Guidance for testing a Release Candidate (RC)
What is a Release Candidate?
A Release Candidate (RC) is a pre-release version of software that’s very close to final. It’s a step beyond what’s often called a “Beta” having already passed internal testing and stress testing with early adopters — and is now being shared for broader review before General Release (GR) into Production.
By evaluating a RC version in your own Test Environment, it gives you the opportunity to explore new features and test against any issues that may have been reported as open tickets or PDQs - and help confirm that everything works smoothly in real-world scenarios.
Below, we’ve listed some typical areas to check over. While this isn’t an exhaustive guide, it’s designed to offer a useful starting point — especially if you don’t have a dedicated IT or ops team. We also recommend testing the system using typical day-to-day workflows, to help validate performance across the most common operational scenarios.
Your feedback plays a crucial role in helping us refine this version before it reaches the wider customer base in a Production environment.
Spot a Glitch?
If you spot anything unexpected while testing — whether it’s a glitch, missing content, or something that doesn’t behave quite right — please contact our Support Team.
The more detail you can share, the better. If possible, include:
- A clear description of the issue
- Steps you took before it happened
- Any environmental or hardware eg PEDs, receipt printers etc
- A screenshot of what you’re seeing
RC2: Gladstone360
Some typical use cases and areas worth reviewing in your test environment.
Paying off a Hosted reservation from the Standard Account, this is one that was configured with a payment method of cash, which allows visibility via Gladstone360.
Test your cashing up processes using either User Shift Reading, or Terminal Reading. Then the final process of an end of day Z Reading.
If applicable, book & pay off a party reservation.
Complete class and activity bookings, then pay off.
Complete a purchase of your different subscription types, this should include Direct Debit & Up Front Subscription, plus Usage & Restricting versions where applicable.
Test all refunds including cancelling an activity or class, refund a retail item and cancel a subscription in the cooling off period.
Ensure your transactions can be paid off via the payment methods you use on your Gladston360 tills.