Currently I am preparing final draft for the vtiger CRM 5.0.3 release notes. This time I am trying to make it more lucid and end-user friendly, so that our community will get a better visibility on our product and take a quick decision on vtiger.
I would like to share some of my personal experiences during this exercise.
Boilerplate for standard content:
- I have a boilerplate for writing release notes. Place holders for there for filling the data.
- Once data starts coming in, I update the respective section. It is easy to fill introduction, downloads, upgrade instructions, since there will not be much changes from release to release.
Filling the Fixed Issues/Known Issues sections:
- When we have releases often, it is easy to update the latest 10 to 20 issues in a short duration.
- If the release happens after a long duration, (in v5.0.3 we have crossed 1000 mark and last release happened almost 7 months back), it is very hard to segregate issues into small chunks.
- Segregation of issues in to small chunks requires a lot of time than expected.
- Identifying issues that have much impact on users, testing those issues in the latest build, etc.. This process is one of the major tasks in preparation of the release notes.
- Once it is clear, start real-time testing in the latest build. If there are any confusion don’t hesitate to contact concerned tester/developer.
- Keeping end-user perspective is another important area. Particularly, when releasing end-user products, it is very essential to keep the message short and lucid, since end-users will have limited time to take a decision on using the product.
- Any wrong information published will have much impact on team reputation. Hence very careful, while presenting the information.
Learning:
- It is always better to start release notes from DAY ONE of the active development than giving it an after thought. I am not sure how many writers follow this rule.
- Have a continuous coordination between testers & developers to understand the nature of the issue and impact on end-user experience. Otherwise, release notes will send wrong signals to your target audience.
Finally, we will have a printer friendly (PDF) release notes for v5.0.3, which will be published during release. All our past release notes are archived at: [link removed]
Cheers,
Gopal
