Check out what's new in CommCare, from new features to the latest resources to support you.
For a full list of all updates to the CommCare platform, please visit the CommCare GitHub repository. In addition to features listed here, clients working with Dimagi’s professional services teams may have access to other features that are not yet available in the general CommCare platform.
We are excited to announce some big updates to CommCare HQ and CommCare Mobile this past quarter. These updates range from stability and security improvements to CommCare Mobile, brand new APIs on our Enterprise Console, further integrating the Data Dictionary and Case Exports, and more!
Below is a list of our newest product releases in CommCare from this past quarter.
A More Stable and Secure CommCare Mobile with Version 2.54.0
Available to users on all software plans
We have released a new mobile version for CommCare (version 2.54.0). There are some exciting updates included in this version, such as:
Support for Android 13
Added support for fullscreen mode for a better video viewing experience when playing inline videos
Added background sync capabilities
Enhanced audio recording widget to handle situations when users need to record audio recordings between different applications in the same session
Enhanced security measures to protect sensitive data collected in CommCare in line with CommCare’s industry-leading secure mobile application practices
Fixed various rendering issues for large images and grids
… and much more!
We recommend following the steps outlined here to update your CommCare application version.
Enterprise Console Updates for Better Visibility and Reporting
Available to users on the Enterprise software plan
For those users on an Enterprise software plan, we’ve made some great updates to the Enterprise Console to help give you a high-level overview of all of your connected project spaces.
Connected OData Feeds
You are now able to access reports on the Enterprise Console as OData feeds, allowing you to connect them directly into your PowerBI dashboards with a click of a button! Each report now has their own API and can be accessed via the browser or any tool that can consume OData feeds. You can find a comprehensive guide on our brand new Enterprise Console OData feeds here.
Flexible Date Ranges
We released an update which allows you to configure the date ranges you’d like to pull data for in the Mobile Submissions Report on the Enterprise Console. You can find more information about this here.
Data Dictionary Improvements to Manage Case Properties More Easily
The Data Dictionary is now even more useful! Case Exports now respect the case property groups and the ordering of case properties as defined by you in the Data Dictionary. This allows you to organize large groups of case properties in a standardized way across all your users and makes finding case properties that much easier!
For more information on the Data Dictionary feature, please see our guide here. For more information on Case Exports, please view our guide here.
We have improved our Create and Edit Mobile User APIs to allow for the programmatic changing of mobile user location assignments. This enables our customers who rely on more complex, API-based workflows with frequently changing location assignments to update locations without having to go into the CommCare HQ user interface.
For more information, please refer to the detailed API guides here and here.
And more….
To view all other bugs, performance enhancements, and updates made to CommCare, please visit our Github repository here.
Tell us what you think! 📫
We’re excited to be putting out these product release notes as a way to keep CommCare users better informed.
If you’re interested in receiving a demo on any of the product updates, please feel free to email info@dimagi.com
If you have any feedback on the above features, please feel free to leave it on the CommCare Forum.
April - June 2024
We are thrilled to announce key updates to CommCare released this past quarter. These updates encompass a range of improvements, including significant enhancements to our Single Sign On feature, a streamlined process to renew annual plans, upgrades to our powerful Data Export Tool, and the ability to incrementally refresh CommCare data in Power BI.
We are excited to announce the latest enhancements to our Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities. These updates are designed to not only bolster the security of SSO but also streamline the integration process with other systems, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
Manage Users Remotely: Now, users can effortlessly control their list of users in CommCare HQ via Entra ID. This feature enables seamless management of user access, ensuring a smooth and secure experience. Learn more about how to leverage this functionality here.
Control API Key Settings: Enhance your user management capabilities by allowing multiple views of your users' API keys. This empowers administrators to efficiently monitor and manage API access, promoting better control and security. Dive deeper into this feature here.
Enforce API Key Expiration: With this new feature, users can enforce API key expiration, adding an extra layer of security to their systems. By setting expiration dates for API keys, organizations can mitigate risks and ensure data protection. Learn more about this functionality here.
For our data users, the CommCare Data Export Tool (DET) has been given some love with some new features to make running sophisticated data exports even easier.
Executable File for Windows: The DET now offers an executable file for Windows, making it more accessible for users. You can download the DET executable here.
Log Files for DET Runs: All DET runs now generate log files, providing users with detailed information to review and analyze their data export processes effectively.
Enhanced Error Messaging: We have significantly improved the error messaging in DET. Users can now benefit from clearer and more informative error messages, helping them troubleshoot and resolve issues more efficiently.
For more information and to stay updated on the latest enhancements, visit our GitHub repository.
Many organizations use OData feeds to connect data from CommCare to data visualization systems for important analysis and visualization. For our Power BI users, OData feeds from CommCare can now be incrementally refreshed on Power BI! This ensures that Power BI reports remain up-to-date with the latest information from CommCare by only refreshing the data that has changed since the last update. Users can experience faster data loading times - ensuring up-to-date information and optimizing decision-making processes for users.
For more information, please refer to the detailed guide here.
Annual renewals are now self-service! Say goodbye to complex renewal procedures. Now you can update your plan in just a few clicks. If you are currently on an annual plan, renewing your subscription is now as simple as if you were on a monthly plan.
In addition to the product updates listed above, we’ve also been hard at work in improving guidance for how to integrate CommCare with third-party tools. Below is some new documentation we’ve put together about integrating with Power Automate, Twilio Studio, and Azure Data Factory.
Power Automate Integration: CommCare now has a fluid integration with Power Automate, enhancing workflow efficiency and automation capabilities. With Power Automate, automated workflows can be created to connect CommCare with various applications and services, ensuring smooth information exchange and personalized automation solutions.
Twilio Studio Integration: Twilio Studio enables the creation of messaging workflows, such as SMS surveys and IVR surveys. By integrating Twilio Studio with CommCare using Power Automate, you can trigger Twilio Studio flows directly from CommCare. Once the flow is executed in Twilio, the resulting data can be seamlessly copied back into CommCare, creating an efficient and automated process.
Azure Data Factory Integration: We have developed a guide which provides a comprehensive overview of establishing a robust data pipeline to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from CommCare into the Azure ecosystem. This setup leverages various Azure services to ensure seamless data integration, transformation, and storage for enhanced data management and analytics.
Revamped CommCare Documentation
Available to everyone!
Our team has been hard at work at updating the CommCare Help Site, our main source for CommCare Technical documentation. In addition to a revamped Home Page, we’ve reorganized information to make it more intuitive for people to find what they are looking for.
Next up, we’re looking into ways that we can translate the Help Site into multiple languages. Stay tuned!
Tell us what you think! 📫
We’re excited to be putting out these product release notes as a way to keep CommCare users better informed.
If you’re interested in receiving a demo on any of the product updates, please feel free to email info@dimagi.com
If you have any feedback on the above features, please feel free to leave it on the CommCare Forum.
January - March 2024
Our biggest highlight of this quarter is our new Case Deduplication tool, saving our users' significant time in managing their workloads and data.
We heard loud and clear from our users that the process of cleaning data for duplicates takes a lot, lot of time. That’s why we built Case Deduplication, a new feature in CommCare designed to help you quickly identify and address duplicate cases. Having a clean data pipeline empowers you to make more informed decisions with greater confidence.
General Improvements
[Advanced Plan Only] When a user adds, updates, or deletes a case property in the Data Dictionary, the updated case properties will be displayed on the Case List Explorer
Implemented bulk create and update functionality in the Location API, maintaining the existing data format used for individual location create/update. This enhancement enables users to create and update multiple locations through the Locations API.
The deprecate and restore icons in the Data Dictionary have been replaced with buttons to align better with the overall UI. Additionally, the confirmation modal for deleting a case property has been adjusted to make it clearer that the property is only being marked for deletion, not immediately removed upon confirmation.
The delete case property button has been redesigned to be more distinguishable from the deprecate action. This change aims to reduce confusion and help users differentiate between the two actions more easily.
We've updated the UI in several areas (Mobile Worker edit using info view, pop-up when clicking the re-verify button, help button next to the verify numbers button, and after clicking "publish" on a build) to include a notification about SMS charges when verifying phone numbers.
And More….
To view all other bugs, performance enhancements, and updates made to CommCare, please visit our Github repository here.
What else is new? 🔍
New Playbook for Monitoring & Evaluation Professionals
For Monitoring & Evaluation professionals, establishing a centralized digital tool across an entire organization can feel daunting.
That’s why we created the M&E playbook; a 4-step process and change management guide curated by industry leaders who've successfully made the transition to a centralized approach. Their feedback? While it required a significant effort, the cost savings, improved quality, increased efficiencies and tighter security made the shift well worth it. Discover practical strategies and valuable insights into how to accomplish an undertaking of this magnitude.
We are excited to spotlight the API Explorer tool, designed to simplify the process of interacting with our APIs. Here's why the API Explorer is a beneficial tool for developers:
Effortless API Interaction: With the API Explorer, developers can easily explore and interact with our APIs in a user-friendly interface, reducing the learning curve and accelerating development.
