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The best way to notify the assignees is by using the bulk edit option in JIRA and updating the comment with appropriate message. Weekly reminders as we get closer to release milestones also helps bringing attention and focus
Release branch is created from master soon after the feature freeze date for a specific release is passed.
Steps to create the branch are outlined below:
git checkout master
git pull origin master
^^ this will ensure you are on the latest commit for master
git checkout -b X.Y
^^ this creates a local X.Y branch for yourself
git push origin X.Y
Here X.Y is branch to be created like 4.3
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