What are we doing today, and why we plan to make a change
Today, UNIwise releases new features and enhancements in four designated release windows each year: two major releases in March and October, often followed by two minor releases in April and November. Historically, the idea was to only release new features in major releases and have the minor releases aimed at small improvements and change requests.
A consequence of having a low frequency of releases is that if a feature is completed too late for one of the major releases, customers may have to wait months before the next release window (e.g., waiting from October to March).
Additionally, each release can become substantial, containing many larger features. Such releases tend to require more system downtime, have more risk to customers, and require substantial updates to customers’ internal documentation.
We are confident that by transitioning to a carefully planned, more frequent release schedule, we will be able to remedy the downsides detailed above, whilst delivering a lower risk, transparent and systematic schedule to all customers. Planning has carefully considered the exam year calendar to minimise the impact on peak exam activity.
It is important to note that having more opportunities to release during the year means that, in general, customers should expect each release to introduce smaller, incremental developments into WISEflow. This will require less, if any, system downtime, expose customers to less risk, and require less, if any, updates to customers’ internal documentation.
Moving to a more frequent release cycle will also enable us to give customers earlier insight into the changes that will be released. This is something that we know will be appreciated as we have consistent and clear feedback on this from the WISEflow community.
Starting with the August 2023 release, new features and functionalities that will be coming to WISEflow will be announced on SYCAmore six weeks prior to the release, rather than the existing notice period of two weeks. Customers will also be informed in case no new features or functionalities will be released in a designated release window. Four weeks prior to a release, SYCAmore will be updated with links to relevant Service Centre articles that describe the new functionalities in more detail.
Releases will take place after business hours on Fridays at 21:00 CET/CEST. The following Saturday, UNIwise is on standby to handle any post-release issues.
Release Calendar for 2023
After a careful review of peak exam activity, we have decided to transition to a schedule of more frequent release windows during 2023.
We will complete our usual April minor release as planned and then start our transition to more frequent releases from summer 2023. In 2023 the release windows will be scheduled as follows:
Release Calendar for 2024 onwards
At the beginning of 2024, we will transition to a fixed yearly release calendar. It is important to note that release windows will be placed in the same calendar weeks every year to provide transparency and customer confidence to plan accordingly, which we understand to be important to all customers. In 2024 the release windows will be scheduled as follows:
In terms of updates to the lockdown browser, there will be fixed update windows in the year. We plan to update the lockdown browser versions with the release windows in week 11 and 36.
However, it may be necessary for updates to occur outside of these confirmed windows owing to security improvements and/or updated operating systems. We will notify customers of any updates to the lockdown browser outside of these fixed windows as early as possible.
We are confident we have the processes, teams and governance in place at UNIwise and that this is the right time to make this enhancement to the WISEflow service provision. This transition will enable us to continually make the latest and greatest features available to our customers, in line with the best practice pursued by SaaS service providers.
If you have questions about any of the above, please reach out to your UNIwise relationship managers who will be happy to help.