diff --git a/cms/envs/common.py b/cms/envs/common.py
index 09b8f2648b..bc648be115 100644
--- a/cms/envs/common.py
+++ b/cms/envs/common.py
@@ -933,6 +933,9 @@ INSTALLED_APPS = (
 
     # Enables default site and redirects
     'django_sites_extensions',
+
+    # additional release utilities to ease automation
+    'release_util'
 )
 
 
diff --git a/lms/envs/common.py b/lms/envs/common.py
index 6ad6d8934a..4f971bece1 100644
--- a/lms/envs/common.py
+++ b/lms/envs/common.py
@@ -2078,6 +2078,9 @@ INSTALLED_APPS = (
 
     # Email marketing integration
     'email_marketing',
+
+    # additional release utilities to ease automation
+    'release_util',
 )
 
 # Migrations which are not in the standard module "migrations"
diff --git a/requirements/edx/base.txt b/requirements/edx/base.txt
index cb79d955e5..a21cf677f8 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/base.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/base.txt
@@ -183,3 +183,6 @@ pynliner==0.5.2
 
 # for sailthru integration
 sailthru-client==2.2.3
+
+# Release utils for the edx release pipeline
+edx-django-release-util==0.0.4
\ No newline at end of file