Production Release Policy

What is this policy? In order to provide a high-quality solution and be aligned with the current standard procedures across the software industry, RAEL-REDi has developed the following policy. This details an in depth explanation of the proper procedures and guidelines required to release an update, fix, or enhance the platform in the production environment.

Following the provided guidelines will ensure that when an update is released to production, the production environment maintains our SLA and operating standards. Our goal is to make sure users don’t experience any issues.

Please read the following guidelines and procedures carefully. We want to ensure that best practices are kept with our users.

Scheduled Releases

All the enhancements and bugs that have been requested and documented during the implementation process, ongoing product meetings, and through the support channels will be categorized into two categories: General Release or Specific Release.

Release Procedures

Specific Release: Can be set up by a client, Monday through Friday.

  • Pushing to production - RAEL-REDi Commit Team will release prior to 9:00 AM EST
  • User Acceptance Testing - Client Project Management team will do thorough rounds of testing in the sandbox environment, followed by a round of smoke testing on the functionality to be released to production. Users will confirm that the production environment is working and stable.
  • Release Notes - To be readily available in the RAEL-REDi application resources section, as well as, sent out in email format to requesting parties.

General Release: Will happen on a bi-weekly to monthly schedule.

  • Pushing to production - RAEL-REDi Commit Team will release prior to 9:00 AM EST
  • Email Notification - Email will be sent 10-15 days in advance notify to the management team and team members a production general release is on its way.
  • Release Notes - To be readily available in the RAEL-REDi application resources section, as well as, sent out in email format to requesting parties.

Production Release bug (any bug related to the recent release)

  • A Core senior developer will review and analyze the bug, then provide a solution to fix it
  • The client management team or project management team will review the senior developer report and make a decision to approve the immediate fix and release it to production.
  • Rollback, if there is a negative response from the client’s management team or project management team to approve the immediate fix, then the rollback process will start (see the rollback procedure and policies)

Emergency Releases

Default Criteria: Critical Priority (Severity I)
Definition= All updates, changes, enhancements, and solutions relating to anything that disrupts a company from being able to effectively run their business or threaten a relationship with clients, vendors, or employees. (accounting, invoicing, Work Order flow, vendor management).

Emergency Criteria (priority/severity):

  • Critical priority - Severity I
    • Examples
      • The platform is down
      • Site page is down
      • Work Order page is down
  • Urgent priority - Severity I
    • Examples
      • Team members can’t log in to the platform
      • Work Orders were not generated from an agreement
      • Vendor/Internal tradesmen are not receiving Work Orders on their mobile application
      • The reports are not being generated properly
  • Medium priority - Severity II
    • Examples
      • One team member is experiencing an issue with the platform
      • A group of Work Orders is showing wrong data
  • Low priority - Severity III
    • Examples
      • UI is breaking
      • Issues are minimally impacting the function/ performance, but team members can still execute the function.
  • Severity I - 24-36 hours to resolution
    • Examples
      • All user’s team members affected
      • All tradesmen affected
      • All vendors affected
  • Severity II - 48-60 hours to resolution
    • Examples
      • The Client Management team is impacted
      • The Operation Management team is impacted
      • Operation team members are impacted
  • Severity III - 72-84 hours to resolution
    • Examples
      • Only one team member is impacted
      • The bug/issue is not impacting the functionality performance

Emergency Release Guidelines:

  • Pushing to production - Need confirmation from the Client Project Management team and Core Project Manager.
  • Lead Developer Support - Core Senior Developer will provide online support right after the release has been pushed to production so there can be real-time monitoring on the performance in case there is an issue so immediate action can be taken.
  • User Acceptance Testing - Client Project Management team will test the function released to production to confirm that production is working and stable.

Production Release bugs (any bug related to the recent release)

  • A Core senior developer will review the bug and analyze the bug to provide a solution or fix.
  • The client management team or project management team will review the senior developer report and make a decision to approve the immediate fix and release it on production.
  • Rollback, if there is a negative response on the client’s management team or project management team to approve the immediate fix, then the rollback process will start (see the rollback procedure and policies)

Rollback

When the release to production did not satisfy the client’s User Acceptance Testing or there are bugs that can not be resolved in a short period of time that jeopardize the business operations, the Rollback process will take the platform back to the previous stage before the release to production happened. See below the guidelines in order to proceed with a rollback.

Regular Releases Guidelines:

  • Rollback approval - Client’s Project Management team will provide request and approval via an email to the RAEL-REDi team so the developers can initiate the rollback process.
  • Lead Developer Support - Core Senior Developer will provide online support during the rollback process to ensure the production environment is stable and satisfactory to the client.
  • User Acceptance Testing - Client Project Management team will review the system and provide confirmation that the production environment is working to spec and that the platform is not having any issues.