Managing updates
Altus is a cloud application that processes customer data within the confines of the customer's own Microsoft 365 environment. As a cloud application, updates and fixes to Altus are applied over time to add additional features and keep the product synchronised with the features and capabilities of the underlying cloud platform, which is also changing.
Updates are delivered in the following ways:
- The Altus Dynamics managed solutions are updated via the Altus Deployment Service Principal consented to in technical readiness. This service principal is granted administrative access to the target Altus Power Platform environment in order to stage and update the Dynamics solutions layers that are used by the Power Platform to provide the application.
- Power BI Reports. Updates to the Power BI reports could be applied manually via the deployment account (while it remains activated) or by appointment at a later time. Power BI Reports are likely to be customised as part of the initial engagement, so updating them at a later time is deemed unlikely.
- The Microsoft Teams Altus App is delivered as a series of static assets from our CDN at https://teams-iq.sensei.cloud. Updates will be provided as necessary by securely updating content at the CDN endpoint.
Warning
While Altus can operate for short periods without updates, to provide a supported user experience Altus must remain connected to the Sensei Hub and regularly updated to maintain supported status.
Note
All services are delivered over HTTPS / TLS 1.2 (Where supported by client browsers).
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:
- A release train starts every week from our internal Latest environment when testing has been completed.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Updates FAQ
Here are some frequently asked questions related to update delivery in Altus.
What date and time are the automatic updates applied?
Typically we release updates on a weekly schedule, approving the updates on Tuesday afternoons and then automated release proceeding to deploy to client environments overnight by Wednesday morning. Exceptions are made to this schedule for fixes to critical usability, security, or data corruption issues.
Will there be an outage when updates are installed?
No, there are no outages created by update delivery - although there may be a performance impact (slow down) while the Power Platform performs the update which is why it is done overnight, outside business hours.
How exactly are the Power Platform updates delivered?
The updates are delivered by
- The Sensei Hub makes a connection to the customer tenancy using a Service Principal consented to during Technical Readiness.
- The Service Principal is authenticated by Azure AD
- The Service Principal connects to a Power Platform environment via the Microsoft Power Platform APIs and is authenticated as Application User created during the manual deployment steps.
- The Application User is authorised by the Power Platform to either do the initial deployment or perform upgrades to the Altus solution layers in the environment.
Is there a back-out plan to go back to a previous version?
Updates can only move forward, and for data integrity it is not safe to move backwards with updates on an environment. However, if there is a catastrophic problem the entire environment is backed up every 10 minutes for 7 days and an alternate restored version from this history can be created if any critical problems are encountered.
When you apply updates, how will we know that the updates will be of high quality and perform as per our requirements?
There are many controls in place to ensure updates are of high quality:
- Static code analysis tools (linting) and unit tests prevent and proactively detect problems during development.
- Our QA team create and execute test cases to ensure coverage over all aspects of the change
- Our QA team run automated regression tests over the latest version of the product every night to ensure unrelated parts of the system are not negatively affected by changes.
- All source code changes are reviewed by multiple developers, this is logged and auditable.
- All changes are released to Altus internal environments first for a week (Canary Ring) where our users are exposed to changes first.
- Changes are then released to the First Release channel to allow for additional customer testing of changes with customisations and change control procedures to be actioned.
- If more testing time is required, updates can be paused at any time through our Sensei Hub website or via contacting our Client Care service.
If I need to test each update before it is deployed to Production, how long do I have?
There is a 3 month window between releases where customisations can be tested.