Release notes provide information of a new version of a product to its customers and users.
Properties
The document type release note provides the following properties:
Please note that only information about specific properties is provided here. Common document property used by all document types are documented by Document Properties.
Type
Specify a type to organize your release notes.
Version
Specify the version of the product described by this release note.
Product
Name the product and provide a link to further information for this product.
Release Date
Specify the date the product was released.
Sponsors
List the stakeholders that take special interest in this release or are specially involved in this released version.
Sections
Description
Describe the purpose of this release notes document.
You may add also information about the product to help readers to determine, if this document is relevant for them.
Summary
List the main features of this release and the most important information for users to decide whether to select this version or not. This is usually about three paragraphs long.
New and Noteworthy
Describe the most interesting changes in more detail.
Requirements
List requirements for the new version of the product.
Breaking Changes
Describe changes that remove or break existing features that require the users attention.
Known Issues
List known issues with this release and provide workarounds and links to track the issues.
Installation Instructions
Provide information on how to install this release. If these instructions do not differ from previous release you may simply reference the installation instructions from here. This helps users to quickly access them. You may also want to provide links to the user manuals or getting started guides.
Upgrade Instructions
Provide information on how to upgrade to this release. This may include creating a backup of personal data or migration instructions.
List of Changes
If the JIRA server is configured, this section lists the issues associated with this version of the product.
The query to select the issues is based on the version property of the release note.
project = 'MY_PROJECT_NAME' && fixVersion = 'MY_VERSION' ORDER BY type DESC, priority DESC
Notes
These are internal notes that are usually not exported and only visible to team members with write access.
But this is not a safe place to store sensible information. It is just a convenience for the reader to not be bothered with notes stored here for the authors for later use. The security level is about suppressing the representation by a CSS style. Therefore consider this as a convenience for the reader, not as a security tool.
The text of notes sections is also indexed.
References
For a document the references section contains pointers to resources that prove the statements of the document.
Often these proofs are not easily distinguishable from further information. In this case you may want to skip the reference section in favour for the resource list.
The resources section provides references to further information to the topic of the document.
This may be information on the internet provided by the resource or information in the team's information systems. Anything the reader of the resource might want to know, may be listed here.