Here are the answers to frequently asked questions about Vault Pre-Release:
What Is Vault Pre-Release?
Vault pre-release is a three- to four-week period prior to the general availability of a new version. During this period, customers have an opportunity to explore the new version in a “pre-release vault” based on their production configurations. The primary purpose of the pre-release vault is to ensure current configuration behavior works the same in the new version. Any user acceptance testing (TST) or validation testing should be done in this period. Optionally, customers can also use their pre-release vaults to explore the features that are not automatically enabled and decide which of these they want to use in their production vault.
When is Pre-Release?
See the most recent “About the Release” page for dates.
Which Customers Can Participate?
Pre-release vaults are automatically available for most customer production vaults.
Is Participation Required?
No. Customers do not have to try out their pre-release vault. However, we do encourage it to ensure the system continues to meet customers’ expectations.
What’s in my Pre-Release Vault?
We create your pre-release vault by copying the configuration, study design, and study data of your development or TST environment approximately 9 weeks before the general release. If you are not yet live on Veeva Vault, we make this copy using your sandbox vault. Users aren’t copied.
How Do I Log into my Pre-Release Vault?
Pre-release vaults are created with a small set of users: all vault owners and Vault Support. The vault owners can create other users as needed.
Note that groups are copied from your production vault, but they are empty because the users are not copied. When you add users in your pre-release vault, you can add them to the copied groups as desired.
Note also that the pre-release usernames are slightly different from production or sandbox. For example, if your production username is teresa.ibanez@veepharm.com, your pre-release email will have “pre” appended to the end of the domain: teresa.ibanez@veepharmpre.com.
How long are pre-release vaults available?
Pre-release vaults remain available for 6 weeks after the General Release. For example, a 21R1 pre-release vault would be available until 6 weeks after the final 21R1 release.
How Do I Learn More About New Features?
See the most recent “About the Release” page.
How Do I Enable & Configure New Features?
Many features must be intentionally enabled within a study by a study designer or lead data manager. Certain features may also only be enabled by Veeva Support. Some enhancements (generally with very low impact) that Veeva enables automatically. See the “About the Release” page for details.
What Happens After Pre-Release?
When the release occurs, Veeva will upgrade your production and sandbox vaults to the new version. The upgrade will not adversely impact existing documents or work in progress.
The visible impact of the upgrade will be the same as what you observe in your pre-release vault. The set of enhancements that are automatically on will immediately be visible, and some features will require action by an Admin or Veeva Support to enable or configure before they become visible to end users.
What is the Pre-Release Version Number?
Pre-release vaults will initially have the same version number as the last limited release, which has the same set of features and functionality as the general release. For example, the pre-release version for 21R1 is 20R3.5. The following version (21R1.0 in this example) will contain the same functionality, plus fixes for issues identified during pre-release. At the time of general release, you’ll receive the latest (21R1.0) version.
Is Migration Vault Included in Pre-Release?
No, Migration Vault is not included in pre-release. Contact your Veeva Services representative for details.