Freeze Windows is now Generally Available!

[#1]

👋 Hi Atlassian Community,

I’m Alex, a Product Manager on Atlassian’s Enterprise Cloud team, and I’m thrilled to announce that Freeze Windows is now generally available for our Cloud Enterprise customers!

Freeze Windows gives admins more control and predictability during critical business periods—helping you keep things running smoothly and avoid unexpected disruptions for your teams.

Why we built Freeze Windows

Over the past two years, we’ve worked hard to expand our change management toolkit, making it easier for Cloud Enterprise admins to see and manage how Atlassian updates roll out across their organizations. With features like App updates, Release tracks, Defer rollout, and Experiment controls you now have more visibility and flexibility than ever before.

We’ve also heard your feedback: sometimes, existing controls aren’t flexible enough—especially when you need stability during critical times, like earnings season for financial institutions or the busy holiday period for retailers. That’s exactly why we built Freeze Windows: to help you pause changes when it matters most.

We can’t wait for you to try it out and share your feedback!

Loom demo of Freeze windows: https://www.loom.com/share/70790cc18bb2463b9f894b9a9366f24e

What’s New?

As a Cloud Enterprise organization admin, you can now temporarily pause the rollout of new changes in Jira, Jira Service Management, and Confluence during critical business periods—helping you maintain stability when it matters most. Whether it’s earnings season for financial services, the holiday rush for retail, or any other sensitive time, Freeze Windows gives you more control to avoid disruptions and keep your teams focused.

How to Get Started with Freeze Windows

Admins can schedule Freeze Windows up to 60 days in advance, with each window lasting between 2 and 14 days. During this period, new changes will be paused for your eligible apps. This added flexibility helps you prepare your organization and ensures a smooth experience for your end users.

To set up a Freeze Window:

1. Visit admin.atlassian.com and select your eligible organization.

2. Go to Apps and choose Release Management → Freeze Windows to configure your freeze period.

As a reminder, here are a few things to know about Freeze Windows:

• Freeze Windows cannot overlap, and there’s a required 5-day cooldown period between consecutive windows.

• Each Freeze Window can include up to 10 apps. All Jira family apps (Jira & JSM) on the same site URL count as a single app and must be frozen together.

• Critical updates, like security patches or urgent bug fixes, will not be paused and will continue to roll out during a Freeze Window.

• Some changes with longer rollout periods (such as the new navigation experience) that have been communicated separately to org admins won’t be eligible for Freeze Windows and will be released as previously announced.

• Any new changes or bundled releases that are paused during a Freeze Window will be released as soon as the window ends.

Have questions or feedback?

Check out our support documentation or share your thoughts in the comments below!

[Yatish Madhav]

This is quite amazing! Thanks @Alex Chiu 

Personally and in our instance, i dont think we will be using this but I do see great benefit in the future and very likely other Atlassian customers!

Thanks

[Dave Liao]

Some changes with longer rollout periods (such as the new navigation experience) that have been communicated separately to org admins won’t be eligible for Freeze Windows and will be released as previously announced.

@Alex Chiu - know anyone on the Product team? Please encourage them to not have "special" changes that ignore freeze windows.

Hopefully such changes remain rare, as I'd hate to be an admin who institutes a freeze window, and then gets caught by surprise by a "special" change.

[Alex Chiu]

Hey @Dave Liao, thanks so much for your feedback!

Absolutely—that’s exactly the direction we’re heading as we continue to improve and expand our change management features.