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📅 Release Notes | October 2024
Michael Stephenson avatar
Written by Michael Stephenson
Updated over 2 months ago

This article keeps you informed about the latest developments from Element451. Every month, we spotlight everything from bug fixes and subtle improvements to exciting new features and significant enhancements.

We update this article regularly throughout the month as we roll out new releases, improvements, and bug fixes. Please check back frequently to stay informed.

To explore individual and other months, visit our Release Notes collection. Also, don’t forget to take a look at our Planned Releases to get a glimpse into the future.

Fixes and Improvements

Applications + Decisions

  • Improved

    • Enhanced country code validations by enforcing the requirement for country codes on apps and forms.

    • Enhanced field validation error pop-ups by highlighting which fields need correction and updated the color scheme for better accessibility and visibility of incomplete or invalid fields.

    • Removed the option to adjust the “button action” on the Billboard with App content block on Application Sites, as the button is designed to only open applications.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where recommenders were unable to submit the recommendation form or preview the submitted information.

    • Resolved an issue where excessive padding on the “Create an Account” screen in Chrome on mobile devices restricted content visibility.

Appointments

  • Improved

    • Updated the attendee's appointment ICS title format to: {{Attendee First}} {{Attendee Last}} | {{ClientName:AppointmentTypeName}}.

    • Added a setting toggle for “Create Date of Inquiry Milestone” in Appointment Types, allowing users to control whether appointment registration generates a prospect milestone.

BoltAI

  • Improved

    • Improved the accessibility of Bolt Discovery by updating grey text and elements within the results overlay to meet WCAG AA contrast standards with a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio against a white background for small text.

    • Improved the screen reader experience for Bolt Discovery.

    • Improved Bolt AI Student Assistant prompts to better handle cases where the AI finds relevant but not exact matches to the user’s question.

    • Added emojis to Bolt Discovery follow-up prompts that trigger actions, displaying 📝 for RFI form triggers and 💬 for handoff to messenger prompts.

    • Improved accessibility in Bolt Discovery by adding aria-labels to containers, enabling announcements for answer retrieval and AI processing, and enhancing screen reader support.

    • Added the ability to re-enable Bolt AI Assistants in SMS conversations that were previously closed.

    • Resolved an issue where spaces in Bolt Discovery prompt starters displayed as “%20” in URLs due to URL encoding for space characters.

    • Updated website knowledge sources to treat URLs ending in .xml as explicit sitemaps, fetching content directly and bypassing robots.txt restrictions.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where the Bolt Discovery submit button was missing an aria label for accessibility.

    • Resolved an issue where Bolt Discovery threads were not displaying on expanded profile cards or when using advanced filtering on the All Threads page.

    • Resolved an issue where Bolt AI incorrectly confirmed sending an email to a list of attendees, despite only supporting 1-on-1 conversations.

Campaigns

  • Improved

    • Added a “Scheduled At” column to one-time campaigns to display the scheduled send time for campaigns.

    • Added Emergency Contacts Emails as an option in the “send to email based on token” field for campaigns.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where social media icons appeared blurry in campaign emails.

    • Resolved an issue where filtering by tag on the Campaigns Insights dashboard only loaded results for email but not SMS.

    • Resolved an issue with sending campaigns to the guardian emails token.

Conversations

  • Improved

    • Updated contact profile indicators to visually represent the status of phone numbers: a green check mark for valid numbers that won’t receive SMS messages, a green SMS bubble for valid numbers that will receive SMS messages, and a red X for invalid numbers. Added hover-over descriptions for each icon to clarify the number’s status further.

    • Improved the mobile keyboard experience of the Messenger widget.

    • Improved the screen reader experience for the Messenger widget.

    • Enhanced the chat widget by improving focus state visibility and keyboard accessibility for the icebreaker question.

    • Ensured the tooltip (“Have a Question?”) appears when tabbing into the chat widget button via keyboard.

    • Added proper aria labels, visible text to buttons, and interactive elements in the Live Chat UI for improved screen reader accessibility.

    • Improved focus management to ensure logical focus shifts and prevent hidden or irrelevant elements from receiving focus in the Live Chat UI.

    • Updated the chat widget colors to comply with WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards for text, UI components, and focus states.

    • Added a summary of voice transcription for in-app call conversations longer than 2 minutes.

    • Exposed the ‘clear flag’ action on all conversations, not just web conversations, in content moderation.

