Upgrading M3 to 13.3

I've been looking at the M3 13.3 installation, and while the documentation is a little unclear on the process to upgrade from 13.2 to 13.3, there is a video that provides a little more information.  After working my way through this, my quick notes on the process I followed are below:

Step 1 - Upgrade the technology stack

• Download Lifecycle Manager Server, Core technology package and Session provider package;
• Update Lifecycle Manager Server from the command prompt.  This is similar to the initial install process, however we select the Upgrade path and upgrade the existing Server instance; 
• Start Lifecycle Manager - we are prompted to restart and LCM will then be upgraded;
• Upload the core technology package and restart LCM when prompted;
• Upload the session provider package and restart LCM when prompted;
• Upgrade the Grid;
• Upgrade GDBC;
• Upgrade Event analytics and Event hub;

Step 2 - Upgrade the business engine

• Apply a major upgrade to the BE instance;
• On the BE, upload the FP3 feature pack for MVX and the country variant;
• On the BE, apply the feature pack and select FP3;
• Run upgrade database with fix/feature pack for MVX and the country variant;
• Run import database data for MVX and the country variant;
• Run apply MI metadata;

Step 3 - Apply MCP1 for 15.1.3 and then run fix programs

• The documentation suggests that the next step would be to run the fix programs, but I found these failed to start.  So I downloaded and applied MCP1 (including apply feature pack, upgrade database and import database data for this).  Once MCP1 was installed the fix programs would start;
• Run fix programs.  This is a new function that replaces the process where these were previously applied one by one from Serverview;

At this stage the "M3 Core" applications have been updated to 13.3 levels.  We still however need to upgrade the other components:

Step 4 - Upgrade other components

• Download Smart Office and H5 packages;
• Upload Smart Office and H5 packages;
• Upgrade UI Adapter;
• Upgrade Mango server (includes upgrade, installation point export, sign and import);
• etc.

In general the 13.3 upgrade process is a massive improvement, in particular for the BE and core M3 components.  The complexity of upgrading the add-on components hasn't really changed though and these still vary from a simple right-click upgrade, through complexity approaching that of the initial install.