Software Update Blog
Catch up on all the latest release and enhancements
Recent Updates
Composer
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
- New Features
Even in the coldest of temperatures and snowstorms, our dedication to continuous improvement remains unwavering. Some of our updates this release cycle include refined instructions for test send emails in Messages, as well as improvements in Forms including better merge tag functionality.
In Posts, the handling of unapproved comments and keyword searches will be more clear cut. Our developers have fortified our security with improved password reset and recovery features. Snow might fall, but our systems stay sharp and ready!
What’s New
- Composer: Enhanced security in login process including captcha and a new and improved password recovery process with token validation.
- Forms: Our developers are introducing improvements in the way merge tags are used in form notification emails sent to submitters, resulting in a more user friendly process for all. Go check them out!
- Messages: More clarified instructions will be provided when sending out a Test Send.
Bug Fixes
- Calendars: Moving all-day events to a different day was creating a time span instead of moving. Now they will behave!
- Posts: A fix has been applied to correctly prioritize characters in alphabetical order, address the unapproved comments flag that displayed despite manual approval being turned off, and resolve issues with keyword searches failing to clear.
- Site Search: Searches for athletic teams returned incorrect results, but will now index properly.
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- Posts
Previous Updates
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
- New Features
- UI Changes
🎉 Happy 2025! 🎊 Start out the new year with feature enhancements and fixes to improve your communication workflows. In Messages, we’ve resolved issues with background images and YouTube videos failing to load. Forms fixes include those related to attendee limits, admins being notified when payments are submitted via form, and new addition of auth codes for your convenience. The new year gives us a chance to roll out enhanced security with better password validation and secondary authentication, as well as optimized accessibility transitions in navigating modals by keyword and alt-text that is auto-generated. Anything to ensure a safe and smooth experience for each and every user!
- Accessibility
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- Resources
- Bug Fixes
As we prepare for the holiday season 🎄🎁 and bid farewell to 2024, we have a few gifts from our software team! This update resolves issues in Messages, such as Lists stalling during the upload process, admin users being unable to adjust list settings, and distorted displays on pop-ups used in the Test Send option. Other updates in calendars include recurring events in iCal feeds that will now display as expected, restored functionality of the "Open link in new tab" checkbox, and so much more you can read about in the full update. Happy holidays, and see you in 2025! 🎉
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- New Calendars
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
As the leaves turn golden and the air gets crisp, our team has been busy raking up lots of important items to release to you! 🍂✨ Buttons in Feeds element slideshows were misbehaving, but are now being put back where they belong. Calendar elements will display athletic teams in RSS feeds, and adding resources to the More Resources section of a post’s properties no longer throws an error. In other updates, we’ve resolved 404 errors for post URLs in Site Search and fixed the Leadflow connection error in forms. A fix has corrected discrepancies in the count of images without alt text. Issues related to message suppressions, preferences, and mobile app channel recipient numbers have been resolved. Smooth communication is important as ever as we head into the holiday season. This and more in the full update!
- Messages
- New Calendars
- Resources
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Feel that crisp, cool autumn air? Just like the changing leaves, we’re bringing a fresh wave of improvements your way! Updates include the disappearance of a variety of issues as well as significant enhancements across multiple modules. From fixing Google image bulk import problems and troublesome calendar views, yesterday’s problems are a pile of leaves ready for removal! New content blocks make their appearance in Messages to enhance your accessibility efforts. Expect to see these updates and more within the release period so you can experience a newfound ease-of-use all throughout the platform.
- Messages
- New Calendars
- Resources
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
- New Features
This release cycle reflects some magical fixes, as well as elevated security enhancements. Some updates involved our New Calendars module, including all-day events and timezones not displaying correctly, athletic teams missing from the legend, and mini-grid tool filters not working properly. We also adjusted the display of the subscribe window to meet accessibility standards. Issues with the display of bulk checkboxes in the Resources module and previewing posts before sending will be restored to their original capabilities with this software release.
- New Calendars
- Posts
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
- Site Performance
Our development team at Finalsite has been tirelessly working behind the scenes to ensure your digital journey is as smooth as possible. In this release, you will be relieved to say goodbye to some calendar quirks and delays in Forms when processing large numbers of submissions. Learn more in the full update!
