Release Notes for New Features and Bug Fixes

As part of our commitment to improve our software and system, we deploy new features and bug fixes on an ongoing basis. A summary of recent changes follows.

August 2026

Added August 2026 Newsletter.

July 2026

Added Facekbook and LinkIn links.
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - Conclusion | Part 7 of 7"
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - So, What Do Nonprofits Really Want? | Part 6 of 7"
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - Why Have Data Sharing Systems Failed? | Part 5 of 7"
Changed User Agreement and Privacy Policy to let a grantmaker explicitly authorize an AI client tool to connect to their CGA account and access exactly the data they could already see themselves, while making clear that once the data leaves CGA's systems, the grantmaker is responsible for how their AI tool is used and CGA isn't liable for what happens to the data after that point.
Added Model Context Protocol (MCP) resource server for future AI use.
Added Open Authorization (OAuth 2.1) authorization server to provide access control and security for future AI use.
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - What Has Been Tried? | Part 4 of 7"
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - Why Is Data Sharing Hard? | Part 3 of 7"
Removed "Set All Questions to Abstain" on evaluation page. It is still possible to set individual questions to abstain.
Made changes to ensure deliverability of email from user-initiated emails by using noreply@commongrantapplication.com in the From address and placing the user email address in the Reply-To address. For most email clients the Reply-To address is invisible in the normal view but when the recipient hits Reply their email client silently pre-fills the To field with the Reply-To address instead of the From address.

June 2026

Added a new blog entry titled "A Small Experiment Using AI - Part 2"
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - An Introduction | Part 1 of 7"
Added a new blog entry titled "Data Sharing Systems - What is Data Sharing? | Part 2 of 7"
Changed text in popups and pages to more accurately reflect who emails may be sent to.
Updated manual pages to describe in more detail email and message sending rules.
Fixed display link to more accurately reflect selected email destinations in popups.
Changed review app, grants and scholarships page to send an email to the account owner and/or administrators (depending on their email preferences) and any non-user applicant in the application.
Changed applicants page to send an email to the account owner and/or administrators (depending on their email preferences).

May 2026

Updated help manual to provide more detail about rules for saving and sending emails and messages.
Extended retention period for emails from 1 year to 2 years.
Added May 2026 Newsletter.
Fixed display issue with checklist input field.
Added delete of any reports in progress by applicant if the grantmaker replaces or deletes the report form.
Fixed display issue with hero image.
Added inclusion of applicant specified in an application to send email or message when the applicant is not a user of an account that submitted the application.
Changed some formatting of blog posts.

April 2026

Added a new blog entry titled "A Small Experiment Using AI"
Added some clarifying text to various popups.
Added a new blog entry titled "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Overview & Support"
Added a new blog entry titled "Game of Philanthropy"
Republished newsletter archive from Mailchimp to the Website.
Added Claude based Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot for support. The chatbot uses the information from the Websites public pages, FAQ pages and Help pages. It does not use any additional information from the Website or the Internet. It is divided into two separate chatbots, one for grantmakers and the other for applicants. After logging in, just look for the blue circle towards the bottom right-hand side of the screen. Click on it and ask your question. When finished, just hit the escape key.
Added grant agreement template support. You can now create and manage a library of reusable grant agreement templates. When setting up a web form grant agreement for grantees signature, grantmakers can either enter text manually or select a saved template and click 'Copy'' to instantly populate the grant agreement field. Selecting the "Blank"" template will clear the field.
Shifted quick actions dropdown on status and settings sidebar up to the header to clear the sidebar area.
Removed Status and Settings sidebar with indicators from all pages except the Dashboard and replaced it with a Check Settings function from the Dashboard. The sidebar was confusing and not used frequently. The Check Settings function performs a settings check in one place and provide easy to understand and use diagnostic information.
Added and reorganized a number of pages on the public side of the site to provide more useful marketing information and to improve SEO and LLM search and indexing.
Updated release notes.

March 2026

Split FAQs into FAQs and Help to better separate help topics from marketing topics.
Fixed mobile display consistency with header and logo.
Updated privacy policy.
Changed email text for popups to clarify who emails are being sent to.

February 2026

Reorganized and added some marketing text on the home page.
Added code to hide organization name if user type is individual for add an application.
Fixed issue with branching questions in add an application.
Fixed program display for scholarship evaluations in custom reports.
Fixed delete logo.
Fixed display of contact phone number for organization and user.
Fixed issue with logo display on mobile.
Changed header and footer for private help pages to get rid of login and about us info.
Removed stale users, those that have not submitted an application and last logged in over 2 years ago.
Fixed text describing how to edit reasons and help.
Fixed display of queued status to gsk users.
Added February 2026 Newsletter.

