Dashboard Guide

The ReleaseRay dashboard is organized into six main sections:

1. Dashboard — Overview and quick actions
2. Releases — Create and manage release notes
3. Repositories — Manage connected repos
4. Settings — Configure integrations and preferences
5. Analytics — Track usage and ROI
6. Account — Manage profile and billing

1. Dashboard (Home)

URL: /dashboard

Your command center. At a glance:

Quick Stats (Top Row)

Active Repositories: Number of repos currently syncing PRs

Drafts This Month: Total drafts generated this billing cycle

Published Releases: Releases published across all channels

Active Repo Progress: Visual indicator of how many active repos you're using vs. your plan limit

Recent Activity

Shows the 10 most recent events — drafts generated, drafts edited, releases published, and repos connected. Each item shows the repository name, action description, and a relative timestamp ("2 hours ago").

Quick Actions

• Generate Draft — Opens the quick draft generation modal
• New Release Range — Create a release range
• View All Releases — Navigate to the releases page

2. Releases Page

URL: /releases

Where you create, review, and publish release notes.

Release Ranges List

Each release range card shows:

• Range name (e.g., "v1.0.0 → v1.1.0")
• Repository name
• Date created
• Number of PRs and issues included
• Draft status for each persona

Actions per range: View Drafts, Edit Range, Delete (with confirmation)

Creating a Release Range

Click "New Release Range" to open the modal. Choose a range type from the three tabs:

By Tags — Select a "From Tag" and a "To Tag" from your repository's git tags. ReleaseRay fetches all merged PRs between those two refs. Best for teams using semantic version tags.

By Dates — Pick a start date and end date (maximum 90-day window). ReleaseRay fetches all PRs merged in that window. Best for sprint or weekly release cadences.

By PRs — Enter a "From PR #" and "To PR #". ReleaseRay fetches merged PRs in that number range (maximum 200 PRs). Best when you want to hand-pick which PRs appear in a release, regardless of timing.

After creation, PRs and issues are collected automatically and you're redirected to the draft generation page.

3. Draft Generation

URL: /releases/[id]

After creating a range, generate drafts for each persona.

Persona Cards

You'll see three cards — Engineer, Internal/CSM, and Customer. Each shows its current status ("Not generated" or "Generated [timestamp]") and a generate button.

See Personas for a full description of what each persona produces.

Generating a Draft

Click "Generate Draft" on any persona card:

1. Progress indicator appears: "Generating draft..."
2. Estimated time is shown (~30 seconds)
3. Status updates: "Classifying PRs..." → "Writing draft..." → "Complete!"
4. Card updates with the generation timestamp
5. A "View & Edit" button appears

Bulk Generation

Click "Generate All Personas" to create all three drafts in parallel. Takes approximately 45 seconds total.

4. Draft Editor

URL: /releases/[id]/edit?persona=engineer

Persona Switcher

Tabs at the top let you switch between Engineer, Internal, and Customer drafts. Switching is instant and auto-saves the current draft.

Markdown Editor (Left Pane)

• Syntax highlighting and line numbers
• Auto-save every 3 seconds
• Undo/redo
• Full screen mode

Toolbar shortcuts: Bold (⌘B), Italic (⌘I), Heading (⌘H), Link (⌘K), Code block

Preview Pane (Right Pane)

Live preview of your markdown, updating as you type (300ms debounce). Shows exactly how the draft will look when published, including syntax-highlighted code blocks and rendered links.

Inline AI Toolbar

Select any text in the editor to reveal the AI toolbar. From it you can:

• Adjust tone — Make the selected text more formal, casual, or concise
• Change length — Expand or condense a section
• Reformat — Convert prose to bullet points or vice versa

Changes apply only to the selected text and are immediately editable.

Draft Version History

Every save creates a version. Access the version history from the editor toolbar:

• Browse a paginated list of past versions with timestamps
• View a side-by-side diff of any two versions
• Restore to any prior version with a single click

Action Buttons

• Save Draft — Manual save (auto-save also runs every 3 seconds)
• Publish — Opens the publish modal
• Export — Download as .md file
• Discard Changes — Revert to last saved version

5. Publishing Modal

Trigger: Click "Publish" from the draft editor

Channel Selection

Select which channels to publish to. Each channel has a persona selector — you can send a different persona to each destination (for example, the Engineer draft to GitHub Releases, the Customer draft to Hosted Changelog and Email).

Scheduled Publishing

Instead of publishing immediately, you can schedule a publication for a future date and time:

1. Click "Schedule" instead of "Publish Now"
2. Select date, time, and timezone
3. Click "Schedule Publication"

Scheduled publications appear with a clock badge in the release list. Cancel or reschedule anytime before they execute.

