About Veeva Vault Releases

This page includes details about Veeva Vault Releases including content, frequency, and communications.

Release Communications

You can choose to receive Vault Service Availability Notifications (email notifications about planned releases and system maintenance). See System Availability Emails to read about how Admins can enable this function.

Service Availability Notifications are sent based on the POD hosting the Vault. The communications include links to pertinent information and documentation, and the time/day of the update.

To view up-to-date information on Veeva Systems’ service status, visit the Veeva Trust Site.

Release Types

The information below is typical of Vault releases. Details about a specific release (such as the Release Impact Assessment or About the Release) can be found on the corresponding release note pages.

General Release

The general release refers to a set of Vault production servers that receive software updates approximately every four months. General releases include all product enhancements and defect fixes that have been incorporated into limited releases since the previous general release. Veeva performs and documents Installation Qualification (IQ) and Operational Qualification (OQ) for each general release.

  • Production Vault Downtime: Approximately ten minutes within a two-hour timeframe
  • Sandbox Vault Downtime: Up to four hours
  • Email Communication: Begins four weeks in advance. Notification sent when the deployment is complete
  • In-Vault Banner: 24 hours before deployment1

You can preview new Vault general release functionality within the Pre-Release environment.

General Release Early PODs

For every general release, a set of general release PODs is updated ahead of the remainder to help support release readiness. In return, pre-release is enabled for this group in advance of the remaining PODs. See About the Release for those dates and the Early POD list.

Limited Release

The limited release refers to a set of Vault production servers that receive software updates approximately every three to five weeks between general releases. Limited releases include product enhancements such as new features, data model changes, infrastructure improvements, and defect fixes. Limited releases are intended for customers who value early access to new features and can tolerate some instability in their environments.

  • Production Vault Downtime: Approximately ten minutes within a two-hour timeframe
  • Sandbox Vault Downtime: Up to four hours
  • Email Communication: Begins two weeks in advance. Notification sent when the deployment is complete
  • In-Vault Banner: 24 hours before deployment1

General Maintenance Release

A general maintenance release is a minor release that contains fixes for issues that are affecting customers. Maintenance releases are typically deployed weekly on a regular time/day cadence. General maintenance releases go through IQ and OQ validation prior to release.

  • Production Vault Downtime: Typically none (may be up to five minutes)
  • Sandbox Vault Downtime: Typically none (may be up to five minutes)
  • Email Communication: 24 hours in advance2
  • In-Vault Banner: N/A

System Maintenance Release

A system maintenance release is downtime that Veeva schedules for system infrastructure changes. There is no regular schedule for system maintenance, but we typically communicate one week prior to the downtime that there will be a service disruption. If applicable, general system maintenance releases go through IQ and OQ validation prior to release.

  • Production Vault Downtime: Varies
  • Sandbox Vault Downtime: Varies
  • Email Communication: Typically one week in advance
  • In-Vault Banner: 24 hours before deployment1

Authentication & PDF Servers

We typically release Authentication and PDF server updates one week prior to scheduled general and limited releases. Changes to the Authentication servers affect both limited release and general release Vaults.

Unplanned Maintenance Release

Occasionally, an unplanned maintenance release may be necessary to address a critical or otherwise urgent product fix. This release may occur outside of the typical weekly schedule - potentially with less than 24 hours’ notice. The messaging includes any estimated downtime.

  1. Those who are actively working in a Production Vault will see a popup notification ten minutes before a deployment (we recommend saving your work and logging out of the Vault). If you remain logged into Vault at the time of release deployment, the next action that sends a request to the server will trigger an error (unsaved work may be lost). Login to Vault is disabled during release deployment. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. May occur with less than 24 hours notice in the case of a critical or otherwise urgent product fix. ↩