Set Up New Features and Activate Major Releases

About EDA Releases and Versions

We release major new versions of EDA three times a year. In addition, every two weeks we release minor updates (bug fixes and enhancements), with occasional exceptions for holidays and major Salesforce releases.

We use the standard versioning convention in which the number to the left of the dot identifies the major release and the number to the right of the dot identifies the minor release. So for example, 2.x is newer than any version numbered 1.x, and 2.24 is 21 releases newer than 2.3.

See our article, Keep Up with Salesforce.org Releases for more information on releases and release dates.

Activate a Release

EDA administrators have until the next major release to set up new features and activate the current release.

Many new features and enhancements in major releases are behind a release gate. Release gates allow us to upgrade your instance to the most recent version of EDA while keeping selected (gated) functionality from going live in your org. With release gates, your orgs always get the push upgrade, and you can control when you activate the functionality that's behind the gate.

When we push a major release to Sandbox, we activate the current release on all sandboxes that are still on the previous release. See our article, Keep Up with Salesforce.org Releases for more information on releases and release dates.

Note Not every release will have gated features. Be sure to read the EDA release card in the Release Management section of Education Cloud Settings.

Here's how to set up new features and activate a release.

1. On the day of the major Sandbox release, go to the Education Cloud Settings page and click Go to Release Management to read about the new features. Think about and plan for the best time to set them up.

2. Before the next major Sandbox release, follow the links from the EDA Release Manager to the documentation and in your sandbox environment complete the required setup tasks for each new feature or enhancement. If desired, further customize the feature for your institution. Not every new feature requires setup. When setup is required, however, you might need to perform one or more of these tasks.

   • Set or verify object and field permissions for system administrator and other profiles

   • Assign Apex class access to profiles

   • Configure sharing settings for relevant objects

   • Configure record types and picklists

   • Configure object tabs, related lists, and list views

   • Create or customize Lightning record pages or Lightning components

   • Complete other, feature-specific setup tasks

3. When all gated features are configured in your sandbox environment, on the Education Cloud Settings page, in the Release Management component, click Activate Current Release.

   

   Important Be sure you're ready to activate when you click the button. Once a release is activated, it can't be deactivated.

4. Verify that everything works as expected in Sandbox.

5. In Production, repeat the configuration and activate the release. Then verify that everything works as expected in Production, too.

It's important to complete all required setup for each release's new features even if you don't intend to use the features in your org. Security settings are especially critical to keep up-to-date. Setting up new features within one major release and keeping security settings current helps prevent your users from experiencing errors.