Two new ways to stay on top of Atlassian Cloud release notes

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community,

Last month, we launched the beta of Release notes on Atlassian Community, a new public home for Atlassian Cloud release notes.

Since then, we’ve heard a clear theme from the Atlassian Community: having one searchable place for release notes is helpful, but teams also need easier ways to catch up on what’s new and understand which changes are part of their Release tracks.

So, based on early beta feedback, we’re rolling out two new improvements to Release notes on Atlassian Community.

1. Quickly find what’s new this week

If you check release notes regularly, it can be hard to remember where you left off.

To make that easier, we’re adding a new “New this week” filter that shows release notes published in the last 7 days. This gives you a faster way to catch up on recent changes without manually scanning through the full list.

You may also see a small unread indicator next to newer release notes you haven’t opened yet. This is designed to make it easier to spot what’s new to you, especially if you visit the page regularly.

Note: The unread indicator relies on cookies being enabled in your browser. If cookies are disabled, or if you previously rejected cookies for Atlassian Community, the unread indicator may not work as expected. See the bottom of this post for steps to re-enable cookies in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

With this update, you can:

• Quickly filter to release notes from the last week

• See which recent release notes you haven’t opened yet

• Mark items as read without needing to open every release note

• Catch up faster after time away from work

2. Review Release tracks changes in one place

We’re also adding a new Release tracks changes view to help customers using Release tracks understand which changes are included in each Release tracks bundle.

Today, Release notes on Atlassian Community shows a continuously updated list of Atlassian Cloud changes. That’s useful for discovery, but customers on Release tracks also need a clearer way to understand what is included in upcoming Preview and Bundled releases.

With the new Release tracks changes view, you’ll be able to:

• See release notes associated with upcoming Preview and Bundled releases

• Filter by monthly preview release dates

• See Preview track and Bundled track dates for each change

• Share the Release notes on Atlassian Community page for Bundled or Preview releases with teammates who need to plan, test, or communicate upcoming changes

This is especially helpful for admins and teams who coordinate internal change management, prepare end users, or review upcoming Atlassian Cloud changes on a regular cadence.

Why we’re making these updates

Release notes are most useful when they’re easy to find, easy to share, and easy to act on.

During beta, we heard that customers wanted better ways to answer questions like:

• “What changed since I last checked?”

• “Which release notes are new this week?”

• “What’s included in my Release tracks bundle?”

• “What should I share with my team before this rolls out?”

These two updates are meant to make Release notes on Atlassian Community more practical for those everyday workflows.

Try it out

You can visit Release notes on Atlassian Community here:

https://community.atlassian.com/release-notes

These improvements will be rolling out soon. As always, we’d love your feedback. Please share your thoughts in the comments and let us know what would make release notes even more useful for your team.

---

How to re-enable cookies

If you previously rejected or disabled cookies, you may need to update your browser settings and then refresh Release notes on Atlassian Community.

Chrome

1. Open Chrome.

2. Go to Settings > Privacy and security > Third-party cookies.

3. Make sure cookies are allowed, or add community.atlassian.com to your list of allowed sites.

4. If you previously rejected cookies, you may also need to remove existing site data for community.atlassian.com, reload the page, and accept cookies when prompted.

For Chrome’s official instructions, see Delete, allow, and manage cookies in Chrome.

Safari

1. Open Safari.

2. Go to Safari > Settings > Advanced.

3. Make sure Block all cookies is turned off.

4. If you previously rejected cookies, you may need to remove website data for community.atlassian.com, reload the page, and accept cookies when prompted.

For Safari’s official instructions, see Enable cookies in Safari on Mac.

Firefox

1. Open Firefox.

2. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security.

3. Under Enhanced Tracking Protection, use Standard, or choose a custom setting that allows cookies for Atlassian Community.

4. Under Cookies and Site Data, check Manage Exceptions and make sure community.atlassian.com is not blocked.

5. If you previously rejected cookies, you may also need to remove stored site data for community.atlassian.com, reload the page, and accept cookies when prompted.

For Firefox’s official instructions, see Websites say cookies are blocked - Unblock them.

[Darryl Lee]

Oh wow @Alex Chiu what timing. I was just plugging @Patricia Francezi_iDev_'s new open-source utility to help track Atlassian Cloud release updates in Jira because it allows customers to view new features in their own (or Patricia's) JPD, with tons more data than you're exposing in your tool.

So it's cool to see you'll be allowing filtering based on the date information that's there in the backend.

