Upcoming Release Schedule
| Global Release | Key Release Date | Global Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | Thu, Oct 8 2026 | Thu, Oct 22 2026 |
| February 2027 | Thu, Feb 11 2027 | Thu, Feb 25 2027 |
| June 2027 | Thu, Jun 10 2027 | Thu, Jun 24 2027 |
| October 2027 | Thu, Oct 14 2027 | Thu, Oct 28 2027 |
| February 2028 | Thu, Feb 10 2028 | Thu, Feb 24 2028 |
October 2026 Release (202610.01) Highlights
- Outlook Add-In and Interactions Updates - Interactions now appear across related profiles and organizations, and can be displayed on Level 1 records, providing visibility from an individual, organizational, and application-level perspective.
- Report Preview - Quickly validate report results with a streamlined 100-row preview option instead of waiting for the full report to run.
- List View Ownership and Usage Metadata - New ownership and usage tracking helps administrators quickly identify and manage stale or unowned list views.
- Improved Visibility of System Add-Ons - Improved visibility into available add-ons with descriptions and direct configuration links.
- Improved User Access Management - Quickly enable or disable user login access directly from the profile page with a single click, without opening the Actions menu.
- Foundant Intelligence Charity Check - Easily perform a free, on-demand compliance check for organizations with an EIN or CRA Business Number and maintain an auditable record of each review.
- New REST API - Securely connect to SmartSimple data using industry-standard REST conventions, with interactive Swagger documentation and a built-in filter builder.
- Smarter Global Search - Find records faster with enhanced search accuracy, broader search coverage, and support for exact-match searches.
- Web Page View and Word Merge Editing - Make last-minute edits to generated web pages and Word Merge documents using a simplified in-browser rich text editor, reducing the need to modify HTML and CSS templates.
Global System: Major Updates
The following updates are enhancements to the SmartSimple system and are immediately available to all users when the release is applied to their server.
Outlook Add-In and Interactions Updates
The Outlook Add-In and interaction management experience have been enhanced to provide greater visibility into communication history across SmartSimple.
What Is New within the Outlook Add-In
Interactions created through the Outlook Add-In now automatically associate with all relevant participants included in the To, From, and CC fields of an email. As a result, these interactions appear:
- In the interaction lists on the profile pages of the associated Owners and Contacts.
- On the profile pages of their parent organizations.
This ensures communication records are more comprehensively captured and accessible throughout the system.
New Interactions Tab on UTA/Module Level 1 Records
A new Interactions tab is now available on UTA/module Level 1 records, such as grant applications. This tab provides direct access to related interactions, including emails and other activities, within the context of the record.
To display the new Interactions tab:
- Click the Menu icon in the upper navigation bar, and then select the relevant UTA/module from the Applications drop-down menu.
- Click the Configuration Settings gear.
- Click the Level 1 tab, locate the General Settings section, and then click Standard Fields.
- Click the edit [pencil] icon next to the Interactions standard field, and then configure the field permissions as needed to control which users can view the tab.
Key Benefits
- Automatically captures and displays interactions for all email participants found in the system.
- Provides a communication history on contact, owner, and organization profiles.
- Makes related emails and activities easily accessible directly from the Level 1 record.
- Reduces time spent searching for communication history.
Report Preview
The Preview button on the Report Settings page now returns only the first 100 rows of a report, making it possible to quickly check a subset of results before committing to a full export. The preview indicates that a capped dataset is being displayed without pagination. Click the Run button from the Report Settings page to see the full set of results.
Key Benefits
- Reduce the time spent validating report output by returning a subset of data in the preview.
Resources
Legacy Test to Production (T2P) Desktop Tool End-of-Life
The legacy desktop version of the Test to Production (T2P) tool is scheduled to reach end of life at the end of 2027. Clients currently using the desktop tool should begin planning their transition to the newer Project-Based T2P experience.