- Calendars
- Forms
- Locations
Enrollment
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
We’re excited to share some great updates for customers using Finalsite Payments or Finalsite Explore! Plus, we’ve fixed a couple of bugs related to text messaging and form imports.
What's New
- Finalsite Payments: During the payment process, parents can now choose to use Link (powered by Stripe) to securely save their payment information.
- Finalsite Explore: You now have the option to request a custom order for the schools within your group list!
- Text Messaging: We’ve made communication around failed messages easier to interpret by providing you with a more detailed explanation and an error code which can be referenced in Twilio’s messaging documentation for more in-depth information.
Bug Fixes
- Text Messaging: Some schools with texting disabled were incorrectly seeing the SMS opt-in option on calendar confirmation pages. This issue has been resolved, and the opt-in option has been removed for these schools.
- Importing Students: We fixed an issue where the "Next" button would become disabled if users navigated back to a previous page during the import process.
- Finalsite Enrollment
Previous Updates
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Happy New Year! 🎉 We’re kicking off the year with some fantastic updates you won’t want to miss. First up, we’ve made tracking duplicate appointment bookings smoother than ever. And that’s not all—have you checked out the fresh new update to the Change/Display Columns tool in Search? Dive in to see what’s new!
- Finalsite Enrollment
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
As we wrap up 2024 🎁😉, we’ve got some exciting updates and fixes to share. From fresh features to enhancements in our search tool we know you’ll love ✨—you won’t want to miss this update!
- Finalsite Enrollment
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
For those who need to export form data, we’ve got you covered with this new update!
- Finalsite Enrollment
- Feature Updates
From a smarter Search experience to improved billing exports, these updates are designed to save you time and simplify your daily tasks. Read on to learn more about all of the amazing improvements!
- Finalsite Enrollment
Have you seen the latest Search improvement? Here’s a hint: it’s awesome! Read on to learn more.
We’re always seeking improvements! This week, we’ve made adjustments to help you manage fields better, simplify search functions, and enhance parent navigation for clients using a custom domain to Explore.
New Mobile App
- Chat
- Direct Message
- Mobile App
- Web Chat
Happy New Year! Welcome to Finalsite’s release blog for our New Mobile App, giving you a well-designed experience for engaging your community with school news, events, student information, parent-teacher chat, and more! In this blog, you’ll find details of the enhancements and fixes implemented during the release of the newest version, 200.3.0.
We are excited to announce the release of Web Chat, allowing anyone to communicate and collaborate via URL in a browser without having to download an app or own a smartphone.
- Not seeing these updates on your device? Update your app to the latest version and remember to tell your school community to do the same so they can enjoy new features and fixes.
- Are you on an iOS device and still not seeing the changes? Log in to your Apple account and approve the changes.
What's New
- Web Chat: Finalsite Chat is now available as a URL that you can share with your community. Now, anyone with a login can join in on chat room conversations and participate in direct messages using a web browser, in addition to a mobile device. See how it works:
- School Leaders Article: “Web Chat Option: Help your community chat in a browser with a URL"
- Parent Article: “Web Chat: Chat in a browser with a URL”
- Teacher Article: “Web Chat: Chat in a browser with a URL”
Chat Fixes
- General Fixes: We've fixed the “Add members” window, chat participant counter inaccuracies, pinned message issues, and problems with users being kicked out of rooms with more than 100 users.
- Push Notifications: Issues with being redirected to the previous room and search requests saved in the search field when creating a new DM chat have been fixed.
- Unread Messages & Notifications: Errors with unread message counts and unnecessary notifications will no longer occur.
Mobile App Improvements
- General Functionality: Issues with the "Try Again" button and Language screen when Internet connectivity is inconsistent have been resolved.
- Athletics: UI improvements for event locations, fixed scrolling issues in the filter screen, and corrected display of sport titles.
- Calendar: We've addressed content failing to display as it should, local storage updates on filtering, day counters for multi-day events, and placeholders for no events.
- Directory: White screen and UI issues are resolved, including problems with long titles and the 'no people found' screen.
- Filters: UI issues and extra spacing between schools have been updated.
- Home Screen: There are fixes coming out for overlapping upcoming events cards and scroll issues.
- News: Issues are resolved with the infinite loading spinner at the end of the News posts list.
