Understanding Updates

Release rings

With regards to the Dynamics Solutions updates the release cadence is governed by the following release strategy that organises updates into release trains that progress through a series of release rings.

Note

By default customer environments will be placed in the General Availability ring and set for automatic updates.

Warning

For Altus deployments that are heavily customised, we recommend the use of multiple environments on different rings to allow for customisations to be tested with the latest version of Altus as it rolls out.

Automatic Updates

Automated release train process:

1. A release train starts every week from our internal Latest environment when testing has been completed.
2. The first stop for the release train is the Canary ring where the release is tested internally by our staff in real-world use cases.
3. After the Canary ring, the release progresses into the First Release ring where customers who have non-production environments have the opportunity test the updates with their customisations and integrations. This release is done on a quarterly cycle.
4. Finally after the First Release ring, the updates are then applied to customer deployments in the General Availability ring. This release is done on a quarterly cycle.

The progress of each release can be monitored from the What's New menu item within Altus

Manual updates

Customers that have additional change control requirements or complex customisations can manually set the release ring and when updates are applied to each environment.

Warning

Setting an environment to manual updates and not running the update process may introduce issues as the underlying platform changes over time.

To change the settings, log into https://hub.sensei.cloud as the nominated customer administrative account within the customer organisations AAD. This is typically the Deployment Account but can be changed on request.

Select Altus on the left, and then the Altus instance you wish to manage and select Edit

Select Update Altus Instance Details.

Then change the deployment ring and cadence as required, and press Update Settings.

After an environment is set to manual, the environment can be updated to the latest version at any time utilising the List Solution Updates button.

Then select the Deploy update button.

What is a Hotfix?

A Hotfix is a fix that is applied to all rings in response to a problem that impacts multiple customers and meets one or more of the following:
‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ - Involves data corruption.
‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ - Involves security-related incident.
‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ - Critical functional degradation without a workaround.
Ultimately the decision for the deployment of a Hotfix must balance risk and impact, and are reserved for responding to the most critical situations.

Hotfix Types

Fixes come in the following types:

Type	Description
❄️ Coolfix	A Coolfix is an out-of-cycle fix made to the current deployment in the Canary environment ring.
🌞 Warmfix	A Warmfix is an out-of-cycle fix made to both the Canary and First Release environment rings.
🌶️ Hotfix	A Hotfix is an out-of-cycle update to all rings.

Impact Rating

Occasionally, our updates may conflict with customisations in your environment. To help you manage this, we've ranked the updates based on the potential impact to customised installations. This ranking is designed to assist you in setting testing priorities for your organisation. Your testing team will have a clearer understanding of the likely impacts based on your unique customisations, which will inform your specific testing requirements. Please note, these impacts do not apply to installations without customisations.

Rating	Description
🔴High	Potential for system impact on customised installations. Test item as a matter of priority and refer to notes.
🟡Medium	Testing should be undertaken prior to General Availability
🟢Low	Testing recommended, unlikely to cause issues at General Availability

Altus Category Definitions

This section provides the definitions for the categories used in Altus release notes.
Each category represents a functional area of the platform and is used to group related updates, improvements, fixes, and enhancements.

The descriptions below explain what types of changes are typically included under each category when reviewing product release notes.

Category	Description
Altus Copilot & AI Features	AI controls, synonym handling, Copilot field, onboarding guidance.
Altus for Project	Enhancements and fixes related to the Altus for Project integration, including schedule publishing, synchronisation, and external schedule ownership.
Altus for Teams	Enhancements and fixes related to Altus for Teams, including the MS Teams integration with Altus, and additional functionality released.
Altus for Word	Updates to the Altus for Word add-in, including template generation, document merging and formatting behaviour.
Altus Online Documentation	Updates to technical documentation such as: as-built guides, ERDs, field definitions, and supporting reference material.
Automations	System-driven processes including approvals, triggers, notifications, background jobs, and workflow logic across records and modules.
Collaboration, Teams & Documents	Teams’ channels, group creation, SharePoint documents, ownership syncing.
Core Navigation & Home	Covers home page, landing pages, menus, All Projects (timeline view), and navigation changes.
Financial Management	Finance grid, transaction types, totals, variance and model-driven form behaviour.
Ideas and Proposals	Covers the early-stage project intake process including capture, assessment and progression of ideas and proposals before they become active projects.
Infrastructure & Security	Authentication, platform dependencies, vulnerability fixes, internal refactors, security role updates, field lock enforcement, visibility and permissions behaviour.
Integrations	Planner, Planner Premium, MS Project, Jira/ADO, dataflows.
Performance	Performance tuning, loading times, large dataset handling, reliability fixes.
Programs & Portfolio	Core program and portfolio functionality including creation, fields, registers, views and general behaviour.
Projects	Core project record functionality including project creation, fields, registers (Risks, Changes, Deliverables, etc.), and general project-level behaviour such as stage gates.
Reporting & Dashboards	Reporting, dashboards, data exports, and the data structures that enable portfolio insights.
Resource Management	Resource grids (resource plan and resource demand), heatmaps, capacity, allocation, proposed/committed hours, calendar exceptions, rates.
Settings	Settings UI improvements, configuration JSON, landing page setup.
Status Updates & KPIs	KPI visuals, status update flow, change and decision views.
Strategy - Goals & Benefits	Non-project strategic objects including Benefits, Themes, Goals.
Strategy - Optimisation	Scenario planning, resource optimisation, financial optimisation, SPM grid behaviour.
Strategy - Prioritisation	Evaluation criteria, scoring models, prioritisation UI, performance.
Tasks & Scheduling	Task management, Gantt functionality, scheduling engine updates, and project schedule logic.
Timesheets	Timesheet UI, validation, approval flow, sync to finance.