You may hear from time to time that our engineering team are working on a new feature that is "in Beta", or being "Beta tested". But what this means isn't clear to everyone. Read on to find out more!
Why does Re-Leased use Beta testing?
Beta testing is a stage in our software development lifecycle where our engineers have completed work on a new feature to a point where they'd like to get it in some of our customers hands to try it out. This is an opportunity for the early users (or "Beta testers") to test out the new feature, and give us feedback on what's working well and what's not, as well as any further or extended functionality that could be useful.
However because it is brand new functionality, we only want a small group of customers using it at first. The reason for this is twofold:
- The feature may still be slightly unstable, so we want to see how it performs with a small group of users. If the software can't handle the load, we'd rather it broke for a small group than for everybody, so we can improve the performance quickly with minimal disruption.
- We want to validate that what we've built is solving problems for our customers. We want feedback quickly! So if we hear that what we've built and released to Beta testers isn't quite right, we can change this & test the improvements quickly, without making disruptive changes for everybody.
I am using a Beta feature - what does this mean for me?
If you're using a feature that is in Beta, these are the things to keep in mind:
- You're getting the first opportunity to try a new feature! This means you're getting the earliest possible chance to get the value this feature provides.
- We'll be asking you for feedback! Don't be surprised if you get an email from us, or see a prompt for an in-app survey. We want to hear how it going, and this is your chance to help shape what we build.
- Its not finished! Typically we'll release the smallest possible version of a feature to Beta, and will continue adding more functionality and polish. So don't be surprised if the Beta feature changes (hopefully for the better)!
- It might break! As mentioned above, one of the reasons we use Beta testing is to minimise the risk of what happens if a new feature breaks. So this might happen! But please do report any bugs you notice so we can fix them as soon as possible.