Real-time Testing: Developers can test API endpoints in real-time, allowing for quick validation of requests and responses without the need for external tools.
Try it out by reviewing our documentation here and enjoy the power of API exploration!
Tell us what you think! 📫
We’re excited to be putting out these product release notes as a way to keep CommCare users better informed.
If you’re interested in receiving a demo on any of the product updates, please feel free to email info@dimagi.com
If you have any feedback on the above features, please feel free to leave it on the CommCare Forum.
2023
October - December 2023
The issue with saving a form as incomplete on Web Apps and encountering a hang when accessing incomplete forms has been resolved. Users can now navigate to incomplete forms without experiencing any webpage delays.
The alignment issue with user input boxes for numeric and text questions, where they were displaying lower than other items in the row, has been successfully resolved on Web Apps. Users can now input data more efficiently with all questions vertically aligned.
The background colour of nested group question headers has been updated, transitioning from a darker to lighter shade and now featuring shades of CommCare Blue. Additionally, the ">" symbol has been changed to white for improved contrast.
Consistent with other sections of CommCare, the 'Find Data by ID' functionality will now treat soft deleted cases and forms as if they were permanently deleted, resulting in a 'Could not find case/form' error message.
The issue affecting project spaces with user names mistaken for dates, causing failures in "date formatting" and preventing access to applications, has been successfully resolved. Users with such names can now access applications without any hindrance.
Previously in Web Apps, labels at the top level of the form were shown within a border, contrasting with those in groups lacking a border. Additionally, in collapsible sections, label text misalignment occurred with other question text. The issue is now resolved, with top-level form labels no longer having borders, and labels within collapsible sections displaying proper alignment with other question labels.
To enhance user experience, when individuals click on an invitation they've already accepted, they will now be seamlessly redirected without encountering a red error message indicating the invitation has been used up. The redirection will occur unless the user is logged in as a different invitee.
We have improved the UI on Web Apps by removing question type text, adjusting the control height for questions, tweaking the size and color of input text, and reducing padding between questions. These changes aim to enhance the overall visual appeal and user experience.
July - September 2023
When viewing a case list on Web Apps, you can now click the "scroll to bottom" button which takes you to the bottom of the case list on that page.
Added a hamburger menu for case list results. The print view is modified to only show case list results and not maps or the search sidebar (in the case of Split Screen Case Search).
A new project setting is added to display a warning message on the mobile worker location edit page about locations that own cases and only have one assigned mobile worker. Note that the setting is disabled by default. The user will be notified of this setting on the Organization Levels page when they have an organization level that can own cases.
The Application Error Report feature has been made available for projects on the Enterprise plan.
Fixed a bug within the conditional alerts & case updates rule, where the rule/alert always fires when the "ANY" option is chosen for the rule.
On the Data Dictionary admin page, users attempting to input a case property name or case property group name that already exists for the case type will now be met with a error message “A case property/group with this name already exists.” (Note: Data Dictionary is available for those on the Advanced and Enterprise Plans)
Users are able to deprecate and restore case types in the Data Dictionary. (Note: Data Dictionary is available for those on the Advanced and Enterprise Plans)
Added a validation for attachments that comes through App Preview just as they are validated coming from Web Apps or Mobile.
In Web Apps, language selection has been added to the hamburger menu.
In Web Apps, UI improvements have been made to backgrounds, borders, and buttons.
Updates to error messages to provide more accurate information.
April - June 2023
Users now have the ability to set Form Forwarders to only forward specific forms. Forms are identified by their XMLNS. This change preserves current behaviour: If no forms are specified, all form submissions are forwarded.
Implemented a UI change in the case history table, replacing "System" in the "User Type" column. This change adds more specific names for system updates.
The Export Case Data menu has been modified to include a percentage indicator of the progress made when populating tables for the Bulk Case Export.
Users now have the ability to bulk import all case types concurrently.
Users are now able to prepare a bulk case export which includes every case type in a project space by selecting “Any Application” & “All Case Types” when preparing the export. However, if the project has more than 30 case types or 20 applications, then the user will be unable to create a bulk case export config, and will be met with an error message.
It is now possible to assign user location based on domain during the creation of a new mobile worker.
The process of viewing repeat record attempts has been updated. Instead of the ellipsis, there's a new "Responses" button. When clicked, this button gathers and showcases each attempt in its own row below the original repeat record entry.
2FA is disabled for a newly created account on HQ unless the new user is a part of an active domain.
Implemented a restriction on uploaded files to be less than 15MB as a logo under Project Settings.
Icons have been added to the bulk action buttons to improve the UI.
Enhanced Privacy and Security for filtered URLs on case list and case list explorer pages.
UI improvements were made to the Case List Explorer.
Errors for DHIS2 have been improved to include a diagnosis message.
In addition to text, App Preview Help will now allow images, audio, and video.
Filters for Export Case Data have been changed so that all case types are available at the domain level. Previously, it was necessary to select an App first.
In Case Tiles, a message will be shown when the case list is empty.
January - March 2023
Fixed 500 error when bulk archiving forms in Manage Forms.
Fixed form print layout in the UI.
Fixed bug that discarded manually entered dates with two-digit year format.
Fixed the previously null "next" URL in the web user API.
Implemented bulk case reassignment. - This passes report-filters as a request.POST to the new render_as=bulk endpoint , which utilizes the report's query and results to obtain the list of cases that require reassignment.
Created Django migration for deleted apps.
Removed advanced query search functionality. - Removes the advanced query search function from the Mobile Workers page's search bar, as well as from other places where it was not intended (web app's mobile worker search, app builder's app build search, web user search, drop-down menus for certain reports, etc.).
Fixed a bug reported that resulted in inconsistent Download and Email Reports permission display.
Added last_used property to HQApiKey.
Implemented support for range for form attachment downloads.
Added conditional case update status to app summary.
Updated the copy for the repeater deletion pop-up.
Added form session ID to URL in webapps.
Accessibility: Added label for tabular checkboxes in apps.
Change communication sent out: The Incomplete Forms setting default is off and incomplete forms are hidden unless the setting is enabled.
Updated text for the button on the modal to delete repeater configuration.
Implemented a UI change to Mobile Worker Bulk Download.
Added email address validation in email messaging content.
Implemented a change to prevent the creation of a commcare-user case when a mobile worker is deleted.
The repeater name was made configurable.
Enabled Incomplete Forms in all production domains.
Updated SQLRepeater model to allow names to be 255 characters.
Updated the UI to display the date format to the user.
Implemented a one-time email notice when the mobile worker count exceeds 90% or 100% of the domain's plan's limit.
Implemented Release Mode toggle on the application release page.
Removed the _entered convention wrap functions.
2022
August - December 2022
Completed the final component (the migration) to the "save only edited form fields".
Improved broadcast functionality to allow receivers outside of the group to receive broadcasts.
Enhanced location APIs and included them in the v0.6 API release, providing a more comprehensive and user-friendly solution with simplified development processes.
Upgraded django-compressor from 2.4 to 4.1
Implemented "date and time picker" improvements in forms and case search.
Implemented visibility and editability of the "default mobile user role" in the role list, along with displaying it in the user edit view for Mobile Users.
Updated SMS processing to consistently utilize the latest released version of an app instead of the latest development version.
Resolved the issue where the custom timeout for user inactivity on a domain was not functioning correctly on the conditional alerts page.
Added a case_id filter to the forms API, enabling the retrieval of forms that are associated with a specific case.
Deprecated the programmatic use of Data Forwarding APIs (API 6) for viewing, creating, and updating data forwarding configurations in Commcare, encouraging users to utilize the user interface for configuring data forwarders instead. See this announcement.
Implemented better defaults for new roles in Commcare, including disabling certain permissions by default and introducing the "Mobile App Access" permission that is disabled for new roles except for "Mobile Worker Default," thereby removing the need for feature flags and domain settings related to mobile endpoint access.
Improved the error handling of the validator to address an issue where user data import would halt and display a generic error message when encountering a specific user entry by identifying the cause of the problem and determining that the validator was unnecessary, resulting in successful loading of user rows and displaying information about the loaded and unloaded users.
Standardized page titles and their styles across different pages under the Data tab, resolving discrepancies and ensuring consistency.
Enhanced the print and PDF layout of forms, addressing issues such as extra spacing and overlapping text to improve the overall output quality for end-users.
Removed help text from the search bar and discontinued support for query functionality in the mobile worker search widget.
Implemented the multiple alert banners feature, enabling the display of multiple maintenance alert banners simultaneously.
Implemented the ability for users to deactivate or reactivate API keys through a new button in the key management table.
Deprecated and removed the legacy functionality of editing forms using web apps.
Adjusted the app manager intro content to no longer appear when importing or copying an app, ensuring that the hints and help content are only displayed for users who are new to HQ and require guidance on initial actions.
Implemented the use of select2 for dropdown menus in the EOF (End of Form) navigation configuration and form linking, improving the user experience by providing enhanced dropdown functionality, particularly for long lists of menus and forms.
