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Version Specific Upgrade Notes

Get an overview of the things changes and fixed in each version of Umbraco Forms.
This page covers specific upgrade documentation for specific versions.
If you are upgrading to a new minor or patch version, you can find information about the breaking changes in the Release Notes article.
Version 12
Version 12 of Umbraco Forms has a minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 12.0.0. It runs on .NET 7.
Breaking changes
Version 12 contains a number of breaking changes. If you do run into any, they should be straightforward to adjust and recompile.
For reference, the full details are listed here:
Behavior
  • The default value for configuration of request IP tracking has been changed to None from RemoteIpAddress.
  • The session variable ContourMemberKey is no longer set.
  • Exception handling in the Forms API has been aligned with the CMS Delivery API. This leads to subtle differences in the population of the ProblemDetails exposed.
  • Use of the Forms API has to be enabled in configuration, via setting the Umbraco:Forms:Options:EnableFormsApi key to true.
  • The Swagger document for the Forms API has been removed and is now combined with that for the CMS Delivery API, at umbraco/swagger/index.html.
  • The Forms API paths have had the /v1.0/ segment renamed to /v1/, to align with the CMS Delivery API.
Dependencies
  • Umbraco CMS dependency was updated to 12.0.0.
  • The dependency on Hellang.Middleware.ProblemDetails was removed.
  • The dependency on NSwag.AspNetCore was removed and replaced with Swashbuckle.AspNetCore.
Code
The following updates describe the more significant changes to the codebase and public API:
  • The interfaces that previously defined entity model classes have been removed. These were IFormEntity, IFolderEntity, IWorkflowEntity, IDataSourceEntity and IPrevalueSourceEntity. All code now refers to the concrete classes.
  • The interfaces that previously defined application model classes have been removed. These were IFieldPreValueSource, IFormDataSource, IFormDataSourceField, IWorkflow, IRecordField and IRecord.
  • These changes affect service, repository and other interfaces and classes that previously used these interfaces. All methods have been updated to use the concrete classes as parameters and return values.
  • The now unused class InterfaceJsonConverter was removed.
These updates are more minor. We don't expect many projects to be affected by them as they are in areas that are not typical extension points:
  • The obsolete constant FormsConfigPath was removed.
  • Obsolete constructor was removed on DictionaryHelper.
  • Obsolete overloads of StringExtensions.ParsePlaceHolders was removed.
  • Unused parameter in the constructors of DatabaseIntegrityHealthCheck and MsSqlAnalyzer were removed.
  • Default interface implementations were removed from the MessageOnSubmitIsHtml, DisplayDefaultFields and SelectedDisplayFields properties defined on IFormEntity.
  • The SearchForms method, previously defined in the implementation of IFormService, has been added to the interface.
  • An obsolete method on IPlaceholderParsingService were removed.
  • An obsolete method on IWorkflowService were removed.
  • Obsolete methods on UmbracoBuilderExtensions were removed.
  • The obsolete constructors on BaseEmailWorkflowType, SendEmail, SendRazorEmail and SendXsltEmail workflows were removed.
  • The obsolete constructors on FormsApiControllerBase, DefinitionsController and EntriesController API controllers were removed.
  • The obsolete constructors on UmbracoFormsController were removed.
  • The obsolete constructors on FieldController and RecordController were removed.
  • The obsolete overload on the ViewHelper.RenderPartialViewToString method was removed and the FakeController class used in this method was made private.
  • The obsolete Build method overload was removed in FormViewModel.
  • The obsolete constructor on FormRenderingService was removed.
  • The Forms API model classes and serialization customizations were moved from Umbraco.Forms.Web into Umbraco.Forms.Core.
  • The ISupportFileUploads interface was moved to Umbraco.Forms.Core.Interfaces.
  • Additional parameters were added to the constructors of FormPickerPropertyValueConverter and FormDtoFactory.
  • The setting properties available on all field, workflow and other provider types have been made virtual.
Version 11
Version 11 of Umbraco Forms has a minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 11.0.0. It runs on .NET 7.
Breaking changes
Version 11 contains a number of breaking changes. We don't expect many projects to be affected by them as they are in areas that are not typical extension points. For reference though, the full details are listed here:
Presentation