And I'm really excited about the upcoming support for Release Tracks, because Patricia's tool also lacked that, and I was just about to check that the internal admin.atlassian.com APIs are still there that show which features are in each release and send those to Patricia to incorporate into her tool.

But yeah, it'll be nice to have an official site for Release Track notes, instead of my janky workaround.

[Wurm Peter]

"These improvements will be rolling out soon."

Why publish this before it's out? Doesn't make much sense in this case tbh.

[Jason Krewson]

This will be so helpful for staying on top of when new updates are coming!

I always feel like I miss something the old way I was checking, so thanks for always looking for ways to improve! 

Update: I checked this out today and love it, I really think this was a great idea. 

[Patricia Francezi_iDev_]

Hey @Alex Chiu - I still get some discrepancies between souces - changes tend to show up first in admin side. 

Also, when looking at the admin status not always we got the feature, but yet, status say rollout complete. 

and a real improvement is - Community Posts, that are releases, MUST be in the same source as well. Or they should at least point to each other. 

Community posts can be a source of release, but they need to have a clear group / channel, for us to follow. Currently they are posted all over forums... can be Q&A, groups, you name it. 
I hope this is also addressed. 

[Alex Chiu]

Hi @Wurm Peter 

Great question — we publish these updates ahead of full availability because we do a randomized, phased rollout. This means some customers will see the new changes before others as we gradually expand access.

We share the announcement early so everyone knows what's coming and can plan accordingly, rather than being surprised when it appears. 

[Alex Chiu]

Hi @Darryl Lee 

Excellent timing then!

You're right that there's a lot of data we haven't been surfacing yet — Release Tracks support is one we've been wanting to ship ASAP. The goal is exactly what you said: an official, reliable place for track-specific notes so folks don't have to reverse-engineer it from APIs or maintain workarounds (janky or otherwise 😄).

Appreciate you continuing to share feedback — it genuinely helps us build and prioritize.

[Darryl Lee]

Thanks @Alex Chiu - just wanted to acknowledge that @Patricia Francezi_iDev_ has been doing the HARD WORK looking and comparing data from the "private" (Admin panels that not all users can see) and "public" (Releaseblog, your new thing).

I hope your site can serve as a single "source of truth" that is the most up-to-date. (I imagine that internally they all pull from the same resource?)

One of her concerns was "Also, when looking at the admin status not always we got the feature, but yet, status say rollout complete." which I think you kind of answered in your response to @Wurm Peter

Great question — we publish these updates ahead of full availability because we do a randomized, phased rollout. This means some customers will see the new changes before others as we gradually expand access.

So I recognize there's it's tricky trying to show what features a specific site might have vs what is COMING SOON. But @Patricia Francezi_iDev_ has a point: "Rollout Complete" should not show up until a feature has hit EVERY SITE. Otherwise it's very misleading and confusing. 

Definitely looking forward to a better Release Tracks experience, because this modal (oh man don't get me started on modals) in the Admin hub is not great:

No rhyme or reason to the ordering. No categories. So hard to maintain context when you click on a link. Links are not publicly accessible (to my users)...

[Josh]

@Alex Chiu  thank you for the hard work and continued progress on improving release communications! The new updates are great steps forward.

I completely agree with @Darryl Lee on the high utility of what you've built for release tracks. Showing that level of visibility and specificity into what will be available in release tracks may be one of the best ways to convince customers to use them. Getting the latest changes as fast as possible can be nice (at times), but the randomized phased rollouts can make it incredibly difficult to understand what is released when within a given instance. Release tracks look at lot more tempting now.

[Anwesha Pan]

Thanks @Alex Chiu for providing us with such a comprehensive article on Atlassian Release Notes. Your effort in sharing all the details is greatly appreciated!

[aflick]

@Alex Chiu Thanks for this update! I was one of those folks who really enjoyed the weekly email because it reminded me to check on new features. Will there still be a weekly Cloud Release Notes email that points to this new page or will the email go away?

Some additional feedback: I liked being able to scan through the old page quickly to see the description of each rollout. Lots and lots of clicking on each update in this new format to see what is happening which is sort of a bummer. 

[Colin Livingston]

Thanks @Alex Chiu this is all helpful. One thing around the button "New this week" got me a bit confused as you say above it the last 7 days. I would have thought new this week would be what has happened since Monday of that week?

[C_ Dicker]

The new "Release Notes" page looks good.

Is there a way to subscribe to updates on the page, so I don't have to regularly visit the page but instead get mails as push notifications?

And regarding the filter "New this week": Shouldn't it collect all news since Monday of the previous week, so I don't accidentally miss out on new entries because I don't check the page exactly every 7 days?