We’ve made the stakeholder approval process a first class citizen within Runway – simply add items to your approvals list, optionally assign ownership roles, and let your team take it from there. Stakeholders can easily pop into Runway to flag or approve items for the release, and they can also leave comments on items if needed.
If an approval item does have an ownership role associated with it, only users with the appropriate role will be able to update its status. As your team works its way through approvals, everyone can stay on the same page thanks to real-time updates sent to your Slack channel.
We know some of our teams have been using checklist items as a lightweight regression test scripting tool, so we expanded and formalized this usage by adding the ability to create and run through dedicated regression test cases. They have more relevant statuses (In Progress, Blocked, Failed, and Passed) and can also now be commented on.
We’ve loved seeing our teams using Runway’s release schedule feature to keep their release train moving and on-time. But we also know that off-schedule releases occasionally need to be slotted in, and that that can sometimes throw off the schedule on upcoming releases.
Now, if an unplanned release enters the picture, Runway will automatically shift scheduled dates for upcoming releases, however the situation demands. For example, if a hotfix release is slotted in and delays the next scheduled release, Runway will shift that release’s dates over to the next cycle. If a regular release is slotted in, Runway will automatically apply appropriate target dates to that new release according to your cadence, and shift the following release’s dates.
As a reminder, you can view your release’s target dates in the schedule module accessible at the top of any step.
Previously, Runway would attempt to perform your kickoff, submission and release automations only once; if Runway was unable to execute the automation for any reason, things would end there, and you’d have to proceed manually. Now, Runway will retry these key automations up to five times, and will notify you if things still ended in failure at the end of the retry cycle. You’ll notice a ‘Retrying...’ status on the automations tab if Runway is in the process of retrying your automation.
Runway can now monitor the stability of your releases and automatically pause a phased release or staged rollout if the stability of the update falls below your defined threshold.
Just define an acceptable delta value relative to your app’s average session stability, and rest easy knowing that if anything goes wrong, Runway will notify you and pause the rollout before any more of your users receive the buggy update.
We know how important it is to get updates out to all of your users as quickly as possible – but only once your team is confident that the update is stable. Now, Runway can automatically accelerate your rollouts to 100% of users if the stability of the update stays above your app’s average session stability, and only once adoption hits a minimum percentage you define.
We know everyone’s goal is to avoid hotfixes entirely. But when you do need to do one, you want it to happen fast. We designed a quicker flow for preparing hotfix releases so you can get critical fixes out the door faster and with more confidence.
You can start a hotfix using the "Prepare new" dropdown on the main releases timeline. Runway will create the new release and immediately kick it off by cutting a hotfix branch from your live release’s tag and bumping the version on that branch.
Previously, the app Overview screen only displayed your live, next, and upcoming releases. Now, you can see a complete list of your past releases, along with reviews, stability information and key dates associated with each release.
Put your releases on a schedule, and let Runway take it from there. Choose your cadence frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly), and configure your kickoff, submission, and release settings. Runway will automatically set target dates for upcoming releases as they approach and, with automated kickoff, submission and release enabled, you can finally run a fully automated release train with Runway as your copilot.
To help you keep track of target dates that were automatically set by Runway according to your scheduled cadence, we include a small cadence icon in the schedule module, which you can access from any release step.
If at any point during your release cycle you need to pause upcoming scheduled automations, you can do that easily. Head to the schedule module and hit the “Pause schedule” button. Pausing your schedule means Runway will not perform any more scheduled automations until you resume. Once you resume, upcoming automations will proceed on their target dates as normal.
If your team uses TestRail for QA and regression testing, you can now view test run status and results within Runway. After connecting TestRail, Runway will automatically pull in test runs associated with your release by name and present details within the “Regression testing” step.
Another new and exciting capability – Runway can now pull in and surface Bugsnag stability metrics like session stability, user stability, and adoption percentage. Right now these are displayed on each completed release’s “Release” step, and soon you’ll be able to see all stability metrics in App Home as well. More providers are also coming soon - Sentry is next up!
You’ve always been able to set a target kickoff date and time for a release in Runway. Now, you can have Runway perform your kickoff on the target date you set – Runway will automatically create a release branch, or promote code from your working branch to your static release branch, on the target date and time. You can also configure the automated kickoff to include a version bump as part of the kickoff sequence. More on that below.
We recently added the ability to bump the version in your codebase to the current release version with the click of a button in Runway. Now, you can automate your version bump event to suit your team’s strategy: pre-kickoff (to the current release version), post-kickoff (to the next release version), post-submit (to the next release version), or post-release (to the next release version).
Runway can now automatically submit your build for App Store or Google review on your target submission date.
Runway will only submit your build for review if all the preceding steps on the release are good to go (green).
On iOS platforms, you can now configure Runway to automatically release your app on your target release date if it’s been reviewed and approved by Apple.
Set default App Store and Play Store release notes for every locale you need to support, and Runway can now automatically apply those defaults to new versions. No more copy-pasting every time!
View testers, testing groups, and distribute testing builds using TestFlight, all from within Runway.
Runway can also automatically submit new TestFlight builds for beta review, so you can get new builds in the hands of your external testers as quickly as possible.
Stay tuned for Play Console testing track support on Android!
We know that bumping your version in code is a manual “to-do” for many teams, and it can be an annoying and error-prone task. So, we made it as simple as the click of a button in the Kickoff step. Runway will automatically increment the version in the right files, and open a PR with the changes against your working branch.
Verifying that screenshots are up-to-date previously meant navigating away into App Store Connect or the Play Console before coming back to Runway to approve the step. Now, Runway automatically pulls in your screenshots on both the iOS and Android sides, so you can make sure everything looks good to go right from within Runway.
Artifacts produced during the CI/CD build process, like crash symbols or even binaries, are now available within Runway’s workflow modules.
Additionally, Runway now appends links to build artifacts in select build-related Slack notifications, giving your whole team an easy and quick way to grab RC builds as they become available.
Lastly, Runway will include final build artifacts as part of your GitHub or GitLab release records, ensuring your team can always access historical artifacts over time.
Note that build artifacts are currently supported for GitHub Actions and Bitrise. Support for CircleCI, GitLab CI, and Jenkins will follow soon!