  • A CSS class for each field is rendered out matching the caption of the form field. This has been changed to use the alias of the form field, as this is considered less likely to change and potentially break custom styles.
Code
  • The int DeleteFormRecords(Form form, FormState formState, DateTime deleteRecordsCreatedEarlierThan) method was added to IRecordStorage.
  • Name of FormsUmbracoBuiderExtensions was corrected to FormsUmbracoBuilderExtensions.
  • The method RegenerateFormStructureIds on Form was amended to return a response.
  • The method void ExecuteWorkflows(List<IWorkflow> workflows, Record record, Form form, FormState state) was added to IWorkflowExecutionService.
  • Obsolete constructor on PlaceholderParsingService removed.
  • Obsolete constructor on ServerVariablesParsingHandler removed.
  • IsMandatory and Condition properties were added to the IWorkflow and IWorkflowEntity interface.
  • DaysToRetainSubmittedRecordsFor and DaysToRetainApprovedRecordsForproperties were added to the IFormEntity interface.
  • Obsolete constructor on the export type ExportToExcel removed.
  • Obsolete constructor on the workflow type SendRazorEmail removed.
  • Obsolete constructor on the controllers UmbracoFormsController, ExportController, FieldController, FormController, RecordController, and EmailTemplateTreeController removed.
  • Duplicate method GetAllDocumentTypesWithAlias in PickerController was removed.
  • Obsolete overloads to the Build method on FormViewModel were removed.
  • Obsolete constructor on FormRenderingService was removed.
  • Legacy storage of prevalues with captions using a single string with a separator was updated to store them as an object with a value and caption.
    • A JsonConverter was added to FormsJsonSerializerSettings that will convert forms saved in older versions with the string storage into the new structure.
    • The public field Field.PrevalueCaptionSeparator was removed.
    • Field.Prevalues now returns IEnumerable<FieldPrevalue> instead of IEnumerable<string>, and the property Field.ParsedPreValues was removed.
  • The obsolete overload of the methods Test and TestRule in FieldConditionEvaluation was removed and the existing method made private.
  • The obsolete overload of the method IsVisible in FieldConditionEvaluation was removed.
  • The property ConditionCheckFunctions was added to the IFieldType interface.
  • The property Alias was added to the interfaces for all provider types inheriting from ProviderBase.
  • The additional method GetRecordsFromFormForMember was added to the interface IRecordReaderService.
Version 10.1
Breaking changes
  • The default theme has been updated to render captions for field types that support prevalues. If you have created any custom themes, please review the default theme and ensure you make similar changes to make use of the new feature.
  • The method PreValues on the FieldViewModel type has been changed from a collection of strings to a collection of a PrevalueViewModel object that has a Value and Caption property.
  • In order to fix an issue with display and editing of values, we've found a need to ensure the property representing the fields a record entry used in the backoffice is changed from a list of values to a structure containing the field Ids and values. Specifically, EntrySearchResult.Fields has changed type IEnumerable<object?> to IEnumerable<EntrySearchResult.FieldData>. The only scenarios affected by this would be anyone handling the EntrySearchResultFetchingNotification notification or developing custom export types.
Version 10
Version 10 of Umbraco Forms has a minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 10.0.0. It runs on .NET 6.
To migrate to version 10, you should first update to the latest minor release of version 9. If you are upgrading from Umbraco 8, update Forms to the latest minor version of Forms 8. Ensure you have the configuration in place for storing form definitions in the database. For more information, see the Umbraco Forms in the Database (legacy) article.
Either way will ensure you have all the database schema changes in place.
Views and client-side files
Umbraco 10 distributes the views and client-side files as part of a Razor class library, distributed in the Umbraco.Forms.StaticAssets package. This means these assets are no longer individual files available on disk. The advantage of this approach is that that avoids changes made to them by solution developers being inadvertently lost when the project is rebuilt.
When upgrading from Forms 9, you should either first run a dotnet clean, or, after installing Forms 10, delete the App_Plugins/UmbracoForms folder. This will ensure there aren't two copies of the package.manifest file, which would cause issues by registering duplicate property editors.
For views you should also remove the following folders and files (again, either via a dotnet clean before upgrading, or manually afterward):
  • /Views/MacroPartials/InsertUmbracoFormWithTheme.cshtml
