Manage app changes and rollouts in Atlassian cloud
10 min
Advanced
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Explain the purpose of managing app changes for your organization
- Use release tracks to control changes
- Use sandboxes to experiment and preview changes
Why manage app changes?
As an organization admin, you’re responsible for ensuring that changes to Atlassian Cloud apps such as improvements, fixes, new features, or performance updates don’t disrupt your teams’ work.
Atlassian Cloud Premium and Enterprise plans give you tools to:
✔ Control when and how changes are introduced to your site.
✔ Test changes safely before they reach your teams.
✔ Secure access to your organization's apps and data.
To view the list of Atlassian changes that might impact your organization:
- Navigate to Atlassian Administration and select your organization.
- Expand Apps then Release Management.
- Select App updates.
You can perform a keyword search and filter the Atlassian changes by app, status (e.g. coming soon, rollout complete) or change type (e.g. Fix, Improvement).
Explore release tracks
Release tracks let you control when Atlassian apps receive new features and updates. Instead of updates arriving as soon as they’re available, you can choose a track that fits how your organization prefers to manage change.
Release tracks are applied per site and app. They are available for Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, Confluence on Premium and Enterprise sites.
Release tracks are also available for Rovo on sites that contain Jira, Jira Service Management, or Confluence on Premium or Enterprise plans.
👇 Click the boxes below to explore the different release track options
How to set a release track
To change release track settings for an Atlassian app:
- From the sidebar, expand Apps then Release management.
- Open Release tracks.
- Select Change track for an app.
- Choose between continuous, bundled or preview (for sandboxes only).
- Select Next then Confirm.
- Communicate the change window to stakeholders.
👇 Click the tabs below to explore best practices when managing tracks.
Pair release tracks with sandboxes so admins can safely preview and test changes before the corresponding production bundle arrives.
Preview change using sandboxes
A sandbox is an isolated environment that works like a replica of your production site, where you can try out changes before they reach your production site. You can create a sandbox per production site.
You can use a sandbox to:
✔ Preview upcoming changes delivered by release tracks
✔ Test new marketplace apps or app upgrades
✔ Experiment with configuration changes, workflows, and permissions
How to create a sandbox?
👇 Click the boxes below to explore typical sandbox workflow steps.
Third-party apps and their data do not automatically copy to the sandbox. Additionally, a Sandbox copy will always be on the same plan as the original production app is on.
How are sandboxes billed?
👇 Click the boxes below to explore how sandboxes are billed for Premium and Enterprise plans.
Explore best practices for managing sandboxes
Some best practices when using sandboxes:
- Use a repeatable promotion checklist: Keep a consistent promotion checklist, for example: test in sandbox, document steps and outcomes, then apply the changes to production during the appropriate release track window.
- Protect sensitive data in sandboxes: When copying data into sandboxes, mask or remove sensitive personally identifiable information wherever possible, and enforce least-privilege access for sandbox user groups.
- Preview changes with continuous track in sandbox: Set your sandbox to the continuous release track so admins can see and test upcoming changes before they are bundled and rolled out to production.
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next lesson
Add and remove apps in your organization
- Add apps to a site
- Remove Atlassian apps from your site
- Maintain apps on your site
- Cancel a site