Software Update Blog
Catch up on all the latest releases and enhancements
Recent Updates
Composer
- Bug Fixes
- UI Changes
This release clears up a few hiccups that popped up in Calendars and Messages. Some groups ran into an error when trying to clone certain messages — that's now resolved, so you can duplicate without worry.
We’ve also tackled a bunch of Calendar quirks. Dynamic events were jumping ahead to the next day, list views were sneakily showing past events when they shouldn’t. We’ve also polished up a few rough edges from recent migrations. Calendar colors now carry over as expected, recurring events behave, and thumbnails display correctly for constituents. The Location List no longer duplicates itself in elementary views and even the mysterious “T” that crept into multi-day events is now fixed in this latest release.
Bug Fixes
- Messages: : Fixed an issue where some groups couldn’t clone specific messages due to a cloning error.
- Messages : Events meant for today were dragging in some from the past — calendar views now stay right on schedule.
- Calendar: Bulleted lists in calendar events were adding extra spacing due to unwanted line breaks in the HTML.This release keeps your formatting intact — no more spacing surprises
- Posts: Previewing unpublished posts no longer leads to a 404 — users can now view drafts and scheduled posts directly within the page, just as expected.
- Calendar: Manually entering event times just got easier — users can now type custom times like 11:05 PM without losing the AM/PM field or being forced to use the dropdown.
- Calendar: Fixed an issue where sub-Admin users couldn't load their assigned calendars after migrating from Calendar Manager to Calendars.
- Calendar: Resolved an issue where the calendar element displayed past events despite being set to show only today’s or upcoming events.
- Forms: Apostrophes in Forms no longer show up as HTML code after migration — they now display properly, just as entered.
- Forms: Credit card forms now play nicely with browser autofill — no more needing to click into fields manually to activate the card type or avoid validation errors.
- Calendar
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- Posts
Previous Updates
- Bug Fixes
In this update, we’ve resolved a key issue affecting forms with payments, where users had to click the Submit button twice to complete transactions. This fix ensures more reliable form submissions and prevents duplicate payment attempts. Calendar rendering has also been improved—multi-day events will no longer obscure single all-day events in both two-column and single-column layouts, restoring clarity to your event displays. On the performance side, we’ve improved how the site handles search engine traffic to prevent slowdowns. Finally, we’ve improved usability in the Form Submissions view—long form field labels will no longer stretch table headers to the point of hiding actual submission data.This release is part of our ongoing effort to deliver a faster, cleaner, and more user-friendly CMS experience.
- Calendar
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- Resources
- Bug Fixes
We’re excited to bring you another round of improvements in this release, addressing key issues and enhancing your experience with Composer. We have improvements in the Calendar module where deleting the events has gotten better. Previously, deleting events sometimes resulted in a Bad Request error, even though the event was successfully removed. This issue has been resolved, ensuring a seamless deletion process. Users creating or modifying events in the Athletics Manager were unintentionally redirected to the Opponents tab. This has now been fixed, and event management works as expected
In Messages, certain users faced issues while subscribing to a list. This release has fixed it and users should now be able to subscribe to any lists without any issues. Previously, unsubscribing from emails could get stuck, causing frustration. We’ve optimized the process so that users can now unsubscribe without any delays.
- Calendar
- Composer
- Messages
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Our latest release brings crucial improvements to ensure smoother functionality across multiple areas of our platform. We've resolved a backend health status reporting issue that previously caused inaccurate system status checks, refined Calendar element display options to restore missing customization controls, and improved payment reconciliation in Forms to ensure accurate reporting of transactions under fraud review. These updates enhance both the backend stability and the overall user experience, making it easier for admins to monitor system health, manage calendar alerts, and track payments with confidence.
- Calendar
- Forms
- Messages
- Bug Fixes
- Site Performance
Our development team has been busy enhancing our products to improve your school communications. We’ve resolved a problem where featured posts were not always displaying as they were set to display. If this issue is affecting you before you see the release, a temporary workaround is to either remove the featured until date or adjust the date range in the Post element settings to display "most recent." Additionally, a fix was applied ensuring that when access is granted to only send messages within a certain location, that this is indeed the case. Other notable improvements include resolving errors when adding constituents to mailing lists, as well as the inability to deselect languages when sending out messages. A password recovery email was populating an expired link. These efforts demonstrate our commitment to making our products more efficient for our clients.