Enhanced visibility of UCR rebuilds by adding a warning message to the 'Edit Data Source' page, ensuring users are notified of the rebuild status regardless of the toggle settings and providing additional information alongside the existing 'Preview Data' functionality.
Implemented a check to verify the existence of a relationship between cases on DHIS2 before attempting to create it, preventing potential conflicts and improving log cleanliness by avoiding unnecessary error messages.
Resolved the issue where certain Repeaters' edit pages were inaccessible.
Fixed a bug that caused existing form links to not be displayed in the user interface by adding a unique identifier (uniqueId) to form links when preparing the context for the view, ensuring consistency between the view context and the available links list.
Enhanced the query efficiency of the populate_repeater_names management command by joining the connection_settings when fetching repeaters, resulting in improved performance and optimization of the command.
Implemented the hiding of the "Incomplete Forms" icon on the "home" screen of web apps when all apps for a user have the "Incomplete Forms" feature disabled, providing a cleaner interface and removing unnecessary visual elements for users without access to incomplete forms functionality.
Made a minor update to the incomplete forms setting logic by adding a properties check, resolving a JavaScript error that occurred for an app with an empty profile, ensuring proper functionality in an edge-case scenario where apps are initially created with empty profiles that are later populated with settings changes.
July - September 2022
Disabled horizontal resizing for all text areas across CommCare HQ.
Updated case update rules to allow users to submit system forms with a name for display.
Logged transient bounced invites as Delivered. If you send a domain invite to a web user whose email account has a vacation autoresponder on, it'll show up as "bounced", even though it does get delivered. This changes that to show "delivered."
Disabled horizontal resizing in webapp and app preview.
Fixed bug in bulk upload mobile workers password validation.
Disabled submit button when password fails validation. Before when web user accepts the invitation and try to create an account or when mobile user receives sms invitation and try to confirm account: they're able to submit even if their password failed password validation. After changes, the button will be disabled until they pass the validation.
Added enforcement for a minimum password length for all web and mobile users when "require strong password" turned on in Project Settings - Privacy and Security. The default value is 8.
Fixed pagination on the API key page.
Added better error handling for DHIS2 config pages that accept JSON. Previously, any syntax errors caused the form to throw the entire JSON dictionary back to the user without specifying the problem and where it had occurred. It'll now show the row, context, and suggested changes to make the input JSON valid.
Added better error messaging when reverting to a bad build. Previously, it would show a 500 page with a success message. Now it will correctly load the releases page with better messaging.
Updated case import to pass through CaseBlockError messages. Before: all case block errors showed an "unknown reasons" message, now it displays a more specific message.
Changed redirect when a report is deleted, so users now get redirected to the saved reports page.
April - June 2022
Added county, postcode and district fields to broadcast objects.
Pass query data to Formplayer debugger endpoint to improve the web apps/app preview debugger when used in conjunction with case search.
Made the "Loadtest users" feature avaiable for Pro Plan subscriptions and higher. This change adds some guard rails:
Loadtest users are unable to sync payloads over 500,000 cases
The "loadtest factor" field is moved from the mobile worker's Basic Info form, to under the "Actions" tab, where it is less likely to cause confusion for users just trying to create a normal mobile worker.
Loadtest users are like demo users, in that their form submissions are ignored and they are unable to sync from a mobile device.
Improved error message when build fails due to missing instances. Added form name and module name to the message.
Upgraded the datepicker widget in web apps to match HQ. The widget handles both dates and times. Also added a single date to the case search format options.
Added the ability for Enterprise Admins to manage SSO Test Users to make it possible for onboarding SSO in production. Use Test Users for better onboarding in production.
Added OData report functionality to the enterprise portal. Enterprise admins can export odata feeds reports across all project spaces from the enterprise dashboard.
Added an appearance attribute, 12-hour, to support a 12-hour clock in web apps.
Auto Update Rules: Added AND/OR text dependent on whether ALL/ANY is selected. This updates the "AND" text next to criteria on auto-update rules to say "OR" if the user selects the new ANY option for auto-update rules. The text will change instantly as a user switches the toggle.
Improved report filtering related to system forms for user and app filter.
Fixed CommCare trial signup issue when ad blocker is enabled.
Added case search accessibility, so case search heading and search field labels will be read when tabbing, and the text inputs will be read with a more specific description.
Updated form data page to show proper XMLNS used to identify particular forms in reports.
Fixed case search error to allow searching for multiple values on a date range field where one is a date range and the other is blank.
Improved performance of collapsible groups in web apps.
January - March 2022
Multi Environment Release Management for smaller-scale projects to link multiple projects made available.
Added support to pull longitude and latitude coordinates into a form using the geocoder widget.
Feature discoverability for Case Sharing through notifications tab added.
A bug fix for application case summary when using advanced modules.
A bug fix to allow location-assigned admin (or any role that has the "access_all_locations" permission for that matter) web users to see the complete list of web users when downloading the web users, and not just the web users that are assigned to the location(s) the currently logged-in web user is assigned to.
When a user navigates to the My Saved Reports page, an additional section will be shown below the "My Saved Reports" section, namely "Shared saved reports" (the sections are modeled after the "My Scheduled Reports" sectioning).
A new column was added to the "Scheduled Messaging Events" report that says what number of attempts this will be.
Fixed bug in web apps from getting an error when doesn't have a role. The fix makes the role dropdown on the page required for web users.
Enforced password policy, so until a user inputs a strong password, the 'Submit' button is disabled. The change is applied in:
'Change My Password' in Account Settings
Reset Password via the 'Forgot Password' page
'Reset Password for Mobile Worker' in 'Mobile Workers' under 'Users'
Added view to play form attachment audio in the browser. This adds a new link to view form attachment on web browsers using the usual domain login page in case a user needs to login, instead of an inbuilt browser prompt, for a better experience for mobile users.
Added status embed code in to Commcare HQ. This change will allow users to be notified when we are facing any issues or if we are planning maintenance. This change simply allows a box to show up on the bottom left corner of the tab with a message to inform the user.
Added google reCAPTCHA to the password reset request page.
Updated invitation flow to create users as non-admin.
Added check for role column and adjusted tests so that roles are only clear when intended
2021
October - December 2021
For ‘Release Management’ users must be admin in both domains to link domains.
Bug fix in Web Apps where changes in the choices for lookup table questions cause the selections to get cleared. With this change the selections are preserved when the options change.
SMS user registration alerts to allow admins to add a list of emails that will be alerted whenever a new mobile worker is registered via SMS.
Require edit data and API permission for the new ‘Submission API’ endpoint.
Added feature so app builders can create a tabular structure for checkbox questions, by using the same Question List Group and Appearance Attribute settings as they do for non-checkbox multiple-choice questions.
This updates the error message for display conditions when you use #user but haven't yet used usercase in your domain. This change adds a button to the error message to let you immediately turn on user case.
Fix bug where date range ‘Case Search’ fields were clearing the user input after clicking ‘Apply’ on the first try under ‘Case Search’ page.
Data Preview is only visible to screen readers when expanded and the buttons can be cycled through and are accessible.
When Web Apps access is disabled for a user a clearer “The functionality is disabled” message is displayed.
Added sorting to user role dropdowns for mobile workers who will be entering data using Web Apps.
Added functionality to allow users to select the IDs from a dropdown list to avoid possible errors when typing in the IDs manually. Previously users using custom actions or filters had to manually type in the IDs for the filters or actions.
In situations where applications have Parent / Extension or Host / Extension relationships, it was not clear that the Parent Case recipient option for conditional alerts did not include these extending relationships. Added functionality when the "Case's Parent Case" option is selected from the list, a warning message is shown.
Added catch for missing multimedia when copying app. This prevent the "Import App" page from erroring out when importing an app and HQ can't find its multimedia, as when the app is being copied from a different server.
Changed the label for invited web users whose invitation does not reach them are marked as "Blocked" to "Undeliverable", with tooltip helper-text to explain why the invitation is marked so.
Added bulk delete action "My Scheduled Reports". Also added pagination for both the main scheduled reports and others' scheduled reports list.
July - September 2021
Created new edit messaging permission to help admins to give roles access to only Messaging, only Data, neither, or both.
Improved screen reader support for adding repeat group elements. When a repeat group is added keyboard focus is applied to the newly created repeat group. Previously focus remained on the Add new repeat button and repeat groups rendered above were skipped for screen readers.
Shift validation step to reduce build times. Perform app validation on the app copy instead of the app itself when creating a build. This will help improve performance of creating a build.
Prevent creating roles with duplicate names per domain.
Send identifier to Telerivit to link cases with delivered status. When a message is sent via the Telerivet BE and is delivered, the message status will say 'Delivered'.
Added smart link navigation for display only forms mode. Adding a session endpoint to a menu will now not let you make a build. Previously, you could create a build but the endpoint wouldn't work.
This sets the form auth context, username and user ID to allow better tracking of case claim requests. Added more auth details to case claim forms. Case claim forms now display the correct user information in reports.
