Release Management Dashboard Tool

Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

WARNING The UDLC Toolkit provides a powerful set of application life cycle tools. By default, these tools are available in staging and UAT environments. Customers may optionally promote UDLC tools to their production environment. Before doing so, we strongly recommend obtaining approval from your information security team. A tool, like the Flexible Data Manager, enables end-users to access and modify submission data, which might include sensitive data or PII (personally identifiable information). Unqork recommends following the principle of least privilege for all roles, especially Designer and Express administration and monitoring admin account activity.

Overview

The Release Management Dashboard tool makes promoting releases to other Unqork environments easy. You can take your application from one environment to the next, whether you're moving from testing or staging to QA, or preprod to prod. Before you begin, let's take a closer look at the tool's features:

The tool lets you create releases with one or more applications, including their modules and Data Collections. That way, you can group releases and save time.
Detailed release information makes it easier to search for releases. With the Release Management Dashboard tool, you can keep your promotions organized.
If your application breaks, the tool lets you roll back to a previous release. That way, you can troubleshoot an issue without removing a working application from production.

IMPORTANT You cannot promote an empty application. The application must include modules and/or workflows with entry points to promote.

Release Management Dashboard Tool Access

This tool requires Creators Also known as Unqork Users, or Designer Users; is anyone who is inside the Unqork platform. to have specific role access in Environment Role RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) or WSRBAC (Workspaces Role-Based Access Control.

When using Environment Roles (not using WSRBAC):

Creator roles can view all data in this tool.

When using WSRBAC:

At a minimum, Creators must have Can View permissions to access this tool.
Creators must have Can Manage permissions for the appropriate workspaces.

What You'll Learn

In this article, you’ll learn about the Release Management Dashboard tool and how to create, promote, roll back, and restore a release.

TIP To learn more about accessing the Unqork Development Life Cycle Toolkit, view our Introduction to the Unqork Development Life Cycle Toolkit article.

Navigating the Release Dashboard

After accessing the tool, you can view release details on the Release Dashboard. This table displays a maximum of 10 entries at a time. Click the pagination buttons below the table to see more entries.

The table is organized by the date the release was created, with the most-recent release displayed at the top of the table. It also includes helpful information, like the environment where the promoted release exists, the version number, and the application that was promoted.

Using the Release Dashboard's Filters

The dashboard has various filters to help you find a release. You can use any or all these filters, depending on how specific you want to be. As you enter text into the fields, the results display automatically. The filters section includes the following features:

Filter	Description
Apps	Use this drop-down to select an application(s) to filter by.
Environment	Use this drop-down to select an environment(s) to filter by.
Version	Enter a release version number to filter by.
Start Date	Enter a start date to filter a range of dates.
End Date	Enter an end date to filter a range of dates. If left empty, the field defaults to the current date.
Apply Filter	Click this button to apply your filters.
Clear Filter	Click this button to clear all filters.

Navigating to Release Details

Once you locate your release, click the View button to the right of the release to display all release details, its applications, and promote, restore, or roll back the release.

Here's an example of what you'll see when you view your release details:

Viewing the Release Details

A static image displaying the View Details modal, showing modules, Data Collections, and Previous Version Modules.

Each application in your release has a View Details button associated with it. Clicking it displays a pop-up modal A modal is a window that appears on top of the content you are currently viewing.. At the top of the modal, you'll see the name of your release and its path in brackets. The modal consists of three tables:

	Table	Description
1	Modules	This table displays all modules in the release.
2	Data Collections	This table displays all Data Collections in the release.
3	Previous Version Modules	This table displays modules of a previous release that were not included in the current one. It also displays the release version where they currently exist.

Each table shows a maximum of 15 entries at a time. Click the pagination buttons below the table to see more entries. An (exclamation point) icon displays for those modules or Data Collections that were modified since the last release.

For each module and Data Collection, you can click View Diff to review its revisions in the Module Revisions Dashboard tool.

TIP To learn more about the Module Revisions Dashboard tool, view our Module Revisions Dashboard Tool article.

Creating a Release

When creating a release, you can select the applications, workflows, or Data Collections you want to promote. You can promote as many applications as you want in a release. You can also promote an application's individual modules or Data Collections.

TIP Creating a release is also referred to as tagging a release.

When you create a release, there are four steps that you must complete:

Add release information.

Select your applications and Data Collections.

Finalize the release.

Promote the release.

Let's explore each step of the process.

Adding Release Information

For this example, you'll promote a new release from staging to the UAT (Usability Acceptance Testing) environment leevel. This means your target environment is UAT.

IMPORTANT Promoting an environment is client specific. Only the next immediate environment level is available for promotion.

To create a release:

Click + Create New Release.

In the Version field, enter a version number. You can follow any format that you want.

In the Name field, enter a release name. Again, use a format that works best for you.

In the Notes field, enter any notes or comments.

From the Client drop-down, select your environment. The Environment drop-down displays with the next available environment level.

From the Environment drop-down, select UAT. This sets the target environment level where you'll promote your application.

After making your selections, a new section of the page displays the last release created in that environment and all the environment's app elements.

Selecting Applications and Data Collections

Next, select the applications and Data Collections you want to promote in this release. While the Release Management Dashboard tool promotes all modules, the tool only promotes the newest version of the ones selected.