- Forms
- Login
- Messages
- Posts
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
💘 Happy Belated Valentine's Day ♥️ to all of our wonderful clients! Just like a box of chocolates, we're delighted to bring you sweet surprises in this release cycle. Improvements in Messages include better reporting accuracy in usage data, streamlined error handling for browser message viewing, and “loading messages” will no longer display in messages with only 1 preferred language. In Posts, there were issues with empty tags, expired posts, previewing posts, and admins not having access to Default Board Post Page settings, but these will now work as expected. On the Calendar side, we've reintroduced the option to add images to calendar descriptions, resolved issues with live iCal feeds from rSchool, and improved dynamic content handling and performance in Calendar elements. Account security will be showing new strength by locking accounts after multiple failed reCaptcha attempts. We're thrilled to show our love and dedication by continuously improving our services and making your experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible! ❤️
- Calendars
- Login
- Messages
- Messages XR
- Posts
- 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!
- Composer
- Forms
- Messages
- Posts
Enrollment
We’ve got some more great updates for you this week! We've tackled a common request with automated reminder management for Supersites, expanded payment options, and updated to a seamless full-page Direct Enrollment experience. And that’s not all! Read on to learn more about our latest work.
What's New
- Automated Communication Plans: Supersite Admins can now be assigned reminders via an Automated Communication plan.
- Finalsite Enrollment Payments: We’ve added Google and Apple Pay as options for Payments customers! These options appear based on the parents’ device settings and are available anywhere they have the option to make a payment.
- Direct Enrollment: For schools that bypass the admissions process, enabling the Direct Enrollment feature provides parents with access to a registration form directly through the Parent Portal, allowing them to seamlessly begin their process of enrolling their student with your school.
- Communications: Your site now uses the time zone settings configured under Settings > General > Basic Setup when managing communication timing. Previously, the system relied on browser time zone information, which could lead to scheduling inaccuracies. This update ensures that time zone information is consistent and accurate when scheduling communications.
Bug Fixes
- Powerschool: The issue where pushing more than 50 students via the Powerschool plugin resulted in an error has been resolved. With this fix, schools using the plugin can now push an unlimited number of contacts to Powerschool as expected.
Previous Updates
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Exciting new features are now live in EMS! We've packed this update with enhancements like streamlined billing, expanded permissions options, and powerful admissions tools – you won't want to miss this!
- Finalsite Enrollment
This month's updates include improvements to billing, payments, and some important bug fixes. Check out what's new!
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
We've rolled out three fantastic enhancements that will make managing your finances smoother and more efficient than ever. Plus, we've made some helpful tweaks to contact records and squashed a few bugs to ensure everything runs like a dream. Dive in to see how these updates can make your life easier!
- Finalsite Enrollment
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Surprise! You now have more options for customizing Admissions/Enrollment terminology in the Parent Portal! Read more about this and our other exciting updates in this post.
- Finalsite Enrollment
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
Mobile upgrade for Explore, SSN masking, and performance boosts – it's all here!
- Finalsite 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.
- Finalsite Enrollment
Messages XR Enterprise
- Bug Fixes
- Feature Updates
- New Features
Our first spring release of 2025 is all about making day‑to‑day tasks faster and smoother for school communicators. Version 1.1.0 introduces multilingual attachment support, merge tags for the voice channel, and several quality‑of‑life tweaks for message creation. We’ve also squashed a list of high‑impact bugs to keep your inboxes—and your peace of mind—running smoothly.
What’s New
- Attachments & Multilingual Messaging: Users are now able to upload an attachment that will be copied to all channels. If using translation, swap out attachments per language without affecting the attachments for other channels or languages, helping to build equitable communications in recipients' preferred languages.
- Voice Channel Personalization: Use merge tags in prerecorded or text‑to‑speech calls to greet recipients by name or to personalize call details.
- Reporting & Analytics: Messages, Contact, and Delivery Reports now remember your last‑used filters, speeding up recurring reviews.
- User Experience Updates: A friendlier landing page appears if SSO access to the training site fails. Labels are now clickable in the Select Recipients modal, and channel cards display skeleton loaders while data is fetched.
Enhancements & Tweaks
- Reduced redundant backend calls, improving performance when building large recipient lists.
- Polished breadcrumbs, notification styling, phone‑number validation, and top‑navigation spacing across the application.
Bug Fixes
- Inbox: Restored the “view attachments” field and resolved random 500 errors when opening message details.
- Saved Messages: Fixed incorrect sort order and the issue where messages became disabled after a double‑click.
- Community Manager Sign‑up: Page now renders correctly on all screen sizes.
- Message Tracking Report: “Save” button in Edit Details works as expected.