Multiple choice answers are grouped together under questions to make element hierarchy more clear to screen reader users. The same is done for groups of related questions.
Added links to descendant locations in location page. Each individual location should have a hierarchical UI similar to that on the Organization Structure page, with the root node being the current location.
Webapps accessibility enhancements where multiple choice answers are grouped together under questions to make element hierarchy more clear to screen reader users. The same is done for groups of related questions.
Updated web apps question error button text & icon. This changes the icon and updates button text to say "Next Error" instead of "Next Question."
Added download and email reports permissions under roles and permissions to allow role to download and email report data if box is checked.
Updated web apps error navigation to not happen until submit. This will cause the jump to errors feature in web apps to not show the button until the first time the user tries to submit the form.
Added checks to prevent deactivated mobile workers from showing up in the reassignment list. Case reassignment will no longer display deactivated mobile workers.
Updated the Messaging Event API to more closely match the Messaging History and detail reports.
April - June 2021
Single Sign On (SSO) into CommCare with Azure AD general release.
Added better error handling for the "Forward Cases To Another Commcare Project" data forwarding type.
The form was not processed and should not be retried
The form was not processed and should not be retried
The form was not FULLY processed and may be retried
201: message nature = "submit_error"
422: message nature = "processing_failure"
422: message nature = anything else
Added markdown formatting to the case list views.
Added Data Export Tool (DET) schema downloads from any export by generating DET config files. Read more about it here.
Added the ability to bulk upload web users on the web user page.
Added permission check for sms settings tab so only admin users can see access the SMS page.
UI updates to jump to errored questions in webapps.
Added display properties to messaging events API.
Added ability to copy case search config from one module to another.
Web Apps accessibility improvements - made apps and menus keyboard navigable. For users without a screen reader, this change enables keyboard navigation of webapps using the Tab and Enter keys.
Messages with no actual message content won’t be sent.
Added a multi-select dropdown to webapps.
Added a popup when editing a conditional alert to signal that you are going to alert cases, possibly a lot of cases.
Added location fields to web user download.
Improved time conversions in HQ, including overriding the project space timezone if the user's project space membership is set.
Added the Ethiopian date picker for use in webapps.
Allow the translation for a new repeat to happen within an inner group.
January - March 2021
Updates to Web Apps now allows users to 'go to page' and modify the number of rows displayed in a case list.
Added Web apps translation for 'Add New Repeat'.
Added Lookup Tables support to the Application API.
Previously notification messages in webapps were skipped for end of form navigation workflows.
Previously, the Work Activity Reports we were showing Form Completion Time instead of Form Submission Time in the Last Form Submission column. Fixed that to show Form Submission time.
While downloading the mobile workers, the count that we were showing was for only active users, but the downloaded users also contained inactive users. This resulted in the premature generation of a report download link. When the user used to click on the link it would result in 404.
Bug fix to Data Export tool: Fixes issue where case close dates weren't properly mapped in commcare-generated DET config files.
We deprecated support of Linking to External Files.
Support for referencing the owner_id of a case using easy references. Previously, you had to manually add in the reference through the xpath expression for it to work as expected.
Improvements to Under Reports -> Monitor Workers -> Worker Activity Times, which fixes the axis displaying the day of the week so that it shows as expected.
Support for viewing application API in browsers.
Support for two new-fields called `host_case_id` and `host_case_type` in Case Importer Excel. This allows creation of extension cases similar to how child-cases can be created.
Improved Case List pagination UX for Web Apps.
2020
October - December 2020
Improved password error handling. This is only for projects which have "Require Strong Passwords for Mobile Workers" set. In case the password entered is not acceptable, now users will see an error message and the alert "Password was not changed".
Fixed calendar help text. In Web Apps, this improvement ensures only the calendar help text appears when clicking the help button. Previously, the calendar pop up would also appear.
Switched combobox to select2 on Web Apps. Completed by USH.
Added the ability to bulk download web users on the Web Users page. Completed by USH.
Fixed bug where web apps tiles get mis-aligned at screen resolutions approximately 990-1200px, now alignment will not be broken for screens wider than 1200px.
Expanded unsupported browser notification so that additional warning messages are displayed when users are using unsupported browsers.
Added ability for web users with the permission to view web users to view pending invites
Fixed web apps tile display for medium-width screens.
Track role update. Now for role updates, we also track how the update was done - either via web/bulk upload.
Added jump to top of page on navigation in web apps. Previously, when you went from one menu page to the next, like menu list to case list, the scrollbar position did not change. We added a jump to the top of the page every time you switch pages seems cleaner than picking out that specific scenario.
Track role update. Now for role updates, we also track how the update was done - either via web/bulk upload.
Added jump to top of page on navigation in web apps. Previously, when you went from one menu page to the next, like menu list to case list, the scrollbar position did not change. We added a jump to the top of the page every time you switch pages seems cleaner than picking out that specific scenario.
Better UX when switching pages in Web Apps. Previously when you go from one menu page to the next, like menu list to case list, the scrollbar position doesn't change. This change adds a delightful jump to the top of the page every time you switch pages.
Added a 'clear' button to combined multiple choice questions in web apps.
New recipient for Conditional Alerts: This change adds two new recipients for conditional alerts. 1) Specify mobile worker by username 2) Specify email by username. The first works for both SMS or email alerts. Completed by USH.
Added a new "domain" option to API keys to scope the key to only have permission for that domain.
July - September 2020
Added Portuguese translation to CommCare HQ.
Added web_user column to exports. Adds a `web_user` property to exports to show the web user who submitted a form using 'login as.' For mobile submissions, this will display nothing. For web submissions using login as, `username` will have the mobile username and the new column will have the web user. For web submissions not using login as, both `username` and the new column will be the same, regardless of whether the person logged into HQ as a web user or as a mobile user.
Overwrite Case Lists/Case Details in Bulk. Enabling Bulk overwrite of case lists and case details along with filters. This update changes how the 'overwrite' add-on works so that app builders are now able to 'push' overwrites to multiple case lists/case details instead of 'pull' changes from a single case list/case details. This feature is documented in more detailat https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/ey-Kfw.
Added 'App User Profiles' to enterprise subscription. App User Profiles is now a GA feature available on the enterprise subscription. This feature is documented in more detailat https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/eC7Kfw.
Rename "Automatically Close Cases" to "Automatically Update Cases." Renamed an item in the HQ menu in the data section. Since the feature allows one to update/close or do custom actions on the case, updated the title to reflect that better.
Web Apps form UI update - collapsible groups. Adds three appearance attributes: 1) `group-collapse` indicates that a group should use the new collapsible styling 2)`collapse-closed` means the group will be collapsed when the page loads 3) `collapse-open` means the group will be open when the page loads. Appearance attributes are space-separated, so an open group should have the appearance attribute `group-collapse collapse-open`. If the group doesn't specify open/closed, it will default to closed. Collapsible groups are displayed in panels, with an angled icon, and clicking the panel header will show or hide the questions in the group. Groups without a label still show the icon and header. These attributes only apply in web apps and only apply to groups - not question lists, and not repeat groups. You can make collapsible question lists / repeat groups by putting a collapsible group inside the question list / repeat group.
We’ve added support for markdown tables.
We’ve added support to selectively rate limit app resource requests.
We’ve added support for app updates without multimedia using lazy downloading.
We’ve increased the limit on the number of allowed CommCare apps on a single CommCare instance to 4!
We’ve moved Mobile Privilege option behind Advanced Developer Options.
We’ve added landscape orientation support to Gregorian date widget.
We’ve added a custom property cc-disable-file-oversize-warning on HQ, which when set to yes will disable file-oversized warnings in mobile.
We’ve added a button to clear choices in single-select questions.
We’ve added a retry button in Recovery screen.
We’ve made improvements in capturing location.
We’ll now use CommCare’s in-built audio widget by default for audio capture question.
We’ll now show an error on saving a form when any of case_name, case_type, owner_id and external_id for a case is greater than 255 chars in length.
We’ll now delete any erroneous forms on form save by user rather than later quarantining them at the time of form submission.
We’ve added support for tiered lists and barcode scan in Case Claim prompts
Hide the manual form Quarantine option from the scan record integrity dialog.
We’ve made group label font size consistent with question text.
Recheck button on the Update Screen will be enabled always.
We’ve updated Required version comparison to include the minimal app version as well.
Added error notification to all data forwarders. Before this update only OpenMRS and DHIS2 data forwarders supported error notifications.
The default geocoded location in project settings is now visible only if your project space has access to Web Apps.
Added ability to download the case summary by making an API request with an API key.
Added support for Markdown tables on Web Apps.
Added a new column 'Number of unsent forms in user's phone' column to App status report.
Increased the number of recent case uploads to 10,000 and added a search box, which searches comments and filenames.
Added a new filter option for Report Builder called "Case Owner (Location w/ Descendants and Archived Locations)."
Wait a minute before requesting confirmation email again. This PR adds a check for a user to wait at least 60 seconds before requesting another confirmation email. If a user re-requests within 60 seconds of requesting a confirmation, they would see an error message.
