hello and welcome back to our video series on learning digital product release this is the third of three videos covering the initial configuration or setup steps for the product we previously covered release policies and approval definitions in this third video we'll bring these all together by creating a release template we'll be reviewing what release templates are how release templates are used in the release process the three key components of a release template and how to create new release templat let's get started before jumping into the product I want to quickly bring us back to the adoption Journey while our first two videos covered release policies and approval definitions each of these components is not necessary to start using DPR right away you can start with a release template and only manual approvals this will be step one of your adoption Journey you can then continue along the maturity curve as you integrate tools and start leveraging automated policies when you're ready in this example we're going to start off using policies right from the beginning okay now that we've activated our release policies and defined our approval definitions we're ready to start mapping these to a release we do this by creating a release template release templates are what release admins will use to build their release process into VPR any number of release templates can be defined to fit different types of software releases for example major minor hot fixes and patches let's see what these look like look like in the product from the digital product release workspace still logged in as Andrew our release admin click on create release template in the guided setup prompts this takes you to the release Administration page and you'll see we've already created some templates let's see what these look like there are three primary components to the release template phases tasks and policies phases of a release will vary depending on the type of release we trying to manage by the type of product and by the organization but all releases will have will have a set of phases they're trying to progress through we commonly see some variation of Planning Development testing or validation and deployment phases can be defined in two ways timeline oriented and Stage oriented a timeline oriented release is a release that has a predefined start and end dates for each phase a stage oriented release does not have predefined start and end dates and instead has a set of criteria or conditions that must be completed before moving on to the next phase there are pros and cons to each approach and the best approach depends on the context and goals of that release the next key component of our release template are tasks tasks are manual activities that need to be completed within each phase of release there are two types of tasks that can be managed within DPR those that require some form of approval and those that did not require approval where approvals are needed is where the approval definitions that we defined in our last video come into play in this example we see 17 tasks across the four phases defined the third component of our release templates are policies which we covered in detail in our first video just like tasks these policies are mapped to the different phases of our release Here we have 13 policies mapped across three different phases now that we understand the components of a release template let's go ahead and create a new one return to the release Administration page and select new this takes us to the create release template model here we can give our template a name and select the type in this case we're going to create a major release template now click create which takes us to the template creation Playbook our first step is to determine if it's a timeline oriented or stage oriented release in this example we're going to create a timeline oriented release template select that and then click Mark is done to move on to the next step now let's define our phases we do this by providing a name duration and a short description if desired then click add new phase one note your you're only able to add new phase after proving the name and duration for the previous phase let's go ahead and Define the rest of our phases okay great now that we've defined all our phases we need to select one as a release rent Target phase this is the phase in which the release needs to be fully compliant or validated uh this is typically the phase right before the release is deployed so let's do user acceptance validation when All Phases duration and the release regate Target phase have been defined click Mark is done now let's create our tasks in the task stage of the Playbook you'll see a tab for each release phase you defined for each phase create tasks by proving a task name and indicating uh if approval if approval is needed and if so by who now let's create the rest of our tasks you'll notice that for stakeholder approval to proceed we said need approval to yes and selected the product owner approval approval definition now we click next phase and repeat until we've created template tasks for every phase great you'll see we've now created tasks for each of our phases when we're done select Mark is done to move on to our third step assigning policies okay now let's map our policies in the policy stage of the wizard we have a tab for each phase just like in the task stage to map policies simply click map policies and select the policies you'd like to link to the phase for planning let's link the all approval tasks are complete policy now let's do the rest of our phases great you'll see we M policies to the Planning Development package and user acceptance validation phases when we're done select Mark is done AO will prompt us to publish the template click publish and the template is live we've now created the template for a major release to summarize what was covered in this video we Now understand what release templates are how release templates are used in the release process the three key components of a release template and how they create new release templates thank you very much for watching this video if you have any questions or looking for additional resources please check out the DPR Community page