Project Release Management

Project templates now support Versions and Releases.

Project Template Versions

A Version of a Project template is its own branch of the template that may or may not be in-use alongside other Versions. This can be useful if more than one branch needs to be used by different sets of users, or if you want to make changes in a newer branch while retaining the previous iteration for reference or rollback purposes. Each Version of the Project template is instantaneously affected by updates to any source files (i.e. the Forms that make up its steps) for any future Release of that Version.

Project Template Releases

A Release of a Project template is a point-in-time snapshot of a particular Version for immediate deployment to Subscribed Tenancies. A Release is static and is not affected by updates to the source files. Once a Release is Deployed in a certain Environment to a Tenancy, the Tenancy Admin has the option to make the Deployment active, or inactive for the users it has shared that template release to. A template must be Released/Deployed to a Subscriber and then Shared to the User for them to be able to start a new Project from the Project Template.

A Project template Release packages up the following properties of the particular template Version at the point the Release is created:

• Forms
• Document Templates
• Template tags
• Workflows
• Project Steps
• Project Filter Conditions
• Tenant Subscribers

This then forms the basis for any Projects started using that Deployment.

Adding Subscribers for future Releases

Before you start creating Project Template Releases you should make sure you set up your Subscribers correctly. This will allow you to create your Releases more efficiently.

You can add a new subscriber by following these steps:

1. Navigate to Templates > Projects via the Syntaq menu
2. Find the Project template you want to set the subscribers for and select Edit from the Actions dropdown 
3. Click the Subscribers tab
4. Click the Add Subscriber button
5. Pick the Environment you want this tenant to subscribe to; and type in the tenancy name you want to set the subscription for. You will need to know their exact tenant name in order for the share to work. The admin of that tenancy will also have to accept the shared project template. You will need to set a subscription for your own tenancy to be able to receive your own Deployments, and start Projects from your own Project templates
6. Type the name of the Tenant you want to give access to this Template. In most scenarios, this will be your own Tenancy name. If you need to deploy to multiple Tenancies for this Environment, you can use a simple comma separated string without spaces (i.e. tenant1,tenant2,tenant3).
7. Leave the Enabled checkbox checked if you want this subscription to apply to your next release
8. Hit save to save your subscription.

Once you have set up subscriptions for each of your environments, you should be ready to start creating Project Template Releases.

Creating a New Project Template Release

To create a new Project Template Release, simply follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Templates > Projects via the Syntaq menu
2. Find the Project Template you want to release and select Edit from the Actions dropdown 
3. Via the version dropdown at the top right of the page, verify that you are looking at the desired version of the template – changing the version as necessary
4. Click the Releases button
5. Select New Project Release from the Releases pop-up modal 
6. You will then need to fill out the following details to define your Release:
1. Name: this should ideally contain the Project template name. We recommend you set up a naming convention for your releases, to make sure subscribers know exactly what they have had deployed to them at a glance.
2. Notes: this is where you add Release notes for Subscribers to view, noting changes to previous releases, or any important facets of a newly released template.
3. Project Environment: sets the Environment to deploy the release to. This affects which subscribers receive the deployment.
4. Enforce Deployment (checkbox): select this property to deploy the release with an active status. This is designed for minor releases or revisions.
5. Version identifiers: set your release version numbers (major, minor & revision) depending on how important or large the update is from the previous release. These numbers have no direct relationship with the Version number of the Project template.
6. Release Type: select what type of release this is (major, minor or revision). This should ideally correspond with the number increase you made to the identifiers
7. You can check your Subscriptions to see which Tenancies the release will be deployed to, by clicking the Subscriptions tab in the modal. Here you can remove any subscribers you don’t want to receive this particular release, by clicking Remove. You can also check previous deployments by clicking the Deployments tab in the modal.
8. Click the Save button to save the progress you have made creating this Release, or click the Deploy button to deploy this Release to your subscribers.

Congratulations! You have now released your template to the subscribed tenancies! 

Promote a Project Template Release

Have your testing group verified the project works as expected in your testing Environment? You can duplicate your release in a 'higher' Environment using Promote, simply:

1. Click Releases from the Project template edit page
2. Find the Release you want to promote, and select Promote from its Action menu
3. Choose a new Environment
4. Update any further fields in the Release
5. Click Promote

This will create a Release with the same properties (Form instance, Step descriptors etc.) as the original release, but will deploy to the list of Subscribers to the new Environment instead.

Adding a Subscriber to a yet-to-be-deployed Release

Adding a Subscriber to a saved Release that you are yet to deploy is simple. Just subscribe the Tenant as usual to the relevant Environment via the Project Template's Subscriber tab. Their subscription will then show up in the Release details automatically, and once you deploy the Release, they will also receive the deployment.

Adding a Subscriber to an already-deployed Release

If you have recently come to an agreement with another Syntaq Tenant to use your Project templates, or have just left a tenancy off your subscriber list before creating the Release, you can also redeploy a Release to a new subscriber. To do this you will need to:

1. Navigate to Templates > Projects via the Syntaq menu
2. Find the Project Template you want to redeploy a release for and select Edit from the Actions dropdown 
3. Click the Releases button to view the Releases table
4. Locate the release you wish to redeploy from, and select View from the Actions menu
5. Navigate to the Deployments tab and type in the name of the Tenant you want to deploy to
6. Click Add Deployment

That tenant will now be able to share the deployed Project Template to their users, without you needing to create a whole new Release. This will not affect any Tenants who have already had the release deployed to them.

Note that if you have already added a Subscriber to the Template Subscribers table for an environment with deployed Releases, the Tenant will appear in the deployed Release's Subscribers table, even without the Release having been deployed to them. In this case, the Tenancy Admin will be able to see the subscribed template in their Project Subscriptions table, but there will be no Deployments contained within it. This might be useful to allow Tenancy Admins to set the share permissions to users before receiving a first Deployment. Otherwise to avoid ambiguity, it might be more useful to set the Template Subscription after redeploying the Release to the new Tenancy.

Removing a Subscriber from a Release pre-deployment

For a newly created or previously saved release that you are about to deploy, you are able make sure a particular Template Subscriber does not receive the deployment. To do this you need to:

1. Click the Releases button
2. Select View from the Actions menu of the saved Release, or click the New Project Releases button, depending on whether you are editing a saved Release or creating a new Release.
3. Fill out the remaining details in the Release tab of the Project Release modal
4. Go to the Subscriptions tab
5. Click the Remove button beside the Subscribed Tenancy or Tenancies that you do not want to receive the coming deployment
6. Click the Deploy button

Clicking Save at step 6 will require you to remove the Subscriber again before you deploy, so make sure you are ready to deploy before removing subscribers in this way.

For information on how to make a release available to users after it has been deployed, please take a look at our article.