result of this change, BGP files are now only accessible via APIs, or by downloading them directly via STEP. For more information on how to download BGP files from STEP, refer to the Managing BGP Data topic in the System Setup documentation.

Some BGP templates, such as those related to InDesign and Merge Agent, still rely on shared folders due to compatibility issues. These templates currently function as is, but support will be addressed in a future update.

Important: Some Stibo customizations or extensions may exist that rely on files found in the old storage location. To account for these, it is possible to exclude certain BGP templates from using the new framework. Contact Stibo Systems support to have any required exclusions configured.

Storage retention policy changes for integration and background process files

To optimize storage availability and utilization, all SaaS environments have adopted a stricter policy that enforces a 30 day limit on the retention of integration and background process files. Scheduled automatic purging of older files began June 1st. It is advised that customers retrieve and archive files that need to be kept for longer.

Cassandra downgrading limitations

Due to changes made to Cassandra database key spaces, downgrading from version 2025.3 to 2025.2 is not possible for environments using multi-tenant clusters with Cassandra unless a database backup from before the update is restored.

macOS 26 (Tahoe) now supported

The latest version of macOS, macOS 26 (Tahoe), is supported for Mac clients.

Functionality desupported / removed / discontinued

• The following are desupported with this release as a result of their respective vendors ending support in 2025.

  • macOS 13 (Ventura)

  • Windows 10

• Support for the use of publishing business conditions in Elasticsearch configurations has been deprecated. For details, refer to the General Enhancements and Changes update note.

• Syndigo has been removed. As announced in the 2025.1 update notes, the Syndigo integration, previously deprecated, has been removed with this update.

• Using reflection from JavaScript business rules is blocked. Reflection has been used to access non-public methods in the API. As originally announced in 2023.3, and again in 2025.1 and 2025.2, since reflection can be a security risk and can potentially lead to performance issues and unexpected issues during upgrade, it is now disallowed. The scheduled 'Reflection Usage in Business Rules' healthcheck identifies business rules that use reflection and a warning with the text 'Attempted to call reflection API...' is written to the step.0.log. Business rules that use reflection must be rewritten to use publicly available methods. If a required method or function is not available in the Public JavaScript API, search for an existing idea in the Stibo Systems Community and upvote it — or, if the idea does not already exist, submit a new one. For more information, refer to the Healthcheck Test Index topic in the Performance Analysis documentation.

Functionality to be removed / discontinued

Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS 1.2) support: The approach for the rollout of TLS 1.3 has been to stay flexible by offering extended support for TLS 1.2 to customers who were unable to meet the deadline (June 25, 2025) for moving to TLS 1.3. This hybrid support will be available until October 22, 2025.

After October 14, 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide free software updates, technical assistance, or security fixes for Windows 10, encouraging customers to upgrade to Windows 11. Because of this, after October 22, 2025, Stibo Systems will drop any support for TLS 1.2 and promote an update to Windows 11 as the solution to problems running Windows 10 with TLS 1.3.

Business rules and file system access: New file operations are now available to replace direct file system access from business rules, which will be blocked in a future update. As originally announced in the 2025.2 Update, the exact timing of this change is not yet determined. Refer to the 2025.3 Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes update note for details.

Changes to Microsoft Office document previews: Starting with STEP 2026.1, the system will no longer generate previews of the first page for Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). These previews were previously used as asset icons and within the Asset Preview screen in the Web UI for Word documents.

Instead, generic Microsoft Office icons will be used to represent these assets moving forward.

This change is part of our ongoing efforts to streamline performance and simplify asset rendering across the platform.

End-of-life schedule for STEP updates

All feature updates are exclusive to SaaS customers.

Below is a table outlining the end-of-life schedule for the STEP updates shown. Dates in parentheses represent target dates for future updates, providing customers the information needed to plan ahead. In future updates, additional dates will be added as available.

Important: Refer to the updated STEP Update Information topic in the System Update and Patch Notes section for more information about quarterly update target dates and support end dates for future updates.

Update	Testing Period	Mandatory Update to Production
2025.3	September 24, 2025 - December 4, 2025	December 5, 2025
2025.4	(December 10, 2025 - March 19, 2026)	Friday prior to the 2026.1 update (March 20, 2026)
2026.1	(March 25, 2026 - June 11, 2026)	Friday prior to the 2026.2 update (June 12, 2026)
2026.2	(June 17, 2026 - September 17, 2026)	Friday prior to the 2026.3 update (September 18, 2026)
2026.3	(September 23, 2026 - December 3, 2026)	Friday prior to the 2026.4 update (December 4, 2026)

Customers should update as soon as possible to the latest version of the Stibo Systems Enterprise Platform (STEP). If you have questions and/or to receive help and guidance on how to update to a supported version, submit an issue within the Stibo Systems Service Portal. Also, refer to the SaaS 'How To' videos located on the Stibo Systems Service Portal for information about updating your version via the SaaS Self-Service UI.

Software errors reported for the versions shown above may be rejected once support ends, and issues in progress for those updates will be closed. It is not possible to extend the support services for desupported versions.

Online Help / Documentation Changes

With every update, documentation updates occur. In addition to online help that is updated as part of the projects listed in this update note set, users should be aware of the following documentation updates when updating to 2025.3:

• Documentation for the deprecated IBM WebSphere MQ direct integrations functionality is now removed, including IBM MQ SSL Receiver (for IIEPs), IBM MQ SSL Delivery Method (for OIEPs), and WebSphere Commerce Import (delivery method for Export Manager). Alternate functionality is Dynamic JMS Receiver and Dynamic JMS Delivery Method.

• With 2025.1, FAB-DIS exchange format topics incorrectly stated that the exchange format was deprecated. The topics have been updated to correct this error. As stated in the 2025.1 update notes, enhancements have been discontinued for the FAB-DIS exchange format.