Steps for an official release

Overview

Steps detailing a release (7.0.0 is given as an example).

1. Create a rel-700 branch from master in the git repo.

• Create this in github (very straightforward) and protect the branch to not allow force pushing and also only allow integrator group to write to it.
• Also need to update Github Actions related stuff in .github/workflows/ and at top of main README.md

2. Release an online development demo that uses the rel-700 branch and updates daily.

• Also provide links for downloading rel-790 daily builds/packages(zip and tarball) to allow testing of installation and upgrading by testers

3. Publish installation, upgrade, and downloading instructions. Also set minimum php version.

• Installation documention
• Upgrade documentation
• Also update the Documentation/INSTALL file
• Ensure have correct minimum php version set in OpenEMR.
• ONC 2015 related items

• Ensure have the ONC 2015 requirements page created and linked in instruction sets.
• The https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_7.0.0_API is published as the link for API documentation and as the link for posting Service Base URLs. Thus that link will always need to be redirected to the most current OpenEMR_7.0.x_API version API page. It will be easy for 7.0.0 since will just keep what have (note do need to adjust the links in the page to go to correct branch and not master and also need to adjust the fhir demo links). When got to 7.0.1 will need to redirect OpenEMR_7.0.0_API to OpenEMR_7.0.1_API and move OpenEMR_7.0.0_API original material to another page (maybe OpenEMR_7.0.0_API-prior) again updating links and fhir demo links. When go to 7.0.2 just simply need to redirect OpenEMR_7.0.0_API to OpenEMR_7.0.2_API (which is copy of OpenEMR_7.0.1_API with updated links) and keep OpenEMR_7.0.1_API same name.

5. Bug fix and finalize the rel-700 branch.

• Update the copyright/acknowledgements page by copying the copyright page from HERE to acknowledge_license_cert.html in openemr codebase

6. Create a list of new features in the rel-700 branch (since the last official release)

• Page for maintaining the new feature lists.

7. Prepare for docker upgrade

1. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in docker /root/ (this is in the upgrade directory in the repo)
2. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in openemr base directory
3. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in openemr sites/default directory
4. Create fsupgrade-<number-incremented-to-above>.sh in docker /root/ and at least set priorOpenemrVersion and do the database upgrade (this is in the upgrade directory in the repo)
5. Edit Dockerfile to bring in the fsupgrade-<number-incremented-to-above>.sh and docker-version file into the docker (these are in the upgrade directory in the repo)

8. Release rel-700 branch by tagging in git repo with v7_0_0.

• Things to remember before tagging the release.

• Remove -dev from $v_tag (make it blank) in the version.php file
• Ensure the 'allow_debug_language' global in locale section in library/globals.inc.php is defaulted to 0
• Set version in images in the following docker-compose.yml scripts: docker/production/docker-compose.yml, docker/production-arm/docker-compose.yml
• In _rest_routes.inc.php, set openemr version and do a api docs build

• In git repo:

git tag v7_0_0 rel-700

9. Build the docker, tar.gz and zip packages from v7_0_0.

Use following script for the tar.gz and zip packages: https://gist.github.com/bradymiller/94409d7b6eadfd3ee34ff7b4363aac25

10. Release packages on sourceforge

• Upload via Project Admin
• Upload release and a release notes file
• Set file properties appropriately

11. Announce Release

Use the follow social channels to announce the release in ~140 characters or less with a link to the formal release marketing piece or, if the release is a minor or patch release, a link to the wiki release changelog.

• Sourceforge
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Diaspora
• Mastodon
• Linkedin
• https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenEMR
• Announce to registered users

Update the OpenEMR Wikipedia entry:

• Wikipedia

If the release is a major release (as opposed to minor or patch releases), it is best to put together a nice marketing piece describing the release changes (screenshots are encouraged with new features!). Use https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/openemr-achieves-complete-meaningful-use-certification-with-release-50-300415752.html as inspiration. This release announcement should be posted on the following sites:

• OpenHealthNews
• HackerNews

TODO: are there any other OSS sites that would be interested in having OpenEMR releases pop up in their feeds?

12. Build and release the Cloud packages.

1. AWS