Resources for your Community
- Mobile App Course (including Chat) in the Training Portal! (login before clicking link)
- Get started with the New Mobile App
- Chat for Parents & Guardians articles
- Chat for Teachers articles
- Chat for School Leaders articles
- Chat
- New Mobile App
- Accessibility
- Chat
- Direct Message
- Mobile App
Welcome to Finalsite’s release blog for our New Mobile App, giving you a well-designed experience for engaging your community with school news, events, student information, parent-teacher chat, and more! In this blog, you’ll find details of the enhancements and fixes implemented during the release of the newest version, 200.2.0.
In the Chat feature, your cursor will now behave itself. Enjoy enhanced video playback in chat, as well as a more seamless message input and browsing experience with increased visibility so that you can keep your community looped in as much as possible.
Now on to Mobile App specific updates, look forward to new styling options of bullets and numbers in Posts, ability to insert images into Post body, and the option of allowing visitors to click on the post title to redirect them to an external page. You’ll enjoy seeing Athletics event status displays providing the most current updates to your sports fans. Also, constituent addresses can appear in the Directory with a new, handy redirect to Google Maps. No more partially-displaying threads, cropped long names, or keyboard issues to hinder your communication! Check out the details in the full update.
- Not seeing these updates on your device? Update your app to the latest version and remember to tell your school community to do the same so they can enjoy new features and fixes.
- Are you on an iOS device and still not seeing the changes? Log in to your Apple account and approve the changes issued at the end of October.
What's New
- Chat: Enhanced support for video playing in the chat.
- Chat: Advancements made in the UX of message input screen.
- Chat: Enhanced ability to see all chat rooms and up to 30 most recent direct messages. Don’t miss a thing!
- Mobile App: When using the new mobile app on a tablet, enjoy a new optimized user experience.
- Mobile App > Posts: Visual appeal is everything! Enjoy the added styling options of bullets and numbers to keep content organized for your readers.
- Mobile App > Posts: Now you can include images in your post body for a newsletter-feel, as well as see the External Redirect URL feature that you already love now available in the New Mobile App!
- Mobile App > Athletics: Keep communication open by displaying changes in Athletic event status alongside events in the Athletics screen.
- Mobile App > Directory: In the Directory screen, you can view a Constituent’s address and even click to be conveniently redirected to Google Maps.
Bug Fixes
- Chat: Cursor will now automatically move to the end of the text string when editing/removing characters.
- Chat: Fixes for users who couldn’t create direct messages to now be allowed based on role.
- Chat: No more issues with partially displaying threads making it difficult to type a reply.
- Chat: Bug fixes implemented for scrolling errors, long names being cropped, keyboard not opening in certain cases, and users not being directed to the thread after opening push notification.
- Chat: User profile screen separated so no longer overlapping into reply in thread.
- Mobile App > Account: Wrong version displaying. Once this new release is rolled out, you will see your current installed version displayed above “Powered by Finalsite.”
- Mobile App > Athletics/Calendars: Date/time and timezone issues are fixed in athletics and calendars.
- Mobile App > Gallery: Gallery video playback issues resolved.
- Mobile App: Subscription page now shows an accurate count on schools page(s).
*NEW* Resources for your Community
- *New* Mobile App Course (including Chat) in the Training Portal! (login before clicking link)
- Get started with the New Mobile App
- Chat for Parents & Guardians articles
- Chat for Teachers articles
- Chat for School Leaders articles
- Chat
- New Mobile App
- Accessibility
- Chat
- Direct Message
- Mobile App
Welcome to Finalsite’s first release blog for our New Mobile App, giving you a well-designed experience for engaging your community with school news, events, student information, parent-teacher chat, and more! Here in this blog you’ll find details of the enhancements and fixes being implemented during the release of the newest version: 200.1.0.
Not seeing these updates on your device? Update your app to the latest version and remember to tell your school community to do the same to enjoy new features and fixes.
New features include the ability to close direct messages in Chat, iOS push notifications, and permanent removal of deleted users. In the new Mobile App, you can now choose to display past events in the Events screen and unlimited events on your home screen, send events to your calendar with an “Add to calendar” button, and clean up your Mobile App module’s content settings by toggling off modules you’re not using.
You’ll also see fixes that will make your life easier such as a cleaner start to new direct chat creation, various UI/UX (User interface/User experience) enhancements, a fix being implemented to the viewing and managing of notifications, and so much more!
