They offer guidance on how to address known issues and fix bugs. You can also use them to announce new features or software updates. We’ll cover different types of product release notes and changelogs, their importance, and best practices. We’ll also showcase some examples and templates, discuss changelog management tools, and help you get the most out of your feature announcements. The main objective is to provide clear, concise, and relevant information that will benefit the reader, whether they are an end-user, a developer, a stakeholder, or a support team member. Adjust the template as needed based on the type of software, audience, and feedback received over time.
Keep in mind that some users may be looking for product fixes, while others may want to learn about new features. Categorizing your content makes reading easier for all of your users. Salesforce is a CRM platform with many products under its umbrella. So keeping customers updated about new features and product changes can feel like hell for technical writers, product managers, and developers. They provide users, customers, and stakeholders with essential information about the changes and improvements made in a software update or new release.
What are release notes?
A release note is an ongoing instructions manual that guides the user on how to get the most out of a new product or product update. Impacted users/products/software — This section should include what services or products are being changed and which users will be affected. Even though there’s not set in stone way to format your release notes, here’s a template for release plan to help you include all the necessary info. Users will become numb when asked to read or scan a wall of text. Keep things organized and segmented by using subheads, drop-down menus, bullet points, and paragraph breaks.
Involve your product marketing team – they can help spread the word. Always publish the latest changes at the top – that’s the most relevant information for your users. Use a variety of formatting to make your release notes entries even easier on the eye. Encourage your developers to write clear and informative commit messages describing each commit’s changes. Following a consistent format, such as the changelog format, can be helpful.
- Many startups use it to collaborate, stay informed, and publish release notes.
- They are used to summarize changes made in the latest release of a product.
- The goal of release notes is to educate your users on product changes, so they should focus on the new advancements to your product.
- No one wants to develop new features that are not going to be used.
- It’s easy to tell that any and every software team uses release notes.
And showing that you’re working on them makes you look transparent and trustworthy. Bit.ai is the essential next-gen workplace and document collaboration platform. That helps teams share knowledge by connecting any type of digital content. Release notes explain new features added, issues resolved, and improvements in a product or software by the company. Remember, from the android play store to the company blog, keep them brief, on-brand, and innovative where you can.
Group updates into categories
For instance, there’s talk of adding the most common Apple and Microsoft file extensions to their approved list in order to spare you one more approval. Poptin enlists the help of a popup modal that’s accessible from the main navigation on its website. To get access to the latest changes to the SaaS tool, a user clicks on the “What’s New” menu item and the modal pops up on the screen. He is interested in Start-Up culture, digital marketing, and everything which includes creativity.
When they introduce new features, they include visuals to keep it engaging and break up the text. Now that you know what makes good release notes and changelogs, let’s illustrate it with examples. You can include links, images, and other multimedia elements, making your release notes more visually appealing. Markdown is a lightweight markup language that helps you format text quickly and easily. You can write release notes in Markdown and easily convert them into HTML or other formats. This is the simplest and most common format for a software release note.
Changelog helps boost customer engagement by informing them about new product features and reducing churn by informing customers about what is changing and how it will affect them. You can create a workspace around a team, department, large project, client, partner, etc. The art of writing release notes that rock is a tricky form of writing to conquer. Fear not, this article is here to guide you through writing perfect release notes and share some leading examples. With the software maturing, release notes help in documenting the product journey and life cycle.
Twitter uses a chronologically ordered page for product release notes, which is fun, but they read more like a magazine and less like a social media platform. A recent release note issued by Facebook seems to lack detail about what was changed and why. While users may not prefer a novel’s worth of notes, it would have been helpful to understand what types of crashes were experienced and what features weren’t loading quickly. The primary purpose of release notes is to inform and educate users about what has changed in the software or service. They do this to show that they’re dedicated to making planned and regular updates.
Further reading
If you don’t announce a new update to your users, they may not notice it. No one wants to develop new features that are not going to be used. Follow along for ways to transform your release notes game and make a lasting impact on your users.
We love ClickUp’s use of emojis and links – it keeps the readers engaged and curious to learn more. Notice how they link out https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ to release notes and more information. People appreciate your updates – they’ll feel like they’re with you on your journey.
As technology evolves at a rapid pace, there’s a growing need to establish fluid and regular communication with users. With the adoption of Scrum & Kanban processes and domination of the SaaS mode, release frequency is higher than ever. But your product is only relevant if users know about its updated features and benefits. A vital tool for software development teams, release notes are used to communicate new features, improvements, and bug fixes to users and help them understand the advantages. They also assist marketing teams to refresh the product’s sales template and set the agenda for future improvements for the development and QA teams.
This rule is not only useful for release notes but for any type of content you produce. You can use release notes as a way to promote your brand messaging, but don’t overdo it with heavy self-promotion. Too much self-promotion can erode a customer’s trust in your brand. But can you sneak a little self-promotion into your release notes to help boost your brand’s messaging.
Like in anything in life, by bringing structure and organization as well as modern technologies, we can create an easier solution that is more exciting and useful. Formal writing is usually long and not straight to the point — making it harder for readers to scan the text and find what they need. While we appreciate Tumblr’s above-mentioned work, we believe they have some room for improvement. Release notes can be quickly scanned through to give a general idea of what’s new and they follow a very simplistic format. Both Salesforce and Sketch use a generic tone, are very user-friendly, and are oriented toward real people. It quickly aligns a selection of multiple layers into a neat grid, making it even easier to create and manage complex layouts.
They have in-depth knowledge of the software and are best equipped to communicate the changes in a lucid and user-friendly format. They can also use release management tools to smoothly manage the process of software release and delivery. ReleaseNotes.io is a changelog tool that allows teams to host release notes on a dedicated site and add embeddable modals and banners for higher visibility.