[VS_Carly]

Hi all,

We are excited to announce some more changes to the release cycle we will be trialing.

What: We will be shifting from our current release cycle to Daily releases Monday - Thursday. If at any point in time we notice something is wrong (ex: new bugs found as part of regression testing), we will either fix it before release or skip a release. We now have dedicated resources to ensure the member experience isn't disrupted.

Why: We currently need to wait up to 1.5 weeks to get code into production (whether it be for bug fixes or maintenance). We want to bring this time delay down so we can get fixes out sooner.

When: We are targeting tomorrow July 21st to start the new release cycle. Depending on how well the trial does, we may keep this new release cycle for the foreseeable future or scale back to the previous cycle.

Note: If there are no new changes we will skip the release for the day.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.


UPDATE 8/1/2022

• The Monday through Thursday daily releases will go out to OneFora the same day as the global releases normally within the same hour after QA confirms.
• The Product team will post the weekly releases on Thursday or Friday of that week for the entire week of releases in one post.
• The CM team will review and confirm updates and develop Help < Release Notes shortly after to be updated globally.

 

[VS_Mike]

I'm hopeful this will allow us to more actively catch bugs before they rear their ugly heads and create a path to more feature rich updates.

Thanks, Carly!

 

[bpe]

 

[Avel Du]

When I bring up possible side effects of updates I know it can sound like I am moaning about the updates themselves.

Just wanted to note that I both understand the need for them & do appreciate the effort that goes into them.

Pat on the back for the team.

 

[Mike Lang]

What about release info ahead of time for staff?

Onefora updated yesterday & home sites are updating now but I have no idea what's changing.

There seems to be no new release info posted here since back on the 18th.

 

[itissteve]

What about release info ahead of time for staff?

I've been providing info on each numbered release in our Admin/Mod forum and felt bad that I apparently skipped some versions until I realized there were no threads created for any of the ones I missed.

As the (unwitting) recipients of the changes being made it would be nice to know what's coming down the pike even if it requires a daily thread or a daily post in an omnibus thread. It should be part of the documentation of the release. Unfortunately, I was in IT too long to believe the phrase "transparent to the user".

 

[AG Jeff]

What about release info ahead of time for staff?

Onefora updated yesterday & home sites are updating now but I have no idea what's changing.

There seems to be no new release info posted here since back on the 18th.

It looks weekly updates will now be provided in this section on Thursdays with a breakdown of the four releases that week if anything is notable or user-facing. If there is significant enough info we will create CM release notes to post under Help > Release Notes section on Fridays.

Any experimental updates will be noted in here Product, Design & UX Feature section with the prefix "Experiment"

Product, Design & UX Feedback

This is the place for all of your design comments, UX feedback, and new ideas for how to improve the experience on forums.

www.onefora.com

 

[Mike Lang]

It looks weekly updates will now be provided in this section on Thursdays with a breakdown of the four releases that week if anything is notable or user-facing. If there is significant enough info we will create CM release notes to post under Help > Release Notes section on Fridays.

Any experimental updates will be noted in here Product, Design & UX Feature section with the prefix "Experiment"

Product, Design & UX Feedback

This is the place for all of your design comments, UX feedback, and new ideas for how to improve the experience on forums.

www.onefora.com

Wait...are you saying we won't find out what changed on Monday until sometime Thursday? That can't be right.

I'm seeing evidence that the missing alert bug was fixed this morning but I can't confirm because I can't find what was in today's release.

We need to know the info before the release, not days later. I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding something?

Did you mean on Thursdays we'll find out what will be in the releases for the following week?

 

[VS_Mike]

^ @AG Jeff

 

[AG Jeff]

Wait...are you saying we won't find out what changed on Monday until sometime Thursday? That can't be right.

I'm seeing evidence that the missing alert bug was fixed this morning but I can't confirm because I can't find what was in today's release.

We need to know the info before the release, not days later. I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding something?

Did you mean on Thursdays we'll find out what will be in the releases for the following week?

We are meeting this Thursday to discuss this with the new product team in charge of the releases.

I will update ya once I know more.

 

[Mike Lang]

Somebody has to know what's in these releases before they actually deploy. It should only take a few minutes to share with the folks on the front lines. 🙏

 

[UNIT-er]

I think it fits here best as long as there are no release notes available for this week.

The 3 dots/kabob menu now has a dark background color after having clicked on it.
Before it had a bright background color which made the 3 dots/kabob menu disappear somehow.

In German we have a joke regarding that from our famous comedian Otto regarding the East Frisian national flagg:
Weißer Adler auf weißem Untergrund which means white eagle on a white background...

 

[AG Jeff]

Somebody has to know what's in these releases before they actually deploy. It should only take a few minutes to share with the folks on the front lines. 🙏

Yup, solving that with the team currently. New team, new processes but we will get ya the info.

 

[Mike Lang]

Yup, solving that with the team currently. New team, new processes but we will get ya the info.

 

[AG Jeff]

UPDATE:

• The Monday through Thursday daily releases will go out to OneFora the same day as the global releases normally within the same hour after QA confirms.
• The Product team will post the weekly releases on Thursday or Friday of that week for the entire week of releases in one post.
• The CM team will review and confirm updates and develop Help < Release Notes shortly after to be updated globally.

 

[Mike Lang]

• The Product team will post the weekly releases on Thursday or Friday of that week for the entire week of releases in one post.

Does this mean we may not know what released on a Monday until possibly the following Friday?

 

[AG Jeff]

Does this mean we may not know what released on a Monday until possibly the following Friday?

Yuppers. That same week.

If we get a heads up of a big fix we will try to let you all know here in the thread for it.

 

[UNIT-er]

Perhaps the following arguements were never thought by VerticalScope:
What shall we local staff members tell our users if a new issue pops up and we do not know anything about its possible roots respectively have the chance to look something up in onefora regarding it?
That does not let both VerticalScope and the local staff members shine bright.
Giving an answer like perhaps it is an issue which could be caused by a current release but to be sure we have to wait till the end of week does not really help.
That draws an image of comunication issues between the responsible people in the public somehow which should be avoided because of the user experience.

 

[AG Jeff]

Perhaps the following arguements were never thought by VerticalScope:
What shall we local staff members tell our users if a new issue pops up and we do not know anything about its possible roots respectively have the chance to look something up in onefora regarding it?
That does not let shine both VerticalScope and the local staff members shine bright.
Giving an answer like perhaps it is an issue which could be caused by a current release but to be sure we have to wait till the end of week does not really help.
That draws an image of comunication issues between the responsible people in the public somehow which should be avoided because of the user experience.

I understand the concern. If you see a new issue pop up post about it here on OneFora and we will review and escalate ASAP.

Further update we (community Management) now have a direct line of communication with engineers and a new process with QA so fixes will not take weeks anymore. More releases equal quicker fixes also as Joe mentioned HERE

If we do see some major uptick in tickets we will revisit this process.

 

[ENTERPRISE]

I understand the concern. If you see a new issue pop up post about it here on OneFora and we will review and escalate ASAP.

Further update we (community Management) now have a direct line of communication with engineers and a new process with QA so fixes will not take weeks anymore. More releases equal quicker fixes also as Joe mentioned HERE

If we do see some major uptick in tickets we will revisit this process.

Nice, that is a process that has been sorely needed. So its good to see it come to fruition!