Prepare for an Adobe Workfront quarterly release

Adobe Workfront releases major updates to the Production environment quarterly. As a Workfront administrator, you have the opportunity to ensure that your organization has a smooth transition to each new version of the Workfront product.

Watch the video below to learn about ways you can prepare for an Adobe Workfront quarterly release.

Understand the Workfront release process

For a detailed description of the Workfront release process, see Adobe Workfront release schedule and process.

Prepare for a Workfront quarterly release

We recommend that you consider some or all of the following actions that can help you prepare your organization for upcoming releases:

• Stay up to date with release notes
• Watch the Workfront Announcement Center
• Explore the Preview Sandbox environment
• Attend the release webinar
• Offer feedback to Workfront

Stay up to date with release notes

Release notes for a given feature are published when the feature goes to your Preview Sandbox environment. That way, you can know about and explore the feature before it is part of your Production environment.

Each quarterly release has a quarterly release overview page with brief descriptions of each feature and links to more in-depth notes that contain additional information as well as demo videos. These in-depth notes are organized by week as the releases to preview occur, and then are reorganized by area closer to the actual Production release date.

We highly recommend watching the demo videos available in the release notes. These can be particularly useful to see the feature in action, or for a quick look into the context of the feature if you’re short on time.

For links to the quarterly release overviews, see Product releases.

Watch the Workfront Announcement Center

As a Workfront administrator, you will receive Announcement Center message from Workfront about various aspects of the release. You will receive an Announcement Center message when any of the following occur:

• New features are available in the Production environment
• Features released to Preview will be released to Production before the scheduled quarterly release.
• All new features are available in the Preview environment before the scheduled quarterly release.
• The release webinar is open for registration

Explore the Preview Sandbox environment

The Preview Sandbox environment, also known as the Preview environment, serves as an environment where users in your organization can safely test and work with a separate copy of your data from the Production environment. Workfront releases new features and functionality the Preview environment well before they are released to the Production environment. You have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with these features before they are released into the day-to-day workflows of your users. Then, if your users have any difficulty taking advantage of the new features, you will be able to more easily help them adapt.

When a feature is released to the Preview Sandbox environment, Workfront documentation is updated to include the new functionality. You can search for the applicable article, or follow links to the documentation from the release notes.

For more information on the Preview Sandbox environment, see The Adobe Workfront Preview Sandbox environment.

Attend the release webinar

Workfront hosts a Release Webinar shortly before each quarterly release. Here, the Workfront product team explains and demonstrates new features and functionality, and can answer questions from those attending.

Release webinars are announced through the Workfront Announcement Center. Registration links can be found on the Release overview page.

For links to the quarterly release overviews, see Product releases.

Offer feedback to Workfront

Some new features may have a “Provide Feedback” button. We take this feedback into account when preparing to release the feature to Production.

In addition, if you find a bug or have a problem with new features, please contact Workfront Support. For more information, see Contact Customer Support.

Prepare your users for the new release

You are in the best position to determine the information and features that are most useful to your users. You can also control the timing of the information release and may be able to control what new features your users see.

• Communicate release information to your users
• Consider using layout templates to control feature availability

Communicate release information to your users

As you prepare to communicate release information to your users, consider the most effective way to communicate that information in your organization. We recommend using a variety of communication methods to make sure you reach all of your users. You may consider communication channels such as:

• Internal newsletters
• Email
• Announcement Center messages (forwarded from Workfront or created by you)
• Announcements on collaboration tools, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams
• Internal webinars or training

You can choose the balance between Workfront resources (such as documentation, release notes, and training) with information that is more tailored to the needs and workflows of your organization. Showing users how new features can improve their work or save time and energy will help your users embrace the changes, but you can save time by using the demos or documentation already available through Workfront.

Over time, you will recognize the communication that is most effective for your organization. We recommend documenting your processes, assessing success, and refining your communication for the next release.

Consider using layout templates to control feature availability

When gathering information about the release, you may decide that your users aren’t ready for a new feature. In this case, you may be able to use layout templates to limit what your users see, and therefore prevent them from encountering and using the new feature. Then, when your users have sufficient communication and training on the new feature, you can update the layout template to make the feature available.

For information on layout templates, see Create and manage layout templates.

Use a Workfront project to track release work

We recommend creating a project to account to ensure that your organization is ready for the new release. Here, you can create tasks for each workflow or aspect of Workfront that you want to test in the Preview environment. By focusing on your workflows, you will account for new features that can change existing workflows, as well as understanding which workflows will be unaffected. You may have tasks such as:

• Test creating a project
• Test approving a proof
• Test access levels for Workers and Planners
• Test mobile apps

It may also be helpful to track release responsibilities besides testing. You can add these tasks to this project or create a new one. Here, you could add tasks such as:

• Attend the release webinar
• Watch demo videos

Creating a template from this project will help drive consistency and thoroughness as you prepare for each new release.

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