Continuous Delivery

Software updates in Hornbill’s continuous delivery model refer to the regular and incremental enhancements made to the software, which are automatically provided to users without any need for manual intervention. This model enables Hornbill to deliver new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security patches to customers seamlessly and with minimal disruption.

Here’s an explanation of the key aspects of software updates for our continuous software delivery model:

• Frequent updates: Updates are released more frequently than in traditional software development models. This approach ensures that users always have access to the latest features and improvements, without having to wait for major version upgrades.

• Incremental improvements: Updates often involve small, incremental changes, which allow developers to identify and address issues more quickly. This helps maintain a high level of software quality and reduces the risk of introducing significant problems with each update.

• Automatic updates: Software updates are delivered automatically, without requiring any action from our customers. This eliminates the need for manual updates, upgrade planning and downtime, and removes the possibility of customers using outdated or vulnerable software.

• Zero downtime: We strive to implement updates with zero downtime, ensuring that users can continue to access and use the software, even during the update process. This is achieved through strategies such as rolling updates, where the software is updated in stages, and blue-green deployments, where two versions of the application run simultaneously, and users are seamlessly switched to the updated versions.

• Continuous feedback loop: Our continuous delivery model enables a feedback loop between our customers and developers. As individual users interact with the software, they often provide feedback on issues or suggest improvements, which can be rapidly incorporated into future plans or software updates as we receive the feedback. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation.

• Enhanced security: We can quickly address security vulnerabilities and deploy patches to protect our customers. The continuous delivery model ensures that security updates are applied promptly, reducing the risk of security breaches and protecting user data.

Overall, software updates in our SaaS continuous delivery model provides customers with an always-up-to-date, secure, and high-quality software experience, while allowing developers to respond quickly to user feedback and changing market demands.

Major Updates - No User Impact

Major updates that have no user impact typically means, new features, additional modules, components, functions, behaviors or new UI elements, themes, layouts that are not imposed and need to be “enabled” or “used for the first time” are considered non-impactful. These features we generally roll out without prior notice (save for release note content). There are also major changes we will make from time to time under-the-hood that we expect to be non-impactful, so these types of changes also fall into this category.

Major Updates - Material Impact

Major updates that will have a material impact on users of our software without their choice would fall into this category. Sometimes we want to improve the overall UI/user experience, may want to make significant UI layout changes or alter the way in which something works in order to improve, extend or enhance it or other related areas of the product. If these changes are considered impactful to users on update, we will generally communicate this in advance, will propose mitigating/readiness advice and guidance before the update, and more often than not, will include a “switch to this new feature to try it out” directly inside the application. In general we try not to undertake these types of changes and prefer an incremental improvement (little but often) model. Sometimes though its unavoidable, and when this is the case, we treat these types of updated differently.

Roadmaps

We incorporate our roadmaps directly within our software, these can be found in the Solution Center, providing customers with an easily accessible and transparent view of our development plans. This approach helps customers stay informed about the latest features, improvements, and upcoming releases, ensuring customers can plan and adapt their workflows accordingly.

• In-app access: We provide a dedicated section within our Solution Center where customers can view and explore the roadmaps. This allows our customers to access information about upcoming features and improvements without needing to search external websites or request information from support teams.

• Feature categorization: Our roadmaps are organized into products, with a focus on new features and enhancements, and other noteworthy items. This categorization helps users easily identify the updates that are most relevant to their needs and understand the overall direction of the product suite.

• Status updates: Our roadmaps include status indicators for each item, such as “Planned,” “In Progress,” or “Completed.” These indicators help customers track the progress of specific features and improvements and give them an idea of when to expect these updates to appear in the software.

• Release timeframes: Where possible, we include estimated release timeframes for our roadmap items. This information helps customers plan for the integration of new features and improvements into their workflows and allows them to anticipate any necessary adjustments.

• Feedback and collaboration: We encourage customers to provide feedback on our roadmaps, and encourage the suggestion of new features or improvements via our community forums. This collaborative approach helps us better understand the needs and priorities of our customers and ensures that the software continues to evolve in a way that meets your needs.

By making our roadmaps available directly within our software, we wish to foster a sense of transparency and trust with our customers. This approach keeps customers informed about the ongoing development of the software and enables them to plan more effectively for the future.