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 Prerelease environment.

General Release Early PODs

For every general release, a set of general release PODs and their corresponding sandboxes are upgraded ahead of the remainder to help support release readiness. In return, prerelease is enabled for this group in advance of the remaining PODs.

The Early PODs rotate as follows:

  • First yearly general release (YYR1): VV1-2 and VV1-1051
  • Second yearly general release (YYR2): VV1-8
  • Third yearly general release (YYR3): VV1-12 and VV1-1149

See About the Release for dates and the Early POD list for the current release.

Vault AI Releases

To support the rapid evolution of AI in life sciences, Veeva has a more frequent deployment model for select Vault AI capabilities. AI-specific enhancements, agent updates, and new AI tools are delivered in a faster cadence alongside Vault’s standard General Release model.

The frequency of these updates ensures availability of the latest AI features as they are developed, without waiting for the standard General Release cycle.

Key Benefits of the AI Release Model

This release model addresses the specific needs of the life sciences industry, balancing innovation with the necessity of operational stability and GxP compliance:

  • No Operational Downtime: There is no system downtime associated with Vault AI releases. We deploy these updates seamlessly in the background, ensuring uninterrupted access for users.
  • No Validation Impact: To prevent regulatory risk and validation overhead, any changes with significant GxP validation impact or requiring configuration coordination remain strictly held for the next standard General Release cycle. This ensures that the validated system state remains controlled, stable, and predictable.
  • Fast Access to Productivity Enhancements: In addition to new stand-alone agents, these releases supply performance tuning, security updates, and accuracy enhancements for existing Vault AI agents.

AI Naming Convention

AI releases are named using the format AI.YYWW, where YY represents the two-digit calendar year and WW represents the calendar week of the deployment.

  • Example: AI.2642 refers to the AI release deployed in week 42 (mid-October) of 2026.

This naming convention allows clear tracking of the exact version of the AI package running on the Vault platform at any given time.

Where to Find Information

These informational resources are available on the day of deployment:

  • Release-Specific Enhancements: A dedicated Vault Release Notes page is updated and published on the day of each AI release, detailing the included enhancements, model updates, or minor adjustments.
  • New AI Agents: Comprehensive Agent Cards are published directly on ComplianceDocs. These provide technical guidance, compliance documentation, and risk-assessment materials for newly released agents.

For further questions regarding your Vault’s release schedule, or to explore configuring custom AI agents, please contact your Veeva Account Team or visit the Veeva Support Center.

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 are evaluated for risk. Defects impacting functionality with high and medium GxP risk undergo additional OQ for GxP regression 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, system maintenance releases go through IQ 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, however, no customer-facing issues are included.

  • Production Vault Downtime: Typically none
  • Sandbox Vault Downtime: Typically none
  • Email Communication: N/A
  • In-Vault Banner: N/A

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. ↩