The Project-Based T2P tool enables configuration changes to be promoted between environments on a project-by-project basis, reducing the time and effort required for change management. For Standard (hosted) Model customers, this functionality is available through Configuration Change Management (CCM), which supports reviewing, promoting, selectively deploying, rolling back, and tracking configuration changes across environments.
Resources
For migration guidance or assistance transitioning from the legacy desktop T2P tool, contact your Account Manager, Client Success Manager, or SmartSimple Support.
Global System: Minor Updates
The following updates are enhancements to the SmartSimple system and are immediately available to all users when the release is applied to their server.
List View Ownership and Usage Metadata
Ownership and usage metadata has been added for list views, providing administrators with better visibility into the origin and activity of their list view libraries. This update adds fields for Created By, Created Date, Last Updated By, and Last Run directly to the list view management screen. Administrators can sort and filter by these fields to identify and clean up stale or unowned views.
Key Benefits
- Quickly identify stale or unused list views with Last Run tracking.
- Easily see who created and last modified each list view.
- Reduce list view clutter with better ownership and usage insights.
Resources
Improved Visibility of System Add-Ons
Billable features and integrations can now be viewed in one convenient location with the new System Add-Ons tab under System Feature Summary. Feature descriptions and direct links to configure or manage each add-on are also available.
Key Benefits
- Access all billable features and integrations from a single location.
- Easily understand each add-on with clear feature descriptions.
- Jump directly to setup and configuration pages with built-in links.
Resources
Improved User Access Management
Managing user login access is now faster and easier. A key icon appears beside the user's name on their profile, allowing administrators to enable or disable login access with a single click.
- Solid key: Login enabled.
- Outlined (hollow) key: Login disabled.
Login access can now be viewed and updated directly from a user's profile, without opening the Actions menu.
Key Benefits
- View and manage login access instantly from the user's profile page for streamlined administration.
- Save time by eliminating the need to open the Actions menu to modify user access, improving efficiency.
Resource
On Demand: Major Updates
The following features are available immediately with the application of the release but must first be enabled or configured by a global administrator.
Foundant Intelligence Charity Check
Foundant Intelligence Charity Check is a free, on-demand compliance checking tool that allows quick review of public compliance information for organizations without leaving the platform.
Compliance details can be accessed within an organization's profile by navigating to Financial & Compliance in the left navigation. The organization must have an EIN or CRA number. Once accessed, key indicators are available, such as whether the organization is in good standing.
Clicking Acknowledge captures a snapshot of the compliance data at that moment and maintains an audit record of who checked the information and when.
Key Benefits
- Free, built-in alternative to third-party verification services for compliance checks on organizations with an EIN or Canadian Business Number (CRA Number).
- Improve transparency and reduce compliance risk with instant access to key public compliance indicators, including organizational standing.
- Support accountability with a complete audit trail, capturing a point-in-time compliance snapshot along with who performed the check and when.
Resources
New REST API
Users, Organizations, and records can now be accessed through the new REST API, which features interactive Swagger documentation for exploration and testing.
Key Benefits
- Standard REST API access to SmartSimple data.
- Interactive Swagger-based documentation.
- Secure token-based authentication.
- Filter Builder to simplify request creation.
Resource
Smarter Global Search
Global Search has been enhanced to deliver more accurate results, even when search terms contain typos, misspellings, or naming variations. Global Search now searches a broader set of fields, including users, organizations, and Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 records, such as grants, payments, and disbursements, helping users find relevant records more quickly.
Search results can now include close matches even when the spelling is not exact. For example, searching for "Marc" can return results for "Mark," with the most relevant matches displayed first. To search for an exact value instead, place the full search term inside quotation marks, such as "Mark Bridger." Exact-match searches must match the entire value entered and do not support partial strings; searches of four characters or less revert to fuzzy search.
A search reindex may be required after upgrading before all records become available in search results, and SmartSearch and Global Search are not available in backup environments. Because Global Search now searches all fields, after taking field permissions into account, using a defined approximation threshold, searches may return more records than in previous versions.
Key Benefits
- Discover more relevant results with expanded search coverage.
