Systems and methods to provide customized release notes during a software system upgrade of a process control system

A customized documentation generation apparatus for generating documents relevant to a software update or upgrade of a particular process control system, comprising:

• a processor configured to implement:
• a notes instrumentation module instrumenting general release notes for at least one of an update or an upgrade of a process control system to correlate the release notes with a general process control system configuration to produce instrumented notes;
• an upgrade assessment module providing a predictive assessment of risk associated with the at least one of an update or an upgrade for a particular process control system in advance of installation of the at least one of an update or an upgrade on the particular process control system by determining configuration information for a particular process control system to provide default filter settings;
• and
• an items of interest filter applying the default filter settings for the particular process control system to the instrumented notes to filter the instrumented notes, associate a risk in the instrumented notes for the at least one of an update or an upgrade with a corresponding component of the particular process control system, and produce custom release notes for the particular process control system, the items of interest filter providing the custom release notes to a user of the particular process control system in conjunction with the at least one of an update or an upgrade to alert the user regarding potential effects of the at least one of an update or an upgrade on the particular process control system.

A graphical user interface wizard gathering master release notes and knowledge base articles related to at least one of a process control system software update or a process control system software upgrade, transforming the master release notes and knowledge base articles into custom release notes for a particular process control system implementation, and providing the custom release notes for user review, the graphical user interface wizard comprising a processor to implement:

• a notes instrumentation module instrumenting the master release notes and knowledge base articles relating to the at least one of a process control system software update or a process control system software upgrade to correlate the mater release notes with a general process control system configuration to produce instrumented notes;
• an upgrade assessment module providing a predictive assessment of risk associated with the at least one of an update or an upgrade for a particular process control system in advance of installation of the at least one of an update or an upgrade on the particular process control system by determining configuration information for the particular process control system implementation to provide default filter settings;
• and
• an items of interest filter applying the default filter settings for the particular process control system implementation to the instrumented notes to filter the instrumented notes, associate a risk in the instrumented notes for the at least one of an update or an upgrade with a corresponding component of the particular process control system, and produce custom release notes for the particular process control system, the items of interest filter providing the custom release notes to a user of the particular process control system in conjunction with the at least one of a process control system software update or a process control system software upgrade to alert the user regarding potential effects of the at least one of a process control system software update or a process control system software upgrade on the particular process control system.

A machine accessible medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a machine to:

• compile general release notes for at least one of an update or an upgrade of a process control system;
• instrument the general release notes to correlate the release notes with a general process control system to produce instrumented notes;
• provide a predictive assessment of risk associated with the at least one of an update or an upgrade for a particular process control system in advance of installation of the at least one of an update or an upgrade on the particular process control system by matching configuration information for the particular process control system with the instrumented notes to filter the instrumented notes, associate a risk in the instrumented notes for the at least one of an update or an upgrade with a corresponding component of the particular process control system, and produce customized notes for the particular process control system;
• and
• provide the customized notes to a user of the particular process control system in conjunction with the at least one of an update or an upgrade to alert the user regarding potential effects of the at least one of an update or an upgrade on the particular process control system.