Updated the bulk user upload process to allow for editing of web users with pending invites. Updates the bulk upload process so that editing the role of a pending web user edits the existing pending invite instead of creating and sending a new one. This eliminates the problem of multiple invites sent to a user when their role is changed prior to accepting the invite. When adding or modifying the role of a new web user that is not part of the domain, it checks if an invite already exists and, if so, modifies the role of the existing invite instead of creating a new invite.
Clarified disable vs. remove Two-Factor Authentication in UI. This clarifies the use of "Disable Two-Factor Authentication" on two UIs that use it but do very different things. In the User Account Settings > Two-Factor Authentication page, "Disable Two-Factor Authentication" is changed to "Remove Two-Factor Authentication" . And then in the admin view for looking up users it makes sure to emphasize that the Disabling action is Temporary.
Added default location for WebApp project spaces. Under Project Settings-> Project Information -> Basic, this update allows you to configure a default project location for your WebApps.
Improved naming convention for App Summary downloads. Under applications -> App summary, this update improves the naming convention when downloading a file with a long name. Specifically, if the name exceeds 31 characters, this update truncates the middle values in the file and tab names.
Updated Case List search. Under Reports -> Inspect Data -> Case List, this update improves the user experience when searching the case list. Specifically, the terms used in the search box will remain when you complete the search.
Displaying bounced invitations. On the invites page, this improvement displays the delivery status including bounced invitations. Note: most mail providers will show the message as "delivered" but then will later change to "bounced" if the message fails to send.
Improved Report Builder error messaging. Before this update, under Reports -> Report builder, an error message appeared when you built a report that included default filtering options. This improvement removes the incorrect error message that appeared with the default filters.
Added View Apps permission. Under Users -> Project Users -> Roles & Permissioning, this update adds a new "Can View" to Applications permissions. Full roles & permissioning documentation can be found at https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/oTPKfw.
April - June 2020
Added link to "Import Template Application." Under the Applications tab, a new link was added that allows you to import template applications from the COVID library.
Improved API authentication. This update fixes an issue with using API token authentication for a small number of APIs when multi-factor authentication is enforced.
New API for bulk case data uploads. This new API endpoint allows you to upload Excel sheets in order to automate creating cases in bulk.
Additional functionality for bulk SMS alerts. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts -> Bulk Upload SMS Alert Content, this update allows you to upload blank messages with the bulk uploader. Previously, you could only set blank messages in individual conditional alerts.
Improved translations user interface for Messaging. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this improvement ensures that conditional alert translations will display in the same order used on the SMS languages page.
Additional functionality for the Data Export Tool. This improvement allows you to sync locations and users using the Data Export Tool.
Fixed phone number verification workflow. This fix updates an issue so that you are able to verify your phone number via SMS as expected.
Added views in mobile mapping. This update adds a default property setter for mobile maps, which allows you to select "terrain" or "satellite" to be used in rural or poorly mapped locations.
Improved location upload error. Under Users -> Organization, this update makes the error message in location uploads more accurate. Previously, if you uploaded a file with unrecognized columns, you would get an error saying columns were missing. The new error message exposes the problem that occurs with that specific column.
Added error detail for mobile worker creation. Under Users -> Mobile Workers -> Create Mobile Worker, this update displays an error when the creation of a mobile worker fails.
Added detail on COVID-19 template library page. In the COVID-19 template library, added release date for each of the apps, external help links, and button to toggle app versions.
Added text to edit alerts on the Messaging page. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this improvement adds the text "Editing a conditional alert will cause it to process each case of the alert's case type.
Improved auto-generated passwords for mobile workers. Under Users -> Mobile Workers -> Edit Mobile Workers -> Password, this update fixes an issue when you edit a password for a mobile worker. Specifically, before this update if you enabled "Require Strong Passwords for Mobile Workers" in the project Privacy and Security settings, HQ would not auto-generate a password. With this improvement, a strong password can be auto-generated as expected.
Added permissions for OData (PowerBI/Tableau) feeds. Under Data -> PowerBI/Tableau Integrations, this update adds a role that can access and view form/case data but cannot create new exports.
Updated text formatting for sensitive data in OData (PowerBI/Tableau) feeds. Under Data -> PowerBI/Tableau Integrations, this update changes the text formatting for de-identified data in the feeds. Instead of listing the data as [sensitive] with brackets, it is now listed as *sensitive* with asterisks.
Increased limit for case import history. Under Data -> Edit Data -> Import Cases from Excel, this improvement increases the number of recent uploads displayed from 100 uploads to 1000.
January - March 2020
Improved behavior for Tableau/PowerBI integrations. For Tableau/PowerBI integrations that are set-up through the OData feed, this update ensures that "formid" or "caseid" columns that are tagged as deleted cannot be selected in the feed.
New COVID-19 template library. To support the rapid rollout of applications for COVID-19 response, you can import application templates directly from the new COVID-19 template library.
New columns in Mobile Worker download. Under Users -> Mobile Workers -> Download Mobile Workers, this update added new columns to the exported file. Specifically, the mobile workers "last sync" and "last submission" data is now available in the export.
Improved performance for Exports and Excel dashboard feed. This update made some backend changes to improve the load times and reduce the number of time-outs when trying to edit or create new exports in Case Exports and the Excel Dashboard feed.
Updated Messaging page to use new location search. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this improvement uses the new location search logic described on Search for Locationsarchived when you enter the "User Organization Recipient(s) (see attached screenshot).
Removed re-processing for bulk Messaging updates. This improvement prevents conditional alerts from re-processing when they are edited via the bulk upload user interface.
Added ability to edit parents in Organization Structure. Under Locations -> Organization Structure -> Edit Location, this update gives you the ability to edit the parent of a location, even if the location has children. This update also removes the ability to edit the "Organization Level" of a location with children.
More powerful location searches. This update makes the filtering logic more powerful when searching for locations. Search for Locationsarchived describes the changes, and in summary:
you can use more than one slash
you don't need to use quotes to use slashes
you can partial match ancestors (eg, "mass/mid/cam" to get "Massachusetts/Middlesex/Cambridge")
quotes give you exact name matches, but still return descendant matches
Updated pages to use new location search. This change updated the search algorithm for locations to use the new query referenced in Update #2 above. The pages include:
Organization Structure page
Mobile worker filter
Location assignment on edit mobile worker page
Create new mobile worker
Invite web user
Filtered mobile worker download (feature flagged)
Related locations (feature flagged)
OpenMRS repeaters (feature flagged)
Removed ability to create redundant data exports. Before this update, you could not re-trigger a data export if the same export was actively being pulled. However, if you refreshed the page, it was possible to create 2 redundant data exports. This improvement prevents the workaround where the redundant reports could be created by refreshing the page.
Improved List Forms API performance. These updates makes the List Forms API more robust, specifically:
Ensuring the field @name is never null. Previously when this field was null, it would cause an error.
Ensuring that group ownership changes are reflected consistently in the API. Previously, if you modified a users group, both current and previous data would show.
Additional options for data formatting in Excel exports. Under Data -> Export Data -> Export Settings, this update adds a new checkbox to enable cell formatting in Excel 2007+ formats. If enabled, Excel will format dates, integers, decimals, Boolean values, and currencies.
Improved Zapier integration functionality. This update fixes an issue in the New Form Submission trigger in Zapier where users were only able to access ~20 forms even if more were configured in their integration. This improvement allows users to see all configured forms, as expected.
Improved configurations for Tableau/PowerBI integrations. This update improves the ability to configure Tableau and PowerBI integrations with the OData feed, specifically allowing users to check or uncheck the "caseid" field. Before this update, "caseid" was a default field in the configuration.`
Fixed location-based access. This update fixes an issue where users with location-based access weren't able to areas of the platform that they were intended to be able to access. This fix returns the expected functionality.
Updated CCZ filenames. This improvement changes the names for CCZ files from a 'commcare_v123.ccz` style to `MyDomain - MyApp - v123.ccz `
Fix for 2 factor authentication. Recent changes prevented SMS messages from being sent when a user was trying to use 2 factor authentication during CommCare HQ log-in. This update fixed the SMS behavior so that it worked as expected.
2019
October - December 2019
Changes to our Community Plan
Changes to the sign up experience
Reduction of max number of users to 5
Downgrade flow to Community was replaced by ability to Pause subscription
Existing Community spaces were grandfathered
Re-allocation of Features across plans for better positioning and value alignment. (Existing project spaces were grandfathered)
No user facing changes. Minor maintenance updates and performance optimizations.
Updated behavior when searching by location. This improvement fixes the search results when you search by location in 3 places: (1) Users -> Mobile Workers -> Filter and Download Users, (2) Users -> Organization Structure, and (3) Users -> Mobile Workers -> Create Mobile Workers. Before this update, not all the search results would appear if pagination was utilized.
Improved counts in the Worker Activity Report. This update changes the date range for two columns of the Worker Activity Report so that the ranges are the same. This ensures more consistency with the data shown in "# Cases Created" and "# Active Cases".