- Find records faster, even when search terms are not spelled exactly right.
- Narrow results quickly with exact-match searching for specific values.
Resource
Web Page View and Word Merge Editing
In-browser interactive editing is now available for Web Page View and MS Word Merge document templates. Generated content can be modified in the browser using the rich text editor before saving or converting to PDF.
This enhancement allows non-technical administrators to make last-minute edits to a web page view or Word merge before it goes out, adjusting layout and styling for improved PDF and Word outputs.
Toggle Enable Editing on for Web Page View and Word Merge fields to use this new feature.
Key Benefits
- Administrators can edit generated Web Page View and Word Merge content directly in the browser before saving, providing greater flexibility without requiring template changes.
- Formatting, layout, and styling can be adjusted prior to distribution, producing more polished and predictable PDF and Word documents, and improving output quality.
Resources
On Demand: Minor Updates
The following features are available immediately with the application of the release but must first be enabled or configured by a global administrator.
Report Builder Drop-Down Prompt Support
Report Builder now supports drop-down style prompts, giving report designers the ability to present users with a searchable list of predefined values such as statuses, program names, or fiscal years. This reduces errors caused by manual entry and creates a smoother, more user-friendly report execution experience.
Drop-down prompts are intended for fields with a limited set of distinct values. They are not designed for free-text searches or fields with a large number of unique entries, such as applicant names, organization names, email addresses, record IDs, or descriptions. These types of fields should continue to use standard text prompts, since wildcard searches require partial values rather than a complete value selected from a list.
To maintain performance and usability, any field containing more than 1,000 distinct values automatically reverts to a standard text prompt.
When running the report, a value can be selected from a drop-down list instead of typed manually. This provides clearer guidance on valid options, minimizes typos, and reduces friction caused by unknown or incorrectly entered values.
Key Benefits
- Quickly find the data needed in reports with a criteria drop-down filter.
- Reduce typos and failed report runs related to mistyped criteria.
Resources
Invitations Update
Invitation acceptance or decline reasons are now captured directly on the landing page, ensuring these details are available for immediate inclusion in notification emails. This change introduces a new @details@ variable for decline email templates, simplifying configuration and eliminating the need for delayed workflow workarounds to display respondent feedback.
Key Benefits
- Invitation acceptance and decline reasons are captured and included in notification emails immediately, ensuring recipients receive complete information without delay, resulting in faster communication.
- The new
@details@variable eliminates the need for delayed workflow workarounds, reducing configuration complexity and ongoing maintenance for simplified configuration.
Notes for Administrators
- Updated the system to support data governance and optimize platform performance. The system now automatically applies a seven-year retention period to archived field value changes and audit history logs. Historical audit records older than seven years will be removed as part of ongoing system maintenance. This process runs incrementally during nightly maintenance windows to avoid impacting application performance. All active data and audit history within the seven-year retention window remains available.
- Updated the system to Enhanced Report Export Reliability. We added a new "Generate file asynchronously" option within scheduled report exports. When enabled, the report and file are generated separately in the background and delivered automatically once it's ready. This will help prevent timeouts and failed exports for large or long-running reports.
- Updated the time zone drop-down to reduce the number of selectable time zones under the user's personal settings to improve usability. Existing saved time zone selections remain unchanged and have not been remapped.
- Updated the handling of project-based T2P promotions to better support large change sets, with backend optimizations to enhance reliability and scalability while keeping the user experience unchanged.
- Updated the Autoloader to expand column mapping support (including parentcompanyid, categoryid, and roleids) and introduced Auto Mapping for CSV/Text and JSON formats based on field name matching. Also improved autoloader worker handling to prevent premature termination by enforcing a reset of runtime checks per thread, ensuring queued loaders complete more reliably.
- Updated the system to include expanded timeframe options for workflow report reminder tasks within the Acknowledgment task type. New intervals are now available, such as 3 weeks, 2 months, and various "After" reference dates, providing greater flexibility in reminder scheduling.
