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• if an issue affects a business critical paths then it will be fixed and retested before release,

• if it otherwise has a non-minor impact on users or could significantly erode user confidence in the robustness of the Lawmaker service then they will be fixed and retested before release,

• if it has a minor impact on users or is a pre-existing issue that is not being introduced by the release then it may be recorded in our issue-tracking system and addressed in a later release.

As part of the release process, the following steps are taken to ensure the quality of the release

1. An updated version of Lawmaker incorporating all changes is deployed to the Staging environment, which (apart from scale) is an exact replica of the Production environment.

2. Each new feature and bug fix included in the release is re-tested in the Staging environment.

3. A series of “end-to-end” test scripts are run through to ensure that the business-critical paths through the application work as expected. These scripts cover, in particular:

   1. Drafting and managing a Scottish Bill

   2. Drafting and managing amendments and the amendment process for a Scottish Bill

   3. Drafting and managing a UK Bill

   4. Drafting and managing amendments and the amendment process for a UK Bill

   5. The “ping pong” process for UK Bills

   6. Drafting and submitting an SI/SSI

4. A series of specific tests on particular areas of Lawmaker functionality are carried out, including:

   1. individual features and functions within the Editor,

   2. PDF generation,

   3. converting inline amendments to traditional amendments, and

   4. automatically applying amendments to a Bill.

5. Additional ad hoc testing by the Lawmaker Service Team also takes place in relation to any aspect of the application that is considered to be at particular risk of regression as a result of the changes made.

6. A series of automated load tests are carried out to ensure that the changes made in the new release do not have an impact on the robustness of the application.

7. Senior users within each user group are notified when the updated version of Lawmaker is deployed to the Staging environment and given the opportunity to view the changes and carry out ad hoc testing if they have capacity. Any feedback received from those users is reviewed and may either feed into further changes before the release (e.g. if a bug is identified) or will be recorded so that it can be addressed in future releases.