Updated dropdown options when adding data exports. Under Data -> Export Form Data -> Add Export, this improvement fixes an issue so that when you are adding a new export, the correct forms are shown in the dropdown menu.
Removed reporting for Interactive Voice Response messages (IVRs). IVRs were a previous option for messaging within CommCare. Last year this feature was deprecated, and this update removes the Call Report and Expected Calls reports associated with IVRs.
Improved user import validation. Under Users -> Mobile Workers -> Bulk Upload, updates were made to simplify user import validation. This also improved some functionality including if duplicate usernames are uploaded, the upload will now fail all of the duplicated rows. Previously, the first user would be created and subsequent duplicate users would fail.
Added deprecation warnings to CommCare Exchange. Under commcare.hq.org/exchange and project settings -> CommCare Exchange, this update adds warnings to the top of the pages announcing that the Exchange will be retired in early December 2019.
General release of PowerBi / Tableau integration. The quick connect feature for CommCare -> PowerBi or Tableau is now generally available for partners on Advanced plans and above. This allows partners to easily build visualizations of their CommCare data. Read more at https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/CwXKfw.
Fix for submenu naming convention. This resolves an issue where a submenu set to "display only forms" would sometimes override the name of the parent menu.
Added label support in Web Apps. This update adds label support to Web Apps, which allows the ability to configure advanced CommCare android formatting as outlined in this article. Before this update, this configuration could be done in mobile apps but not in Web Apps.
Improved SMS error messages. When CommCare is hung processing a previous request by an SMS user they will receive this new message "Our system is receiving a lot of messages now. Can you re-send in 15 minutes? Apologies for the inconvenience!". Previously they received this message "An error has occurred. Please try again later. If the problem persists, try restarting the survey."
Fixed visuals used in report builder's map reports. In report builder, if you created the type of report "Map", the pins for the locations did not show as expected. This update ensures that the locations are shown on the map as intended.
Improved error messages for bulk translations. Under Applications -> Applications settings -> Languages -> Bulk CommCare translations, this update improves the error messages you receive when attempting to upload new CommCare UI translations. Specifically, if a default translation can't be found (i.e. if a translation was present in an older version of CommCare but not the current version) previously you would have received an error. With this update, instead of an error message, you will see a warning message instead. Similarly, if the translation doesn't have the parameters HQ expects, this will be shown as a warning rather than an error message.
Speed improvements for Group API. This update made changes to the Group API so that it is ~50% quicker!
Updated message for new scheduled reports. Under reports -> my scheduled reports, this change fixes the message after you create a new report. Previously it read "Scheduled report updated" and now reads "Scheduled report added".
Improved error message for case list registration and end of form navigation. This update improves the error messages when you try to use end of form navigation on a case list registration form. It modifies the message text on the form settings page (where you select EOF navigation) and adds a new message on the menu settings page (where you select case list registration).
Updated user interface for end of form navigation. When you choose end of form navigation, this update removes the "End of Registration Action" options which are not relevant. Instead you will see an informational text box.
Improved consistency in Report Builder reports. This update fixes an issue where Report Builder reports based on cases with date filters had different values for the web report versus the exported version of the report.
Improved user interface for multimedia reference checker. Under application settings -> multimedia -> multimedia reference checker:
Adds pagination for applications with several multimedia references and adds a column with a link to the menu/form (see attached screenshot).
Adds a filter to the top of the page when apps have more than one language (see attached screenshot).
Adds media type filter and path search (see attached screenshot)
Removes columns like status and the "view larger" button.
Updated error message for validation errors. When you have validation errors when building a form, this update provides error messages in a user-friendly format instead of showing less friendly server errors.
July - September 2019
Sub menus available as an add-on. This update moves sub menus (previously known as child modules) from a feature flag to a publicly available add-on. Sub menus simplifies app navigation by allowing you to nest one menu inside of another menu.
Improved filtering behavior in reports. This update fixes several bugs with multi-select report filters not working properly, particularly in saved reports for standard reports and UCRs.
Improved SMS count in enterprise dashboard. Some enterprise partners with multiple project spaces have access to a dashboard that summarizes activity from their different project spaces. This update improves the column called "# of SMS (last 30 days)" so that it includes both incoming and out-coming messages. Before this update, only incoming SMS messages were included in the count.
Updated conflicting user roles. Before this update, you could not delete a user that had been assigned a web user role, which was later promoted to a domain admin. This improvement fixes a bug where the user roles page still had that web user assignment and prevented you from deleting the role.
Speed improvements for Group API. This update made changes to the Group API so that it is quicker. Specifically, it is now paginated and groups now appear in alphabetical order (by group name).
Improved error messaging in excel case importer. Before this update, when you imported cases using excel you would sometimes receive the wrong error message for invalid case owners. Specifically this improvement will show correctly if you have issues with the "owner_name" column rather than confusing it for "owner_id".
Additional validation for bulk translations. Under applications -> settings -> languages -> bulk commcare translations, this update adds additional validation for User Interface translations. Specifically, translations are already validated for bad syntax and this change will also validate if the uploaded translation contains the same parameters as the default translation
Improved options for reassigning cases. Under data -> edit data-> reassign cases, this update improves the dropdown locations that populate after you select a case for reassignment so that the menu shows: individual mobile users, individual web users, case sharing groups, and locations
Improved multimedia error messages for releases. This update adds a step when making a CCZ file during a release. It verifies that all multimedia expected to be in the application are indeed included in the CCZ file and shows an error message in CommCare HQ if the multimedia is not present, indicating a bug. Note: this error message will not be shown if you add a multimedia reference and decide not to upload a file.
Fixed opening cases from advanced modules. This update fixed an issue that was preventing you from opening new cases from advanced modules. After this update, you can open cases as expected.
Added ability to copy a specific version of an app. Under Applications -> Settings -> Actions, this update allows you to specify a version of the app to copy. Before this improvement, you could only copy the latest updates made in an application.
Updated inputs for form exports. Under data -> export form data, this improvement adds the ability for you to select "unknown module" as a filtering criteria. This allows you to export deleted forms from apps that still exist. Before this fix, you could not select "unknown module" due to a bug in a drop down menu.
Improved interface when publishing apps with multimedia. When publishing an app with multimedia, this update removes the link to the multimedia reference checker. The intent was to let you know how to deal with missing multimedia, but for builds, this isn't actually a fixable problem. You can add multimedia to the current app, but you can't retroactively add it to old builds.
Improved data cleaning behavior: Minor bug fixing and improvements.
Added limits for multimedia exports. This update sets a 5GB limit for form multimedia exports. This ensures better platform reliability by reducing the risk of a user trying to download large files and impacting the available resources.
Added in line editing for export names and descriptions. Under data -> export data, this improvement adds the ability to edit names and descriptions of the exports directly in line with the descriptions.
New data export icons. Under data -> export data, this change added new icons to the different export options.
Improved end of form navigation. Under applications -> forms -> form settings -> logic, this update improves the behavior of end of form navigation. Specifically, if "display only forms" is chosen, the end of form navigation option will not be shown and if there is an issue with the configuration, an error will be displayed.
Updated clean case data behavior. Under reports -> case list -> clean case data, this improvement ensures that the case owner stays consistent, as expected, when the other data elements are edited. Before this update, the case owner would be re-assigned to the user who was conducting the data cleaning.
Improved app releases. With this update, if you start to create a new version of an application, another user cannot also start a new version of that application until your version is built.
This is a maintenance release and include various bug fixes and minor improvements.
Removed ability to adjust case name and type when cleaning data. Under Reports -> Inspect Data -> Clean Case Data, you now will not have the ability to change the case name or case type when cleaning the case data. Previously, these pieces of data could get accidentally edited.
Updated report filters using mobile workers. Before this fix, if you filtered by multiple mobile workers or groups in your reports, this filter would not be saved as expected. This update ensures that the query is saved and the field is not empty.
Improved checks for password formats. This update fixes a rare issue where Android apps see an error when making a build that has to do with the admin password format. This app setting is only relevant for J2ME applications.
Improved Web Apps in handling connectivity issues. Before this update, if you lost internet connection while submitting questions in a webapp, once you gained connection you would be unable to complete the form. With this improvement, once you gain internet access, you will be able to resubmit the question and finish the rest of the form.
Updated feature preview page. Under project settings -> project administration -> feature previews, this improvement adjusts the text found on the feature preview page. The new detail explains that these features are under active development and we are gathering data to understand the perceived value and user experience
Changed username pre-population. Before this update, your username would pre-populate in some fields like the "Custom Base URL" under the advanced settings. This improvement prevents usernames from populating in these fields.
Improved lookup tables performance. This update made changes to how lookup tables are loaded on a page so that it happens more quickly. It also prevents the page from showing a table header and partially blank rows while it loads.
Removed conditional alerts flag. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this update changed the text from "upload conditional alerts" to "upload SMS alert content."
April - June 2019
Improved language handling in form exports. When exporting form data, this update changes the way module names are populated to minimize issues that can occur when content is translated. It now pulls the module name based on (1) the user's preferred language, (2) all the languages in the app, then (3) a default "unknown module" name.
