Configuration & Release Management System

DavidE

The Situation

I currently help manage a set of models ranging from Dev, Test, & Production.  Our Production model is live with close to 700 users. We release changes into production on a 2 week cadence but there are times where a fix must be pushed live immediately patching.  

 

Some new features may take longer to develop 2 weeks, so when is not ready to go live and we need to push other fixes into production, we need a way to prevent half-finished features from being accessed by the user.  For new dashboards this may be as simple as not publishing a button, or turning off role access.  But what about when something model wide is going to change like a formula, or a new table on an existing dashboard that is not easily hidden?

 

We have tried the following to attempt to solve this ourselves:

* Completely reverse certain changes, push the model into production, rebuild them

* Turn off role access to certain buttons, contents pane access etc.

* Develop a mirrored dashboards with new features etc, test that and then rebuild the dashboard when ready to go live. (same for modules etc.)

 

The Ask

Anaplan needs a way to designate which parts of a model are to be pushed via ALM and others that are not ready and need to be left out. I realize this is not a simple request, but otherwise it is incredibly difficult to keep from pushing half baked features into production accidentally.  

 

Miran

Status changed to: New

Nasabulkk

Have you tried using feature flags or toggles? These can allow you to turn features on or off for specific users or groups without having to remove them entirely from the model.

Celinkadev

Hi! I'm new on this forum, but I couldn't help but chime in on this topic. I can definitely relate to the struggle of managing models with multiple environments and releases, especially with a large user base like yours. Have you considered using an online project management system like Asana or Jira to help streamline your release management process? These systems allow you to create tasks and subtasks for each feature or fix, assign them to team members, set due dates, and track progress all in one place. You can also create different projects for each environment and track the status of each release.

Celinkadev

Hi! I'm new on this forum, but I couldn't help but chime in on this topic. I can definitely relate to the struggle of managing models with multiple environments and releases, especially with a large user base like yours. Have you considered using an online project management system like Asana or Jira to help streamline your release management process? These systems allow you to create tasks and subtasks for each feature or fix, assign them to team members, set due dates, and track progress all in one place. You can also create different projects for each environment and track the status of each release.

david.savarin

You can always apply the "back to the future" procedure where you go back on the dev model to the last deployed revision, perform the fix, deploy the fix, then restore your dev model to it s previous feature in progress point

It allows to manage these issues neatly (though it takes a bit of practice to use it without fearing to break things)