  • /Views/MacroPartials/RenderUmbracoFormScripts.cshtml
  • /Views/Partials/Forms/
If you have custom themes or other changes to the files in the Views/Partials/Forms folder, you should ensure those files remain.
For example, with a custom email template, remove the file Example-Template.cshtml from the /Views/Forms/Emails folder but keep any custom templates.
Similarly, if you have a custom theme, remove the default and bootstrap3-horizontal folders from the /Views/Partials/Forms/Themes/ folder but keep any custom theme folders.
Breaking changes
Version 10 contains a number of breaking changes. We do not expect many projects to be affected by them as they are in areas that are not typical extension points. For reference though, the full details are listed here.
Configuration
  • Renamed the configuration option to allow editable form submissions on the front-end to AllowEditableFormSubmissions (fixing the typo in the previous value of AllowEditableFormSubmissions).
Code
  • DatabaseIntegrityHealthCheck has an altered constructor taking an additional parameter.
  • The EventExtensions class is no longer used since V9 and has been removed.
  • Static events from BaseFileStorage removed and replaced with notifications.
  • IFormTemplateStorage along with its implementation in FormTemplateStorage and base classes have been simplified, as templates are the only file based storage now in use, and there are no methods necessary for this other than reading.
  • The method GetScaffold has been removed from FormController, as it's not called from the UI.
  • The following classes have altered constructors taking additional parameters, with obsolete versions removed.
    • RecordController
    • FormSecurityController
    • FormSecurityTreeController
    • PostToUrl
    • WorkflowEmailService
  • The public fields on the Setting class have been converted to properties.
  • The methods GetMemberCacheKey and GetMemberValuesCacheKey on CacheKeys taking an integer parameter have been removed.
  • The method GetUserSecurity on IUserSecurityStorage has been amended to take an integer parameter rather than an object.
  • The method StringExtensions.DetectIsJson has been removed (the equivalent exists in CMS).
  • Obsoleted methods in FieldConditionEvaluation have been removed.
  • The following unused classes have been removed:
    • FormEventArgs
    • FolderEventArgs
    • FieldPreValueSourceEventArgs
    • FormDataSourceEventArgs
    • WorkflowEventArgs
    • BaseStorageEventArgs Additional methods have been added to the following interfaces:
    • IRecordStorage
    • IRecordFieldValueStorage
    • IUserSecurityStorage
    • IUserFormSecurityStorage
    • IFormsSecurity
  • Additional properties of SupportsMandatory and EditType have been added to the IFieldType interface.
  • The obsoleted method RegenerateFieldSetAndFieldIds on Form has been removed.
  • The constructor of FolderNotificationHandler had an unused parameter removed.
  • The obsolete and unused methods CanCurrentUserEdit, CanCurrentUserAddInEditor, CanCurrentUserManageWorkflows, EnsureUserExists and CanCurrentUserExport were removed from the IFormSecurity interface.
  • The type parameter TEventArgs defined on IBaseService (and derived interfaces) has been removed.
  • Database migration classes inheriting from FormsMigrationBase now use the non-obsolete base constructor defined on PackageMigrationBase.
  • The methods on IPlaceholderParsingService have been combined into a single one with optional parameters.
  • The method PostSave on FormSecurityController has been renamed to PostSaveForUser.
  • The backoffice model class FormSecurity has been renamed to FormSecurityForUser.
  • The unused class NonSerialiazableTypeSurrogateSelector was removed.
  • The unused method ImportXmlNodeFromText on XmlHelper was removed.
  • IFormService.FormExist was renamed to IFormService.FormExists.
  • EntrySearchResultCollection.schema was capitalized.
  • Base class ExportType has a constructor taking IHostEnvironment instead of IHostingEnvironment.
  • Typo was fixed in the class name of TempDataDictionraryExtensions.
  • The SetFormThemeCssFile extension method had an unused variable removed.
  • Some method signatures have had appropriate modifications for nullable reference type support.
  • Removed BaseFileStorage, BaseFileSystemStorage and FormsFileSystemForPackageData as they are no longer needed following changes to support distribution of assets in a razor class library.
Version 9
Version 9 of Umbraco Forms has a minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 9.0.1 and runs on .NET 5.
Version 9.5
See notes under 10.1.
Version 8.13
See notes under 10.1.
Version 8
Version 8 of Umbraco Forms has a minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 8.0.0 and runs on .NET Framework 7.2.
In order to upgrade from Umbraco Forms 7 to Umbraco Forms 8, you can use any of these options:

Download

In order to upgrade you will want to download the version of Forms you wish to upgrade to. Instead of downloading the actual package, however, you want to download the Umbraco.Forms.Files.x.y.z.zip file (where x.y.z) is the version.
The filename ends with .Files.x.y.z.zip and contains only the files that get installed when you install Umbraco Forms.

Copy

The easiest way to proceed is to unzip the file you downloaded and copy and overwrite (almost) everything into your website. Almost, because you might not want to overwrite ~/App_Plugins/UmbracoForms/UmbracoForms.config because you might have updated it in the past. Make sure to compare your current version to the version in the zip file you downloaded. If there's any new configuration options in there then copy those into your website's UmbracoForms.config file.
Version 7
You can upgrade to the latest version of Umbraco Forms through:

Automatic Upgrade

Forms allows you to stay in sync with the latest releases, so you can take advantage of the new features and bug fixes.
Checking for updates
You won't have to check for updates manually. Umbraco Forms will inform you when a new update is available. Navigate to the Forms dashboard and if you see the following then a new version is already available.
Upgrade available
Installing update
To upgrade your installation hit the upgrade now button.
Upgrade now
Umbraco will now fetch and install the upgrade.
Upgrade Progress
Once it's completed the upgrade notification should be gone and you can continue using a newly updated Umbraco Forms.

Download and upgrade manually

In order to upgrade you will want to download the version of Forms you wish to upgrade to. Instead of downloading the actual package, however, you want to download the UmbracoForms.Files.x.y.z.zip file (where x.y.z) is the version.
The filename ends with .Files.x.y.z.zip and contains only the files that get installed when you install Umbraco Forms.
Copy
Unzip the file you downloaded and copy and overwrite (almost) everything into your website. Almost, because you might not want to overwrite ~/App_Plugins/UmbracoForms/UmbracoForms.config because you might have updated it in the past. Make sure to compare your current version to the version in the zip file you downloaded. If there's any new configuration options in there then copy those into your website's UmbracoForms.config file.
Upgrade marker
Finally, you'll need to tell Umbraco Forms to update itself when you start the website next. In order to do that you need to have a formsupdate file (an empty text file without extension) in ~/App_Data/TEMP/. The easiest way to create this file is by going into the root folder of your website and start a command line there. You can then type the following command: echo > /App_Data/TEMP/formsupdate.
This command creates the file and you should see it disappear the next time the website recycles. You may want to recycle the website manually after creating this file. If the file isn't automatically removed, it is safe to remove it manually.
That's it! You're all set.
Version 4 to Version 6
Upgrading to Version 6 of Umbraco Forms, has a higher minimum dependency on Umbraco CMS core of 7.6.0 & higher. The reasoning behind this is due to some underlying changes to ensure Forms works with Umbraco Cloud & Deploy.
With Umbraco you have many options to upgrade Umbraco Forms.
  • You can install the Forms package via the community package search from within the Developer Tab in the CMS.
  • Umbraco Forms can be downloaded directly from our.umbraco.com.
  • You can download a .zip file containing the updated files which you can unzip & apply over the top of your existing install.
  • You can upgrade Forms using NuGet. Doing this will require a few more steps, which you can find in the next section.
Upgrading with NuGet
Using NuGet to perform an the Forms major upgrade, you will see that the legacy MacroPartial view is removed from the site. This causes any existing Umbraco Forms rendered on the site to stop functioning.
Before running the site after the NuGet upgrade again; consider this may need to be done on each environment depending on your deployment process/setup. You will need to copy/restore the following file Views/MacroPartials/InsertUmbracoForm.cshtml from your source control solution.
The file needs to be here before the site is restarted - due to the migration/upgrade tasks listed below.
Upgrade tasks
The following outlines for version 6.0.0 what upgrade/migration tasks that are being performed:
  • Rename legacy macro to make it easier to identify in the backoffice.
  • Adds new form macro to insert a form with a theme.
  • Moves JSON Form Storage files from App_Plugins/UmbracoForms/Data to App_Data/UmbracoForms/Data by default unless a custom Forms IFileSystem is configured such as Azure blob storage.
  • Moves any Form PreValue sources that uses text files that were uploaded to the media section & now stores in the Umbraco Forms IFileSystem.
Recommendation
We recommend you make the switch away from the legacy macro and swap over to the newer macro that supports Themes. The legacy macro is there to ease the transition over and to avoid entire sites forms to stop working.