    • In preparation for the release of Real-Time Voice for AI Assistants, we’ve made important changes to how in-app phone call conversations are threaded. These updates are designed to provide a more streamlined and organized experience for managing calls. Release Notes →

    • Added a new setting in Conversation Settings > Messenger that allows setting a custom color for the messenger widget, enhancing flexibility for both accessibility and brand alignment. The widget will display the custom color as either a solid or gradient overlay based on whether a background image is uploaded. This custom color is also added as an option alongside primary and secondary brand colors when configuring the messenger launcher icon, offering a consistent brand experience across other page assets like events and application sites within Element451.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where students were shown different URLs internally by updating the display to show all relevant URLs for consistency.

    • Resolved an issue where screen readers did not announce new chat messages by implementing ARIA live regions for dynamic updates.

    • Resolved an issue where the messenger avatar uploaded in Conversation Settings > Messenger did not update in the Messenger Preview.

Data + Insights

  • Improved

    • Added auto-refresh capability for new Dropbox connectors to prevent connection issues after token expiration; existing connectors must be recreated to enable this feature.

    • Added three new test types—ISAT Math, ISAT ELA, and ISAT Science—along with support for mapping test dates and cut scores.

    • Made the cancel/stop button more prominent on import/export runs for improved visibility and usability.

    • Added a new “save value as masked format” toggle for validations, allowing values to be saved in the correct masked format (e.g., saving GPA as 3.1 instead of 31).

    • Added a system transformation to support exporting decision tags in exports.

    • Added “WPE (Writing Placement Exam)” as a new test type and added corresponding import mappings.

    • Exposed user-applications-guid-* in Import + Export.

    • Exposed user-citizenship-permanent-resident-number for use on forms.

    • Added “warning” messages to the Integration Log to indicate records created with errors that require review, alongside Success and Error messages.

    • Added the ability to delete a hold directly from the Holds profile card.

  • Fixed

    • Updated Zapier appointment triggers (Scheduled, Updated, Canceled) to no longer require an export template and added the Appointment End Date/Time field to ensure accurate event creation in connected apps.

    • Resolved a discrepancy in conversation totals between the Conversation Count at the top of the Insights Dashboard and the Web Messenger Conversation Start Page export.

Events

  • Improved

    • Added support for using “school email” (user-identities-school-email) as a matching criterion to prevent duplicate accounts.

    • Added a setting toggle for “Create Date of Inquiry Milestone” on an event's form settings, allowing users to control whether event registration generates a prospect milestone.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where an unclear “unknown error” message was shown during registration, replacing it with “email address not found, please check and try again” for better clarity.

Forms

  • Improved

    • Enhanced country code validations by enforcing the requirement for country codes on apps and forms.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where authenticated form submissions failed to proceed to the second step.

Journeys

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where incorrect records entered a Journey without meeting the trigger criteria.

People

  • Improved

    • Exposed “Student Type” as an editable field in the milestone edit sidebar.

    • Enhanced segment filters to retrieve contacts based on the enrollment status of the selected milestone rather than any enrollment milestone.

    • Added the ability to delete a hold directly from the Holds profile card.

    • Added the ability to switch contacts in the Deduplication module to select a different master record when comparing.

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where the Graduation Date field was not displayed when the date was not null but the “Graduate” status was not set.

    • Resolved an issue where the Last Attended Date field was not displaying on a record when populated in an application.

Tasks

  • Fixed

    • Resolved an issue where priorities could not be reordered in Task Settings.

Settings + Permissions

  • Improved

    • Added explainer text to Sender Email Addresses to clarify that only email addresses from validated domains in Sender Domain Authentication can be used for sending communications.

    • Added an alert for Sender Domain Authentication to notify users if the domain status changes from “Valid” to “Not Valid.”

New and Enhanced Features

StudentHub (Closed Beta)

Now available in closed Beta to select partners, with a wider Beta release coming in late October 2024.

StudentHub is your students' AI-powered companion for success. Designed to be mobile-first, StudentHub centralizes everything your students need—appointments, events, tasks, support networks, and more—into one seamless, intuitive interface.

SFTP Management

Introducing SFTP Management, a self-service tool that enables you to create and manage your SFTP accounts directly from within Element451.

Bulk Delete Contacts by Segment

Introducing the Bulk Delete Contacts by Segment feature, allowing you to delete all contact records within a specific segment in just a few steps. Whether removing test users or cleaning up contacts imported in error, this feature provides greater flexibility in managing your contacts while ensuring data integrity. Additionally, this feature comes with safeguards to prevent accidental deletions, keeping the process secure and reliable.
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In-App Call Thread Update

In preparation for the release of Real-Time Voice for AI Assistants, we’ve made important changes to how in-app phone call conversations are threaded. These updates are designed to provide a more streamlined and organized experience for managing calls. Phone calls are no longer grouped by inbound/outbound number pairs. Instead, each call now has an independent thread.

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