Enhancement Cycle Overview

What the Enhancement Cycle Is

The Enhancement Cycle is a prioritization and release schedule for new and improved functionality. It is a way of establishing deadlines and cutoffs to ensure that new or enhanced features are rolled out at times that are most adventagious to the campuses and with adequate notice to them. New or improved functionality will only be rolled out to the community on the specified release date for a given cycle, even if they are completed before that release date.

The Enhancement Cycle is also a tool for making sure that we get fresh input on community development priorities several times a year. At the beginning of each cycle, we will poll the community on their most current priorities for enhancement requests. These priorities will be major factors in determining the order in which enhancements will be developed.

What the Enhancement Cycle Isn't

The Enhancement Cycle isn't a development schedule. Development will proceed more or less continuously, and new features will not be released before they are ready.

Nor is it a schedule for bug fixing. Bugs will also be fixed on an ongoing basis. In general, bug fixing will be prioritized above enhancements.

The Steps in the Cycle

1. At the beginning of the cycle, we poll the community on their updated priorities. (This corresponds to the first gate in the development process. The community will also identify the release date for the cycle.
2. One month before the release date, the list of enhancements ready to be released will be announced to the community. Only enhancements that are 100% ready to go at this deadline will be released during this cycle.
3. All release-ready enhancements will be put into production on the release date.