Publishing

Click "Publish Now" to publish immediately. Progress updates appear per channel. On completion, direct links to each published destination are shown.

6. Repositories Page

URL: /dashboard → Repositories tab

Repository List

Each repository card shows:

• Repository name (e.g., "acme/myapp")
• Last sync time
• Total PRs ingested
• Status indicator (Active or Sync failed)

Actions: Sync Now, View PRs, Settings, Disconnect

Adding a Repository

Click "Add Repository". A modal shows repos from your GitHub App installation. Select one or more, click "Connect," and sync begins automatically. If a repo isn't listed, follow the "Configure GitHub App" link to grant access.

7. Settings Page

URL: /settings

Settings Navigation

• General — Organization name and slug
• Team — Invite and manage team members, assign roles
• Repositories — Add, configure, and disconnect repositories; per-repo settings
• Personas — Create, edit, and disable custom personas; download YAML
• Integrations — Slack, Teams, and Intercom setup
• Email — Resend API key, from-address branding, subscriber management, domain verification
• Publishing — Map personas to default channels; configure per-channel defaults
• Billing — Manage subscription, plan upgrades, payment method, and invoices
• Privacy — LLM processing consent, GDPR data export, account data purge
• Audit Log — Event log with scheduled export
• Compliance — Security questionnaire auto-fill, SOC 2 evidence

Integrations Tab

URL: /settings/integrations

Each integration shows its connection status. Connected integrations show the channel or collection name, along with Test Connection, Edit, and Delete options.

See the Integrations guide for step-by-step setup for each channel.

8. Analytics Page

URL: /analytics

Time Saved

The top metric shows total time saved this month, calculated against the average time for manual release notes (30 minutes per release). A graph shows the trend over the past 6 months.

Usage Statistics

• Drafts generated this month
• Releases published this month
• API calls this month
• Most active repository

Engagement Metrics

Changelog page views, GitHub release views, and email open rates are coming in a future release.

9. Account and Billing

URL: /settings/billing

Current Plan

Shows your plan name, price, included repo count, and current usage with a progress bar. From here you can upgrade, manage your payment method, or view past invoices.

Billing History

Table of past invoices with date, amount, payment status, and a PDF download link.

10. Team Management

URL: /settings/team

Role Permissions

Inviting a Team Member

1. Click "Invite Member"
2. Enter their email address
3. Select a role (Admin or Member)
4. Click "Send Invite"

They receive an email with an invitation link. Pending invites appear in the team list until accepted.

Common Workflows

Weekly Release (~10 minutes)

1. Thursday: Create a release range from last week's tag to HEAD
2. Generate drafts for all three personas (~1 minute)
3. Review the engineer draft — confirm breaking changes are clear and migration steps are present
4. Review the customer draft — verify benefits are in plain language, no jargon
5. Friday morning: make any final edits
6. Publish to GitHub, Slack, and hosted changelog

Hotfix Release (~3 minutes)

1. Create a range from the last tag to the hotfix tag
2. Generate the engineer draft only
3. Publish to GitHub immediately
4. Notify the team via Slack

Major Release (~30 minutes)

1. Create a range (e.g., v2.0.0 → v3.0.0)
2. Generate all personas
3. Carefully review the customer draft — it's public-facing
4. Edit the internal draft to add CSM talking points
5. Publish to all channels: GitHub, Intercom, hosted changelog, Slack, Teams
6. Export markdown for use in a blog post or email announcement

Keyboard Shortcuts

Global

Draft Editor

Persona Switching

Troubleshooting

No PRs showing up in my range

1. Confirm PRs were merged after you installed the GitHub App (earlier PRs require a manual backfill)
2. Check webhook deliveries in GitHub App settings
3. Verify the date range covers the merge dates
4. Confirm the repository is connected in ReleaseRay

Draft generation is taking too long

Normal generation times:

• Small releases (<10 PRs): ~30 seconds
• Medium releases (10–30 PRs): ~45 seconds
• Large releases (30+ PRs): ~60 seconds

If generation exceeds 5 minutes, check status.releaseray.com and contact support if the issue persists.

Can't publish to Slack

1. Confirm the Slack integration is configured in Settings → Integrations
2. Verify the webhook URL is correct
3. Run "Test Connection" — it should succeed before attempting a publish
4. Confirm the target channel still exists in Slack

Team member can't access releases

1. Confirm they accepted the invitation email
2. Confirm they're logged in to the correct organization
3. Check their role has sufficient permissions (Member role cannot change settings)
4. If the repo is private, confirm they have GitHub access

Need Help?

• Docs: Full documentation
• Email: support@releaseray.com
• Status: status.releaseray.com
• In-app: Click the help icon in the bottom-right corner of the dashboard