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Thanks to everyone who answered my post about release notes.
Seems we are not alone in having difficulty with release notes! The most efficient practice seems to be using an automated or at least established process for extracting the bug info from the tracking software, which a developer or TW can do.
There is also a distinction between problems reported by customers, and bugs from builds. I think this may be the root of our troubles. The bugs reported by our customers are not logged into our bug tracking software. We (doc dept) rely on developers to provide that information, and they often don't have the time to do it when we need it. And while we have access to the system that tracks our build bugs, it seems little attention is paid to categorizing the bugs beyond "open" and "fixed." We then need someone from QA to tell us which bugs need to go in the release notes. This could easily be solved by simply implementing a flagging system, or different degrees of severity.
Distribution seems to be a hot button issue, too. It seems that whom the release notes are for and how these people will get them is often unclear (when there is no intranet and CD distribition is not possible).
Anyway, lots of food for thought here. Thanks again!
Johanne Cadorette
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