IMPORTANT If there are more than 125 modules in your application, a warning displays. It is a best practice to reorganize your promotion into smaller applications. Applications with more than 125 modules can cause timeouts and promotion failures.

The table shows a maximum of 10 entries at a time. Click the pagination buttons below the table to see more entries. You can also search the Applications table using the following fields:

Filter	Description
Workspace	Enter a workspace name to locate it.
Application	Enter an application name to locate it.
Last Promotion	Enter a time or date to filter by.
Promoted By	Enter the name of a team member to filter app elements by.
Modified	Enter the full word exclamation to filter for modified app elements.

After locating specific applications and Data Collections from the Applications table, you can select them for the release.

Use the Applications table to find applications and Data Collections you want in this release.

For each application or Data Collection, click Select Elements.

A pop-up modal displays letting you select specific modules to promote. You can also click View Diff to see details about the module in the Module Revisions Diff Dashboard.

TIP To learn more about the Module Revisions Dashboard tool, view our Module Revisions Dashboard Tool article.

From this modal, you can select or deselect specific modules you want in the release.

To select modules for your release:

Select the module(s) you want to add to your release.

Click Add.

After making your selections, you can view them using the Applications Selected, Modules Selected, and Data Collections Selected tabs. If you select all modules in the application, this is considered a Full release. If you only selected specific modules and leave out others, this is considered a Partial release.

Before you finalize your release, scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see two panels:

Modules Without Applications
Data Collections Without Applications

Open these panels to see a list of modules and Data Collections that will not be part of your release. These panels are a final check before you complete the release.

Finalizing the Release

The last section asks that you confirm that you ran a configuration analysis on your applications. It's a best practice to submit your applications for analysis before promoting them to avoid issues in production. You can use our Config Analysis Dashboard tool to submit a request to our Data Analytics team.

TIP To learn more about config analysis, view our Config Analysis Dashboard Tool article.

Now, finalize your release:

Click Create New Release. A pop-up modal displays.

Click OK to create your release in preparation for promoting it to your target environment level.

Promoting a Release

After creating your release, you return to the Release Dashboard. You can see your new release at the top of the table. Once you are certain your release is ready, you can promote it.

To promote your release:

To the right of your release, click the View button.

In the Options section, click Promote. A pop-up modal displays.

Click OK. Another pop-up modal displays to confirm you want to promote this release.

Click Finish.

If you promote your release beyond the UAT environment, the procedure is the same. The only way to promote through Unqork environments is in sequential order. With each new release, you only have one available target environment level. As you promote your release further, keep the release and version the same. That way, you save yourself the confusion when updating versions.

IMPORTANT After promoting applications and app elements, ensure they are the same in the previous and target environment levels. This is especially important for login, logout, header, and footer modules. If not promoted, your application can break.

Making Changes to a Release

No matter what environment level you promote your release, you can always find it in your staging environment. This lets you continue to perfect your applications without affecting those in production. Now, let's say you made some updates and you're ready to promote a new version of the release to UAT. You'll follow the exact same steps as before. The only difference is that you'll create a new version number and leave some release notes.

To promote changes to your release:

Click + Create New Release.

In the Version field, enter a version number. You can follow any format that you want.

NOTE We recommend a new version number here. Try not to use the same version number you used in a previous release.

In the Name field, enter a release name. Again, use a format that works best for you.

NOTE For organizational purposes, you might want to keep the file name the same as the previous version.

In the Notes field, enter any notes or comments.

From the Client drop-down, select your environment. The Environment drop-down displays with the next available environment level.

From the Environment drop-down, select UAT. This sets the target environment level where you'll promote your application.

From the Applications table, locate the application(s) you want to promote in this release.

Click Select Elements for each. A pop-up modal displays to select your modules.

Select the module(s) to promote and click Add.

10.

Confirm that you've completed a Config Analysis of your application(s).

11.

Click Create New Release.

12.

Click OK in the modal to create your release in that target environment.

After creating your release, you can follow the same steps in the Promoting a Release section of this article.

Rolling Back a Release

Imagine a scenario where you have an application in production that breaks. It's not a pleasant thought, but it can happen. Now your end-users End-users, also known as Express Users, are the individuals accessing an application through Express View. In most cases, end-users are the customers using the product. can't use your application and you need to act quickly. Thankfully, you know that your previous release works. The best solution is to replace the broken release with the previous one. Doing so gives you time to fix the issue while your end-user continues using your application.

IMPORTANT Only applications roll back to a previous release version. You cannot roll back Data Collections.

To roll back a release:

Use the Release Dashboard's filters to locate the release.

To the right of your release, click View .

Click Rollback. A pop-up modal displays to confirm the roll back.

Click OK.

Now, you can troubleshoot and repromote your fixes when you're ready.

Restoring a Release

The restore feature is another way to return to a previous release version. The difference being that you'll restore a previous version in your current environment level. It's best to treat this feature as a last resort when a serious issue occurs. Typically, rolling back is the preferred route.

After you make updates or fixes, you can repromote your changes back to production.

IMPORTANT Only applications restore to a previous release version. You cannot roll back Data Collections.

Restoring the Application

To restore a previous release in your current environment level: