Update Process for Planview Portfolios and Planview Enterprise Architecture
The maintenance of your Planview Portfolios application should be easy. That is why we have modernized the deployment process and eliminated large releases which introduced too much change at one time. Moving to Continuous Cloud monthly updates enables us to deliver more value to you:
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Security - Planview has invested in automation and has a process in place to ensure that security is at its highest in the current code base. So, if security is important to you, the current code is the most secure.
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Reduce Risk - Monthly updates means you are taking smaller amounts of change at a time.
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Eliminate the long process of upgrading - the new deployment process eliminates pre-prod and cutover activities altogether. It also eliminates environmental and integration risk as part of a re-build and install process.
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Reduce change management efforts – when an upgrade involves 1, 2, or sometimes 3+ releases, this becomes a big change management effort for you and your organization. Take change in increments lessening your workload allowing you to focus on what matters.
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Shorter feedback loop - we give you, our customer, a stronger voice by shortening the cycle time from request to delivery to feedback
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Scale usage - the larger the customer based taking monthly updates, the more usage validation we get of existing and new features. When you add this to a shorter feedback loop, this enables us to scale offering fixes and enhancements... faster.
We realize that this will impact your internal processes, that were likely put in place to try to mitigate the risks associated with a large upgrade. Let us introduce change in smaller amounts to reduce risk and eliminate upgrade events altogether. Read our Best Practices for Managing Monthly Updates to learn more.
Continuous Cloud monthly releases started after release 17. Monthly updates are released first Thursday of every month. The prior week there will be a webinar to review new features and demo new functionality. Those are archived on the new release page of the CSC. You can also use the New Feature Upgrade Guide to review all new features applied since your last update.
Once you upgrade to Continuous Cloud, you may take the monthly updates manually in an On-Request Process, or opt-in to take the monthly releases in an Automatic Update Process. The following details these two options:
On Request Process
On Request updates are completely customer self-service; you take the updates you want when you want them. You will open cases to request the update is applied to Sandbox and again for applying it to Production. The updates to Sandbox and Production are only a 2-hour outage with flexible scheduling times you will work with Cloud Operations to schedule via the cases. The process flow for taking the On Request Update is:
Automatic Update Process
The Automatic Update removes the need to open cases and schedule the monthly updates, instead it's an automated push every month to your Sandbox Environment on a specific day of the week and then an automatic push to production on a subsequent day of the week, typically 1 week after the Sandbox push. Both of these are on a fixed week/day of the month (e.g. 2nd Tuesday), so you always know when you're getting the monthly update to Sandbox and Production.
Updates are currently available to be applied on specific days/weeks of the month:
•Sandbox updates are currently available on 2nd week of the month followed by Production on 3rd week of the month; or Sandbox on the 4th week of the month followed by Production on 1st week of the month
•There are currently 3 time slots: 03:00, 09:00 and 21:00 UTC. Updates require a 2-hour outage for both Sandbox and Production.
•More slots and times will become available in the future
Right now there is a wait-list for the Automatic Updates. Customers interested in joining a waiting list should open a Continuous Cloud case to be added to the list and when new slots/times are added we will be in contact to offer you what options are available. You should continue to follow the On Request process to take the updates while waiting.
The process flow for enrolling in the Automatic Update is:
Benefits of Continuous Cloud Updates:
- Reduce your workload! With a month’s worth of code we are eliminating the need to perform full end to end regression tests. Most organizations don't perform full regression testing on a "dot" release. Every update is now equivalent to a "dot" release!
- As part of our new service mentality, you are now able to make a copy of your Production database into your Sandbox. The goal is to keep these two environments on the same code base as much as possible as you can't copy a database that aren't on the same code base.
- We have improved our release notes! We have listened to the challenges customers have had with trying to understand what we fixed. Bugs happen but we want to zap them quickly and provide clear release notes so you know if the bug impacts you and if you need to look at it.
- Know what is in progress! Besides knowing what fixes were done, we share with you what is in progress. While new features will be built behind feature flags so you won't see or feel the code changes until we determine that they are ready, you will now know what is coming. While we control what gets released and when, we still provide various system and configuration options so you can enable them first in your Sandbox, and only then in Production when you and your users are ready.
- New features! We will move in progress features to the New Features Matrix for the update when they become available.
- Release Notes and New Features are updated and published a week before the update is available.
- Webinars! We host regular webinars. And just like you will be taking smaller amounts of code, we have less information to share giving more time for Q&A during our webinars.
- Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look at your release notes and new features, you may miss it. We want to make life easier.
- We know what we are doing! We have a proven model in place with our other products. We have a strong team with experience in supporting this proven model as well as automating other products from large releases to small incremental updates.
Planview is committed to delivering monthly releases that include fixes and small enhancements. Our goal is to move the product forward quickly, while providing a change management process that fits your organizational needs so new features may require configuration by the administrator.