Updated views for location-restricted users. For users that are restricted by location, this improvement makes adjustments to the case data page. Specifically it allows these users to access: case cleaning, close case, undo close case, export case history, and view forms that updated a case.
Fixed filters when editing forms. When managing form data, this update improves the filters used to fetch the forms. Before this update, when you filtered by Advanced Options, the filter options seemed to change. Now the Advanced filter options remain the same after they are applied.
Added bulk app translations support for case list menu item label.
Added new column to the Web Users Report on the Enterprise Dashboard to track web user's last access date.
Location-restricted web users can now import cases, as long as the location of the owner of an imported case is accessible to the web user.
Fixed bulk application translations. Under Applications -> Views (gearbox) -> Languages, this update improves the Bulk Application Translations. Specifically, there was an issue where translations were not showing as expected on mobile devices in some cases. This fixed how markdown is handled so that the language translations would be reflected.
Improved ability to edit Report Menus descriptions. Under Applications -> Reports, before this update if a module contained a case list, you would not be able to edit its name or description. This update allows you to edit the information associated with the report menu.
Updated API to support legacy date format. This fix made an update to our API so that it supports a legacy date format as expected. The specific parameter is "date_modified_start param".
Fixed case filters when reassigning cases. Under the Data tab -> Edit Data -> Reassign cases, this update fixes the drop downs when you are trying to filter by case sharing group. Specifically, it improved the ability to filter by reporting group and case sharing group, when previously the filters did not work as expected.
Fixed case management refresh. Under the Applications tab -> (select a form) -> Manage case, this update fixes the refresh button located in the top right corner. Before this fix, if you made an update in a separate tab, the case management page would not be updated with this new information unless you refreshed the whole browser tab. Now you can refresh the page easily within CommCare HQ.
Fixed auto-populated list for reassign cases. Under the Data tab -> Edit Data -> Reassign cases, this update adds a drop down list to choose from. Before this fix, no users or groups would display when you wanted to reassign a case.
Improved error handling in case importer. Under the data tab, this improvement makes several changes to error messages and behaviors for "Import cases from Excel."
Fixed multimedia attachments. This update fixes an issue with multimedia where attachments that were uploaded into modules were not appearing on mobile apps.
Fixed API parameters. This update fixes a few API parameters so that they appear in queries as expected, including: format, case sensitivity, and date.
Updated filtering for APIs. This improvement allows you to filter for exact terms in an API query, such as specifying lower case.
Added marker to map-based questions. This improvement adds a pin to Google maps and allows you to see the location identified in GPS questions. Before this update, only the latitude and longitude coordinates were displayed - but no pin.
Fix for nested repeat groups. Before this update, you could not delete repeat groups that were nested within another repeat group. This fix allows you to delete the groups as expected.
Added lookup table description. This change added the ability to include descriptions for your lookup tables.
Improved formatting for messaging. This change improves the user interface for messaging. Specifically, under Messaging -> Broadcasts, it makes this page more consistent with the rest of CommCareHQ.
Adds support for loading ‘GIF’ Images attached to a question
Adds a “Discard” button in Image Capture question to easily remove an already attached image
In the “Saved Form” screen, “Unsent Forms” filter now shows forms in the order of their submission number. So a form on the top of the list will get uploaded first by CommCare on next sync
Bug fixes
Improved ability to load app translations. This change adds a unique ID column to translation files. This allows you to upload app translations for forms and modules where apps have been rearranged.
New API for large lookup tables. This update created a lookup table API, so large projects don't have a huge excel file to upload. Before this improvement, the excel uploads would often fail with little information sent back to the user.
Exports defaulted to Excel format. Before this update, if you exported form or case data, the file would be a CSV. This change improves the default option so that your file will be Excel 2007+.
Fixed module ID reference in case lists. This update fixed a bug in case lists related to module IDs. The bug caused incorrect error messages to show and information to be missing in the case list and case details.
Added inactivity timeout for web apps. This change logs you out of web apps after 30 minutes of inactivity. After that time has passed, you will need to log back in to continue filling out the app.
Indented group questions in form summary. In the app summary -> form summary, this improvement indents all related questions in a group. This allows you to easily see related questions altogether
Error message for excel download. When downloading a form export, there is a limit to how many rows can be supported in excel. This update adds an error message when you try to download a file that is too large.
Detect country when creating new account. When creating a new CommCare account, this update detects the country you are in and defaults to your current country flag.
Allow free text when editing data. Under reports -> inspect data -> clean case data, this change allows you to type in free text when you are editing data fields. Before this fix, you could only choose drop down options when using a FireFox browser.
Fixed case list display properties. This update fixed an issue with how case list display properties appeared. Before this change, the properties incorrectly defaulted to the case property names.
Updated formatting for labels in nested groups. Before this update, questions appeared differently on web apps versus mobile apps. This change improved how labels appear in nested groups and question lists.
Fixed automatic case update views. Before this change, the case filters for automatic case closures were not visible or configurable. This fix allows you to add case filters as expected.
Improved buttons throughout app manager, SMS, and users. This update makes minor visual changes to the drop down buttons throughout app manager, SMS, and users on HQ.
Improved navigation on conditional alerts. When creating conditional alerts under messaging, this update changes your navigation through the process. Instead of being able to save the alert with missing information, you are now guided through each tab until all the required details are filled out.
Added sorting to dropdown of build profiles. When deploying your application and selecting application profiles, this update added sorting to the dropdown menu.
Improved multimedia reference checker. This update improves the load time for the multimedia reference checker and also adds a spinner on the page for when it is loading.
This point release fixes a regression introduced in CommCare 2.45 due to which CommCare was not respecting the “Image Size” setting set for an Image Capture question and was uploading the original sized images to HQ irrespective of what “Image Size” was set to. It’s recommended to update CommCare from playstore in case your CommCare app utilizes “Image size” setting for image capture questions.
Fixed button when reporting an issue. When reporting an issue directly from HQ, you have an option to (1) submit your report after you fill it out or (2) cancel it. Before this fix, if you tried to submit two issues in a row you would not be able to click the "cancel" button.
"View Only" mode for user roles. This significant update adds the ability to assign some users to "view only" permissions, which allows them to access but not edit areas of HQ. An in-product notification was also added to highlight this change.
Combined errors in case list/detail configuration. This update shows all errors at once in the case list/detail configuration. Before this change, you would see only one error pop up, attempt a fix, and find other errors still remained.
Added SMS usage to Enterprise Dashboard report. This change adds a heading to the Enterprise Dashboard report on Project Spaces. The new column shows the number of SMS sent in the last 30 days. Note that the Enterprise Dashboard is available only on the Enterprise plan.
January - March 2019
Fixed pagination alignment on dashboard. This improvement fixed how pagination is aligned on the main dashboard. It is now left justified.
Updated selection buttons. This update improves the buttons used for selecting options on certain pages, like in the "SMS settings" and "Edit scheduled report."
Added link to Status Page. This update adds a link in HQ directly to our new status page. In the page you will find real time information about the availability of CommCare and its components, status updates on service interruptions and scheduled downtime. (see here for link to the status page and see attached screenshot for the HQ update)
Added comments when reverting apps. When reverting an application version, this improvement adds a comment about the previous builds.
Added subscription notifications. This update warns you if your prepaid CommCare subscription is running low. You then have the option to extend your subscription or be reminded at a later time.
Added permissions error for data exports. This update adds a 403 error when you try to download a data export, but you don't have permissions to "View Reports." Previously this error was not shown if a user had permissions to "Edit data."
Stopped auto-completing input fields. This improvement prevents Chrome from filling your saved username to the input text field
Removed "edit mode" when users do not have permissions. This update removes the ability to edit data if a web user does not have permission to do so.
Error message for translation file uploads. This update adds an error message when you try to upload a translation file and it fails. The message also informs you what sheet in the file is causing the issue.
Added links directly to questions in form summary. When viewing the form summary portion of app summary, this update adds links to the questions. These links bring you directly to that question in the app builder.
Updated message about unrestricted SMS. This improvement changed the wording of the message shown for unrestricted SMS messages. This message is shown when SMS restrictions were configured by not active.
Improved app filtering in submit history. In submit history previously, the report would filter by app whenever the status was not blank. This would cause forms to get excluded as the status was hidden and set to "active" by default. This update improves this behavior by not filtering by app unless the advanced filtering options are shown or an app is selected.
Fixed case types in case importer. Before this update, the case importer would not recognize upper and lower case text as expected. This fix allows you to use different case types and the text uploads as expected.
Removed dashboard pagination when not relevant. This update does not show pagination on the dashboard page when it is not needed.
Improved bulk user uploads. This change improves the speed and reliability of bulk user uploads. Previously, the upload would error out if you were trying to import or export too many users at once. Now, the usernames on the back end are uploaded in batches to reduce the error rate.
