How Launch Cycles Work

Overview

Whenever we make a major update to our products, we want that process to be a seamless experience for everyone. From planning to release, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and the culmination of that work is known as a launch cycle. Once a new version is ready, we release it in stages so that we have an opportunity to rectify any minor and unexpected bugs before the update is exposed to our full customer base. This has proven to be a successful method and results in a better experience for our customers.

Beta Release

Each and every product update goes through rounds of testing both internally and with our wonderful beta team! This team is comprised of customers who help us test and troubleshoot new versions ahead of their release. If you are interested in joining us, check out this article on how to become a beta tester. Once beta testing is concluded, it's time for the official release!

Official Release

All product updates include a detailed Release Notes post on our blog. These posts include an overview of the features and fixes, changelog, FAQs, and status reports throughout the rollout so you can know where we are in the process. The rollout itself is broken down into two main phases.

• Manual Updates - All new updates begin with manual updates. During this phase, you can update to the latest version manually by getting the files from the license page of your Themeco account. We begin with manual updates to help with support and to address any lingering issues that may not have been caught during the beta process.
• Automatic Updates - Once known issues are corrected, we begin the rollout to automatic updates. At this point, all validated customers will receive a notification in their WordPress dashboard of a new version. Generally, this is when the vast majority of our customers update, so it is not uncommon to find additional edge case issues that need to be fixed, and we do this in a subsequent point release.

Once all update related issues have been resolved, we'll mark the end of the cycle on the 'Status Report' section of the Release Notes.

Previous Versions

We provide the last point release of the previous cycle in your account dashboard. For example, if Pro 5.3.5 is the latest version, we would make Pro 5.2.x available to you. It is always recommended to be on the latest supported versions. This article includes the latest versions of X, Pro, and Cornerstone in additon to supported versions of Extensions, WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

Support

During a launch, our support forums are especially busy so response times may be delayed. Tickets are answered in the order they are received, and it is always our goal to provide fast and timely help! The best way to get immediate answers is to monitor the Release Notes post and review any corresponding tutorials, articles, or videos related to the update. They will be linked to from the Release Notes. There are also troubleshooting tips that can help you avoid common issues. Finally, your issue may have already been asked (and fixed) so be sure to browse and search the forum before posting.

Summary

Now that you understand the process, you can make an informed decision on when to update your theme or plugin. We love keeping our customers on the latest website building tech and thank-you for partnering with Themeco!