Release Manual

    Upgrade instructions

    For upgrade instructions, refer to Upgrade XL Release.

    Important: If you plan to skip versions when you upgrade, ensure that you read the version-specific upgrade notes for each intermediate version. You may be required to perform manual actions as part of the upgrade.

    XL Release 5.0.1

    XL Release 5.0.1 release notes

    New features

    • [REL-3014] - Release dashboard tile: Users and Teams

    Improvements

    • [REL-3240] - Make "More..." link on Release Overview, Pipeline page, and Templates page more prominent
    • [REL-3427] - Make Jenkins Build task resilient to network failure
    • [REL-3429] - Upgrade to Overthere 4.3.3

    API changes

    • [REL-3378] - Create phases from public API

    Bug fixes

    • [REL-2745] - Opening one collapsed Parallel Group opens them all
    • [REL-3116] - Restricted access is not enforced for Task Access settings
    • [REL-3213] - ConcurrentModificationException occurs during release archiving process
    • [REL-3214] - Refactor CSS in XL Release main container
    • [REL-3229] - After a phase is restarted, the phase end date is removed
    • [REL-3230] - When archiving a release with dependencies, the archive database returns a 500 error
    • [REL-3234] - Running a Remote Script task without specifying a remote path results in NullPointerException
    • [REL-3242] - Cannot create release trigger with certain CRON commands
    • [REL-3244] - Cannot create variable with release.* when upgrading from XL Release 4.7.x to 4.8.x
    • [REL-3245] - Handle outgoing dependencies in Gate tasks when archiving releases
    • [REL-3322] - Memory leak in UI
    • [REL-3346] - When changing a task type takes a long time, the task window cannot be closed
    • [REL-3347] - Service wrapper does not respond to certain requests
    • [REL-3352] - Starting releases from two triggers that execute at the same time will fail after some time
    • [REL-3372] - Inconsistent behavior when a task depends on multiple other tasks
    • [REL-3398] - JIRA tile cannot be added if a JIRA issue does not have an assignee

    XL Release 5.0.1 upgrade notes

    New release dashboard tile for Users and Teams

    The new Users and Teams release dashboard tile shows how tasks are distributed across users and teams in a template or release.

    XL Release 5.0.0

    XL Release 5.0.0 release notes

    New features

    • [REL-2859] - Release dashboard
    • [REL-2889] - Replace Release summary with Release dashboard
    • [REL-2948] - Release dashboard tile: Simple Release Summary
    • [REL-2949] - Release dashboard tile: Release Progress
    • [REL-2950] - Release dashboard tile: Release Health
    • [REL-3013] - Release dashboard tile: Timeline
    • [REL-3058] - Release dashboard tile: XL Deploy
    • [REL-2951] - Release dashboard tile: Jenkins builds
    • [REL-2953] - Release dashboard tile: Jira issues
    • [REL-2860] - Table view for templates and releases
    • [REL-1789] - Expose full functionality of Overthere in XL Release
    • [REL-2722] - "Create release" task type
    • [REL-566] - Sequential Group task type

    API changes

    • [REL-2233] - Public API to manipulate conditions and dependencies on Gate tasks

    Improvements

    • [REL-3050] - Show "Created from template" and "Started from release" in release properties
    • [REL-472] - Support variables in Gate dependencies
    • [REL-2432] - Default JDBC export hook
    • [REL-2554] - Don't assign task to Release owner after failure
    • [REL-3195] - Always allow "Assign to me" when task is assigned to team user is in
    • [REL-3004] - Assign template to user copying it
    • [REL-3000] - Calculate end time of Gate task with dependencies
    • [REL-3005] - Hide tasks the user does not have access rights for
    • [REL-2840] - Support installing XL Release as a service in startup scripts
    • [REL-3049] - Add support for HTTP proxies when executing remote scripts
    • [REL-2576] - Upgrade to jGit 4.0.0

    Bug fixes

    • [REL-1768] - When logging in with user ID in different case, XL Release does not retrieve permissions
    • [REL-2296] - XL Release starts after user answers "no" to upgrade question
    • [REL-2599] - Several issues in Parallel Group execution
    • [REL-2865] - Cannot complete User Input task using context menu
    • [REL-2871] - Restart/resume phase sets release start date to current time
    • [REL-2886] - XL Release 4.8.0 upgrade does not support release variables with "global." prefix
    • [REL-2893] - In case of multiple results when using Webhook task, double quotes are removed from the entries
    • [REL-2905] - "Run as" user is not copied when release is started from trigger
    • [REL-2906] - When a release created from a trigger fails immediately, another release may be created right away
    • [REL-2911] - Cannot import template with unknown tasks that contain variables
    • [REL-2915] - Permission error when trying to edit a trigger variable using Jython API
    • [REL-2917] - User must click Save twice to save tags on a template
    • [REL-2919] - Improve archiving performance and resource usage
    • [REL-2955] - Changing task duration when task due date is defined results in cascading errors in UI
    • [REL-2963] - Cannot archive 10,000 attachments in one job run
    • [REL-3002] - Deleting a link in the planner results in error
    • [REL-3003] - When creating a new release, the "Release Admin" team gets all permissions, regardless of the permissions set in the template
    • [REL-3033] - Installer leaves server.conf.defaults file
    • [REL-3041] - Credentials are visible in log-in URL

    XL Release 5.0.0 upgrade notes

    Enhanced visibility with the new release dashboard

    The release dashboard is a customizable view of what's in a template or release. You can add tiles to the release dashboard to see information such as the release's progress, health, and timeline, including dependent and blocking releases. Tiles can also show information from external tools such as JIRA and XL Deploy.

    Note: The release dashboard replaces the release summary view.

    Advanced release orchestration with the Create Release task type

    The new Create Release task type allows you to create and start a release from another release. You can use this feature, for example, to:

    • Create a "master" release that starts many "subreleases", waits for them to finish, and then continues
    • Create a "kickstart" release that only contains Create Release tasks to start other releases
    • "Chain" releases together by adding a Create Release task at the end of each release to start a new one

    Table view now available for templates and releases

    The new table view provides an alternative way of visualizing the phases and tasks in a template or release. Table view allows you to filter phases and tags by name, status, start and end date, duration, type, and assignee. In table view, you can also use the task action menu to quickly assign, complete, skip, duplicate, delete, or convert tasks.

    Sequential Group task type now available

    In addition to Parallel Groups, XL Release now supports Sequential Groups, in which tasks are executed in order. This provides a useful way to group related tasks within a phase. For example, you could configure a precondition on a Sequential Group so that all of its subtasks will be skipped under certain conditions. You can also collapse Sequential Groups to make the release flow easier to read.

    Contact XebiaLabs Support if you have hotfixes

    Before upgrading, check whether there are hotfixes installed in the XL Release hotfix directory. If hotfixes are installed, contact the XebiaLabs support team before upgrading.

    Items deprecated in XL Release 5.0.0

    The startup commands XLR_HOME/bin/server.sh and XLR_HOME\bin\server.cmd have been deprecated in favor of the new run.sh and run.cmd commands. This change is related to the ability to install XL Release as a service. If you have automated scripts that use the deprecated commands, update them to use the new commands instead. The server.sh and server.cmd commands will be removed in the next version of XL Release.

    Items removed in XL Release 5.0.0

    Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 is no longer supported as of XL Release 5.0.0. The latest version of Internet Explorer or another browser should be used instead. Refer to Requirements for installing XL Release for more information.

    Copyright 2017. XebiaLabs, Inc. All rights reserved