Platform

New

• We've released the first iteration of new SMS opt-in infrastructure. We know that organizations are increasingly using SMS to connect with supporters, and this feature allows you to collect separate opt-ins for emails and SMS. To get started, go to the org admin homepage > Settings > SMS Opt-In Types. You can choose implicit consent with a customized disclaimer or a check box with a custom label. We'll track SMS consent as people sign petitions and/or RSVP to events, and SMS opt-in status will be included in CSV exports. This is the first iteration of this feature, and updates are forthcoming. †

Updates / Bug Fixes

• We've updated our email validation rules. We're now checking that the email address entered into the form has a valid MX record (the DNS record that's required for a domain to accept mail). This validation will prevent people from signing petitions with invalid email addresses, including mistyped addresses, and reduce the non-contactable people who are added to your list. 
  
  
• Our In response to the brief outage due to high traffic incident we reported on 15 April, we've updated our infrastructure configuration so that we automatically scale up even more quickly in response to extreme sudden spikes in platform traffic. Our goal is always to be able to automatically respond to heavy usage without any customer-facing effects, and this change should help us meet that goal. We now auto scale up more aggressively and maintain more capacity in reserve on standby.
  
  
• We're now using a new internal service called Rollbar for systems monitoring and error reporting. We previously updated our list of subprocessors to reflect that change.  
  
  
• We've modernized the code that's used to power the petition sources popover on the org admin all petitions list. 
  
  
• Previously, we were logging errors if we sent an unsubscribe request sent to NationBuilder or ActionKit but the user being unsubscribed hadn't previously been synced to NationBuilder or ActionKit (because the sync was enabled after the user took action or because the sync was rejected for some other reason). We're now showing that information in the sync log. †
  
  
• We've embarked on a program to improve page performance throughout the platform by carefully benchmarking certain critical code paths. This has already improved the Time To First Byte returned for many requests by 30 milliseconds, with more performance improvements to come. These performance improvements help us provide a more reliable and consistent experience to your supporters while also improving the overall resilience of the platform to large increases in traffic. 

Petitions

Updates / Bug Fixes

• For efforts and landing pages, we've updated the design of the new petition form and the form's banner image is now centered (along with the rest of the form).
  

Events

Updates / Bug Fixes

• When uploading a CSV of events, we would show a 404 error page if the admin clicked the upload button without first choosing a CSV to upload. Now, if a CSV is not selected, we'll show an error message on the upload page. †

Nothing new in groups or VisitThem.

† This feature required new text strings. If you're using the platform in a language other than English, you may need to provide updated translations.