Updated user filters for report. This change improved the user filters in reports to be more consistent throughout HQ. Specifically, it ensures that deactivated users are part of querying, along with the existing web and active mobile users options. This applies to regular and daily saved case and form exports, and the exports for the excel dashboard.
Updated filters for the excel dashboard. This improvements shows all the data available when no filters are selected for the excel dashboard.
Linked multimedia to languages. This update allows you to link specific multimedia to projects with multiple languages. This option was previously a feature flag, and is now available in the core platform.
Added pagination to conditional alerts. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this update improves the navigation of this page and makes it more similar to other areas of HQ. Specifically pagination has been added and the formatting of the table has been improved.
Prevented scheduled reports to start in the past. Under Reports -> Project Reports -> Configure Scheduled Report, this update prevents users from changing a report start date to be set in the past. An error message is also shown to the user.
Added ability to save "items per page" for pagination. This update remembers your selection of "items per page" in order to streamline searching and filtering for specific items.
Improved multimedia reference checker. This update improves the load time for the multimedia reference checker and also adds a spinner on the page for when it is loading.
Added search box to conditional alerts. Under Messaging -> Conditional Alerts, this update adds a search box to the page and standardizes how search works across several areas of HQ.
Added start date for reports. This update adds a "Report Start Date" field to the Configure Scheduled Report page. This effective start date allows you to schedule reports to start in the future.
Adds support for right to left languages
Revamps CommCare Recovery Mode to automatically initiate all recovery processes without any user intervention
Added "save to case" to form summary. When using the form summary to view your app, this update allows you to view information related to "save to case" properties. Specifically, you can view each save to case question and which case property is updated by that particular question.
Fix for location filter in message log. Before this update, the location filter for the message log would return blank fields if a location contained punctuation. This change fixes the issue so that the filtering works as expected.
Fix for Daily Saved Exports text. Before this update, Daily Saved Exports showed the message "No data is available yet. Please click 'update data' if the automatic scheduler hasn't picked up the changes in a while." This message was shown even when the data was recently updated. This change implemented a fix so that the message is only shown when the data needs updating.
Improved new account confirmation emails. This change improves the amount of time it takes to receive a confirmation email when creating a new HQ account.
Surfaced errors during ccz creation. Sometimes errors can occur when creating a ccz during the application publishing process. This update exposes the error messages to help you in troubleshooting the issues with the file.
Shows calculated case list properties in case summary. This change adds more detail to the case summary so that you can search for this information. Specifically, it adds calculated case list properties so that you can see this throughout your app.
Added "search by version" to releases. This update adds the ability to search by version in the app release page. It will return results based on the version number and the version comments.
Improved report counts. This update improves the counts for reports so that they are more accurate. Previously, only report_id was used in the count but multiple reports could have the same report_id. With this update, both id and report_id are used.
Wider app preview bar. This update widens the app preview bar, so that it is easier for you to shrink or expand on the page.
Hiding full menu along with trial banner. This improvement ensures when you click "hide full menu", both the trial banner and the menu are hidden.
Fixed language tags on mobile. This update fixed an issue where you would see language tags like [en] on mobile.
Fixed errors on case list filtering and sorting. This improvement fixed issues with case lists and case details, where case data was not appearing as expected.
Added pagination for case importer uploads. This update adds pagination to the case importer uploads.
Added case information to form summary. This update shows case properties on the form summary page, which allows you to trace dependencies within an application. This update is part of the first QA tool being built by Solutions: Enhanced App Summary.
Fixed error message for app builds. Before this update, app builds were failing for applications that had an invalid case list filter and the wrong error message was populating. This fix shows the intended error message.
Improved case properties in case summary. This update solves a few bugs that existed with case summary, including: (a) fixing a longstanding issue where case properties referenced only in case details were not shown in the summary (b) showing an error message if you reference a parent property in a case list/detail, but the case type doesn't have a parent (c) Fixes a bug where the error popovers would not show (see attached screenshot).
Added app summary button to form builder. A button was added to form builder to link directly to the app summary page, allowing you to quickly navigate to the summary page while app building (see attached screenshot).
Updated messaging for no web users. This update adds a message if there are no users in the project and there is a query
Improved case summary performance for complex apps. Before this update, case summary would not work or take an extremely long time to load for complex applications. A number of back-end changes were made so that case summary will now load as expected and it takes ~35 seconds for a complex app.
Show form and module display conditions in form summary. This update adds more information in the app summary -> form summary page. Specifically, it adds the display conditions for forms and modules so that this app logic is more clearly captured within the app summary.
Improved app summary performance for complex apps. Before this update, form summary would not work or take an extremely long time to load for complex applications.
Updated delete and copy buttons on data exports. This improvement swapped the location of the delete and copy buttons for data exports. Now there is a "delete" button next to each row of exports, and the "copy" button is available when you click in to edit a particular export.
Added pagination to data exports. Before this update, the exports page would take a long time to load for project spaces with a large number of form, daily saved, or case exports. This improvement added pagination to the exports page, so that a smaller number of exports load at one time and the page loads faster.
Show message for no web users. This update adds a message for a project without web users in the tab Users -> Web Users & Roles. The message reads: "This project has no web users.
Added CommCare icons to HQ and Formplayer. This improvement adds CommCare icons that can be used in both HQ and for formplayer. This allows the icons to show up properly on iOS devices.
Fixed progress bar on daily saved exports. This improvement fixed the progress bar that shows when downloading Daily Saved Exports.
Updated colors for active buttons. This fix improved the colors used for active buttons on the data exports. Previously, when a button was selected, the colors would not change to indicate activation.
Fix for XForm download error. Before this update, some users were experiencing an error when downloading the xml for a form. This update made improvements so that the download occurs as expected.
Added help text for saved exports. This improvement added help text on the input screens for saved exports. Specifically, the new text provides detail for "Date Range" to help you understand the type of inputs to apply.
Improvement for bulk app translations upload for large applications. Previously, when using bulk application translations with large apps, you would receive an error and not be able to upload the translations. This fix ensures an error is not thrown and the functionality works as expected.
Updated error message for xls bulk exports. This improvement adds an error message if you try to bulk export too many data columns. The message reads "This file has more than 256 columns, which is not supported by xls. Please change the output type to csv or xlsx to export this file."
Improved styling for navigation buttons. Navigation buttons were updated to improve the look and feel of pages like the Release tab, Reports page, App form summary, and Custom data fields.
Added alert bubble for new export fields. This update adds an alert bubble on the data export tab which tells you that the fields "form_link" and "case_link" are now available in form and cases exports. This allows you to access forms and case directly from your exports via a URL link.
Improved app preview load times. This improvement made adjustments to how files are created in order to reduce the time it takes to load app preview (see attached screenshot). Note: since this release, we've seen significant improvement for load times in complex apps!
Fixed missing media attachments in exports. There was a bug in how exports would handle questions that started as multimedia questions and were changed. This update fixed the issue so that these questions could be exported as expected.
Aligned check boxes on Scheduled Reports. On the Scheduled Reports edit page, the check boxes to select "Send to owner" and "Attach Excel Report" were previously near the middle of the page. This updates the alignment, so they are better matched with everything else on the page and are moved below the Email Subject field.
Improved error handling for saved exports. Previously when a saved export failed, the progress was frozen for 24 hours and you would see an empty progress bar. This update displays an error message when there is an issue, and allows you to try again.
Added start date for reports. This update adds a "Report Start Date" field to the Configure Scheduled Report page. This effective start date allows you to schedule reports to start in the future.
Fix location site code validation. This update checks that the site code for locations does not include special characters or spaces. If the site code is invalid, an error message is shows. Additionally, new locations will fail if no organization level is present.
It removes the functionality to install a CommCare App by scanning a SMS. This is done in order for CommCare to comply with the updated Google Play developer policies.
This update also now targets Android 8 devices and provides full support for them.
Updated wording when removing a user. This update was a small wording change that switched "domain" to "project space" when removing a user.
Improved text colors for sign-up forms. The signup form has a light background, and this update changed the text color on the form to dark text for greater contrast.
Improved consistency of case history. This change ensures you see the same case history when viewing the history directly in HQ and when downloading the case history file.
Fixed app summary download errors. Before this update, you would receive a server error message when downloading app summary if questions had numeric options. This fix resolved the issue, so that app summary could be downloaded as expected for apps with numeric options.
Increased digits in app preview. Before this update, integer and decimal questions could only be viewed up to 9 digits using app preview. With this change, the maximum values were increased in app preview so they are in line with the limits used in mobile:10 digits for integer and 15 digits for decimal questions.
Removed borders from modal popup. This improvement removed borders from modal screens in order to improve the user experience.
Removed link from the applications dashboard. On the CommCare HQ dashboard, this update improved the "Applications" section. When no apps exist, the box includes a link for you to create a new app. If apps exist, only links to your existing apps are included.
Improvements for timeout errors. Timeout errors were being received when loading Mobile Workers on the Users tab. Changes were made to the backend to minimize these types of errors.
Fixed language switcher on app summary. This update fixed the language switcher on the app summary page, so that the switcher worked as intended.