What's New
- Accessibility Improvements: Following through with our commitment to accessibility, you’ll see more compliant headers and messages menu sizes.
- Chat: Enjoy staying organized with the ability to close direct messages you’re no longer using.
- Chat: iOS push notifications will display in the Chat feature.
- Chat: Deleted users will no longer display as active members.
- Chat: Click on a user’s avatar to redirect to a profile page for more information and actions.
- Mobile App: You can now display past events on the Events screen, and an “Add to calendar” button will send an event directly to your calendar.
- Mobile App: New possibility of displaying unlimited calendar events on your home screen.
- Mobile Apps module: Now you can toggle off any unused modules in Content Settings which will remove them from your app toolbar.
Bug Fixes
- Chat: When new direct chat is created, previous messages are not included.
- Mobile App: A fix is being implemented for the notifications screen, which previously caused users to be logged out when managing their subscriptions.
- Mobile App + Chat: UI/UX improvements include enhanced chat user experience, better filtering for events & athletics items, improved directory display and navigation, streamlined notifications setup, clearer display of unread messages and content entry screens, and guidance messages for clients without access to certain features.
- Chat
- New Mobile App
Community Engagement
We wish to announce our next Community Engagement 10.54 release for Mass Notifications. This release will continue to expand on the back-end and security improvements we have made, while also addressing two open issues. Our releases are staggered amongst our servers, and they are scheduled from February 12th to February 20th. The maintenance window will be from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM ET on these dates. During this window, you may experience intermittent connectivity issues.
We wish to announce our next Community Engagement 10.54 release for Mass Notifications. This release will continue to expand on the back-end and security improvements we have made, while also addressing two open issues.
Our releases are staggered amongst our servers, and they are scheduled from February 12th to February 20th. The maintenance window will be from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM ET on these dates. During this window, you may experience intermittent connectivity issues.
Resolved issues
- Links being stripped from Smore buttons and attachments: We are pleased to announce this issue is resolved, and your Smore buttons and attachments are again working as expected.
- Kurdish translations have been added
That’s all, for now. We appreciate your valuable feedback and suggestions for improving Mass Notifications.
Your input helps us enhance the user experience and deliver better with each release. Thank you for your support, and we'll see you in the next release!
- Mass Notifications
Previous Updates
In this latest release, our focus has been on addressing bug fixes to enhance the overall performance and reliability of both MCA District and Comm HQ. The changes include various optimizations and adjustments that aim to improve user experience.
- MCA
We wish to announce our next Connect release (5.22.46). This release will continue to expand on the back-end improvements we have made, as well as upgrade our shape creation tool for our geo-mapping function. We do ask that, if possible, you please refrain from drawing new shapes between Thursday, December 12th and Monday, December 16th. Any shapes created during this time will not be converted or upgraded during the release, and will not be available to you after the release is completed. After the update is completed you will need to recreate/redraw the shape. We apologize for this inconvenience. If you find yourself in need of creating many shapes between the dates of December 12-16, please contact support for additional options.
- Connect
We wish to announce our next Community Engagement 10.53.1 release for Mass Notifications and Teacher Communication. This release will continue to expand on the back-end improvements we have made, while also addressing an issue with the mobile app. Our releases are staggered amongst our servers, and they are scheduled from December 9th to December 19th. The maintenance window will be from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM ET on these dates. During this window, you may experience intermittent connectivity issues.
- Mass Notifications
We wish to announce our next Community Engagement 10.52 release for Mass Notifications and Teacher Communication. This release will further expand on the back-end improvements we have made throughout the summer. Our releases are staggered amongst our servers, and they are scheduled from October 23rd to November 5th. The maintenance window will be from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM ET on these dates. During this window, you may experience intermittent connectivity issues.
- Mass Notifications
Welcome to the 5.22.45.1 release of Connect. We have resolved the issue where Connect clients were unable to publish messages on Twitter/X using Connect Social. To reflect the changes, the user needs to log in to Connect and follow the steps below to re-authenticate your Twitter/X account in order to publish messages to Twitter/X from Connect.
- Connect
In this latest release, our focus has been on addressing bug fixes to enhance the overall performance and reliability of both MCA District and Comm HQ. The changes include various optimizations and adjustments that aim to improve user experience.
- MCA