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Phased releases (Staged rollouts)

Phased releases, or staged rollouts, is a strategy to release new app versions gradually to a subset of users.

This is useful to monitor your app slowly, over a period of time to surface issues early and minimize the impact of a bad release on your users.

Android staged rollouts

The Android staged rollout is built on Google Play's staged rollouts.

Staged rollouts lets you release an app update to the production track that reaches only a percentage of your users, which you can increase over time.

Enable Android staged rollouts

In Wolfia, navigate to the Android app settings by clicking the gear icon next to the selected app.

Android app settings

In the Android app settings, under Play Store rollout, select Staged rollout.

iOS app settings - phased release

Click Update to save the changes.

The next time your release your app to the production track, the staged rollout will be enabled and you will be able to monitor the status in the release timeline.

Android app release timeline - staged rollout

The staged rollout progress for the latest release is also displayed directly on the track.

Android track card - staged rollout progress

caution

Google Play Console API does not allow us to monitor the review status of your app submission. As a result, for Android apps the rollout begins immediately at day 1 and is updated a day later (regardless of review status since it's unknown).

If you would like to see proper support for this, upvote this issue!

iOS phased releases

The iOS phased release is built on App Store Connects phased release.

Phased release for automatic updates lets you gradually release this update over a 7-day period to users who have turned on automatic updates. Keep in mind that this version will still be available to all users as a manual update from the App Store

Enable iOS phased releases

In Wolfia, navigate to the iOS app settings by clicking the gear icon next to the selected app.

iOS app settings

In the iOS app settings, under App Store rollout for automatic updates, select Phased rollout.

iOS app settings - phased release

Click Update to save the changes.

The next time your release your app to the App Store, the phased release will be enabled and you will be able to monitor the status in the release timeline.

iOS app release timeline - phased release

The phased release progress for the latest release is also displayed directly on the track.

iOS track card - phased release progress

Phased release timeline

The App Store does not allow customizing the phased release duration or thresholds. The Play Store on the other hande offers full control over the phased release. Our phased release follows the App Store phased release schedule for both platforms for consistency and predictabiliy across platforms.

Day of Phased ReleasePercentage of Users
11%
22%
35%
410%
520%
650%
7100%

Without Wolfia, this release strategy requires manually monitoring both types of these releases and pausing/halting. Additionally, it requires manually updating the rollout percent for the Play Store.

Automated Rollouts (phased release/staged rollout monitoring)

With this feature (phased releases/staged rollouts) enabled and an error monitoring integration configuration, this can be fully automated.

Read more about Automated Rollouts.