- Updated ORCID profile import to improve the profile import process and reliability.
- Updated the Upload Multiple Files storage custom field to hide the option to enable the media library for clients who have not subscribed to the Media Library add-on. The Media Library add-on enables in-system streaming of media content, including video and audio files. For more information about adding this capability, contact your Client Success Manager or Account Manager.
- Updated the system to include a vetted-status flag when sending approved grant payments to CommunitySuite. This allows CommunitySuite to recognize that organization validations have already been completed in SmartSimple, bypassing the need for duplicate verification services and streamlining the payment process. See CommunitySuite and SmartSimple Integration for more information.
- Updated the visual feedback displayed when running reports and exporting files from reports.
- Updated the system to load report dashboard cells sequentially rather than concurrently. This reduces peak database load and prevents memory exhaustion when viewing dashboards with multiple complex reports. Reports now populate one after another, ensuring a more stable and responsive experience.
- Updated the system to remove the "Enable Straight Join" option from report settings. The system now automatically enforces this setting when a report includes more than 20 custom fields, ensuring optimal performance without manual configuration for complex reports.
- Updated the system to surface the expiration status of API User Access Tokens. Navigate to Global Settings > Integrations tab > API Users > edit the desired user > User Access Tokens. The new "Expiry Status" column identifies active, expiring, and expired tokens, giving increased visibility to expired tokens.
- Fixed an issue with automatic file transfers that could cause scheduled transfers to occur later than expected.
- Fixed an issue where portal menu links would visibly shift or jump position during the page load process.
- Fixed an issue where invalid or concatenated date values in workflow scheduling tasks could cause the system to generate an excessive volume of records. The system now includes strict date parsing for start and end dates, automatically stopping activity creation and logging an error if invalid data is detected. Additionally, a safety guard limits a single task to a maximum of 500 scheduled activities, preventing potential resource and performance issues.
- Fixed an issue where users were unable to search for records using the Assigned To column in the Level 2 list view search bar.
Service Packs
Service pack dates reflect when the pack becomes available to clients on the key release schedule.
About the Release Process
The objective of the release process is to ensure customers have a chance to review how their applications and information will work following the release without compromising the integrity of their production system. To take advantage of this, access to the backup instance of SmartSimple is required. If assistance is needed, refer to the Backup Server and Testing Instances article or contact the SmartSimple support desk.
For clients on a private cloud environment, review the SmartSimple Release Process: Dedicated Server article.
Upgrade Schedule Details
If you are part of the Key Release, your SmartSimple system will be automatically upgraded according to the following schedule. North American clients are generally on the Key Release.
| Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key Release | Production | Second Thursday of a release month | 22:00 - 23:59 EST | 5 minutes |
| Key Release | Backup | Two weeks prior to the production release | 22:00 - 23:59 EST | 5 minutes |
If you are part of the Global Release, your SmartSimple system will be automatically upgraded according to the following schedule. Clients in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as Managed Dedicated clients, are generally on the Global Release.
| Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global Release | Production | Fourth Thursday of a release month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
| Global Release | Development/Test | Fourth Thursday of a release month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
| Global Release | Backup | Second Thursday of a release month | 22:00 - 23:59 local time | 5 minutes |
If you are on a dedicated environment that is client-managed, your SmartSimple system is only upgraded manually by your system administrator or by submitting a request to SmartSimple. The global release package is made available according to the following schedule.
| Hosting | Environment | Date | Maintenance Window | Typical Downtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global Release | All | Fourth Thursday of a release month | Client-managed | 5 minutes |
Backup Environment Update
Each backup environment is updated to the release candidate prior to the release date, allowing instance-specific testing against the most current data and configuration. Internal staff also use these environments to perform instance-specific testing.
Update Go/No-Go
Subject to satisfactory testing on both the pre-production environments and the backup environments, the Go/No-Go decision is made on the Wednesday prior to a release.
Release Feedback and Questions
For questions, assistance, or feedback, contact the support team toll-free at 866.239.0991 or email Support.