- Social Media Publishing: Facebook and X channels are no longer shown if you don’t have any accounts configured and multi‑language posts create a single entry in English only.
- Library Messages: Editing is now correctly restricted for Library content.
- Attachments & Channels: Attachments from the Content tab auto‑select across channels, and channel error icons display properly.
- Recipient Selection: Removed “undefined” placeholder when sending without recipients and restored parent‑level checkbox logic.
- Reports: Contact reports handle “+” prefixes; recipient details open correctly for ad‑hoc sends.
- Inbox Navigation: Users can paginate through messages with a single click.
- General UI: Success notifications display the correct style, attachment boxes resize correctly, and various whitespace issues are resolved.
Enjoy the latest and greatest updates for Messages XR Enterprise. Reach out via the Client Portal with any questions or suggestions for future releases!
- Inbox
- Library
- MXR-E
- Recipients
- Saved Messages
Mobile App & Chat
- Chat
- Direct Message
- Mobile App
- Web Chat
Welcome to Finalsite's latest mobile app update! Version 200.31.0 brings powerful new features, enhancements, and fixes to improve your school communication experience. Whether you're engaging with school news, events, chat, or student information, this update delivers a smoother and more reliable experience for everyone.
- 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
- New and improved ability to view and analyze metrics such as total messages sent, reported and reviewed messages, user counts, chat room activity, and user bans/unbans.
New Features:
- Ability for Students to Chat: Our chat solution now includes students! Now parents, teachers, coaches, admins, and students can participate in two-way messaging, group chats, and chat rooms.
- Display Parent-Student Relationships in Chat: School, District and Chat Admins can now see parent-student relationships when searching for users in chat.
- Direct Message Role Permissions: Enhanced role-based permissions for direct messaging, allowing better control over who can initiate and receive DMs.
- Limit User Visibility by Location: Restrict user access within chat to their assigned location, improving privacy and organization in multi-school environments.
- End-to-End Translation Engine: A dynamically improved translation system now enables more accurate and real-time content translation across chat and the mobile app, including additional languages added.
- Posts Push Notifications: Users will now be able to subscribe and receive push notifications for new Posts, keeping them updated on important school announcements.
Chat Improvements:
- Web Chat Enhancements: Improved performance and reliability for web-based chat, ensuring a smoother experience when accessing chat rooms and direct messages in a browser.
- Optimized Chat Room Display: Teachers and admins who are part of many chat rooms will now see only 20 chat rooms at a time, with a 'Show More' button for easier navigation.
- Fixed Language Selection Issue: Resolved an issue where users were stuck on the language selection screen when accessing Web Chat.
- Fixed User List Display Issue: Users now correctly appear in chat participant lists after joining a room.
- Fixed Changing Language Inconsistencies: Language selected in the Mobile App will also be reflected in the Chat messages.
Mobile App Improvements:
- Refactored Timezone Rendering for Events: Improved accuracy of timezone conversions for Athletics and Calendar events to ensure event times are displayed correctly across different regions.
- Enhanced Athletics Event Details: Added event statuses and custom location support in Athletics event details.
- Expanded Support for External Media: Users can now include external links and YouTube videos inside the Gallery section for a richer content experience.
- General UI Enhancements: Improved overall app stability and design consistency.
- Athletics Section Fixes: Addressed scrolling issues on event pages and ensured accurate display of sports titles.
- Calendar Enhancements: Fixed issues with event filtering, multi-day event counters, and missing content in certain views.
- Directory Fixes: Resolved UI glitches such as incorrect spacing and blank screens when searching for users.
- Push Notification Reliability: Notifications now correctly direct users to the intended chat room or content.
- Unread Message Count Fixes: Resolved inconsistencies in unread message counts across different sections of the app.
We are committed to continuously improving your experience with Finalsite’s Mobile App. Stay tuned for future updates and new features!
- Chat
- 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 10.56 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 April 24th to May 5th 2025. 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 10.56 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 April 24th to May 5th 2025. 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
-
File Monitoring emails are being sent an hour early, issue fix - This enhancement ensures accurate timing, even during Daylight Saving Time changes, eliminating potential timing discrepancies. It allows you to be confident that timestamps remain accurate and reliable, no matter the time zone or daylight saving adjustments.
-
Display Logic Update for Finalsite Tweets (On home screen) - The display logic for Finalsite Tweets has been updated. Tweets are now displayed in reverse chronological order, meaning the latest tweets will appear at the top. This update ensures that current tips and tricks are more visible to your audience, making it easier to stay informed about updates.
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
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.
- Mass Notifications
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