January 2026

Fixed missing user first and last name for display of various views on Evaluations page.
Fixed some misdirected links to reasons, allocations and advisories.
Fixed empty evaluation step list warning for empty evaluation step on quick action dropdown.
Fixed missing first and last name for single evaluator export of My Evaluations by column.
Fixed check for sending email in process queue.
Fixed and cleaned up processing of emails being sent for dequeing of status changes.
Fixed missing first and last name in one form of evaluation display.
Fixed Web display of total evaluation value which truncated 2 digits of precision.
Added error report if no column specified for table configuration (e.g. +row1,ro2).
Fixed issue with branching logic.

December 2025

Changed default for Applicants page filter to "Applicants that have submitted application to you".
Removed links to organization and program profiles in initial steps of start draft application. Rely on links in the action dropdown.
Fixed export to CSV of evaluations in columnar form.
Added Amount Approved column to Previous Applications page.
Increased column width for one field in print to PDF for evaluations.
Fixed clear self-identified conflict by user.
Fixed clearing of conflict from grants or scholarships page.
Fixed QR codes that are part of submitted application.
Made additions to PDF for Bill.com integration.
Fixed popups for application forms that prevented removal of a form from a program.
Fixed changing the number of grant cycles.
Removed display video from from login or register if no video is available.
Fixed search in evaluator group management.

November 2025

Unlinked the Primary, Secondary, Program, Billing, user contacts. Each contact is now independent of any other contact, each user is now independent of any other user and the Primary, Secondary, Program, Billing contacts are independent of any user. The contacts will be initially be prepopulated with existing information but the values can provide as much or as little information as desired and can be changed independently on a going forward basis. This will provide greater flexibility for how contact and user information is managed and displayed.
Simplified grantmaker privacy controls by removing much of the granularity and making the program privacy controls global in scope rather than on a per program basis. Removed the granularity controls for organization contacts, all controls for program documents, and some controls for organization background and program background.
Rearranged some pages and tabs to make navigation easier. Renamed the applicant and grantmaker Account links on the Dashboard to Users so the major links from the Dashboard are now Users, Organization, and Programs. Moved the grantmaker Filters, Billing and Other tabs and their respective subtabs from the Account page to the Organization page. Moved some grantmaker Status fields from the Account to the Organization sidebar. Moved Organization and Program Advisories tab out from underneath the Applications tab into their own advisories tab since they are really independent of the applications.
Fixed the display of evaluation buttons in an application when the number of evaluation steps for the application is none.
Fixed display of applicant answer list on the dashboard.
Fixed applicant withdraw action for scholarship applications.
Fixed the address construction and display in an application to deal with the two types of zip codes.
Removed a dropdown selection value on the grantmaker applicants listing page for a selection that is no longer supported.
Fixed program contact construction for emails that had no program contact.
Removed copy to new program function on Programs page.
Fixed display of applicant and grantmaker organization information to applicants and grantmakers, depending on whom it is being viewed by.
Fixed name display in message pane for user.
Fixed problem with application de-queue operation.
Fixed organization name display on public Register page if the form submission returns with errors and "Individual or Student" is selected.
Renamed "Send Account Info" action to "Send User Name and Password" or "Send User Name".
Added client-side checking and warning for file uploads that exceed the system file size limit.
Fixed the organization name display in the draft application box on applicants Dashbord.
Added missing error functions for grantmaker input fields on the public Register page.
Fixed the creation and addition of users to the grantmaker all evaluation group when a new grantmaker user is added.
Fixed display on payment information on initial configuration of gmk when there is no credit card info.
Added organization name and country to grantmaker add an application to make it consistent with the minimum required information for a new user.
Removed restrict to function since it has not been used by grantmakers.
Allowed user to review themselves on Users page.
Moved the email CC field from Email Preferences page to the User Contact page.
Removed the Applicant Program Name from the grantmaker progress page.
Removed code that allowed applicant owners to delete themselves.
Removed Grants Paid and Grants Unpaid from the public grantmaker Statistics page.
Fixed the selection of the grantmaker listing page on the public side for grants and scholarships.
Changed the default evaluation process from 1 step to none.
Fixed the display of the value of the grant evaluation process value on grants and scholarships listing pages from Unknown to None.
Simplified counting of applications on the public About Us page to improve performance.
Changed the database engine, some database structures and some code to improve performance and reliability.
Fixed construction of email address in report reminder.
Added some help information.
Fixed code sequence to generate Bill.com email.
Fixed check for two of the same user names on registration.
Added November 2025 Newsletter.

October 2025

Fixed issue with line breaks not being properly converted when sending out HTML emails.
Changed formatting for application page display to make it clearer what text is part of the question and what text is part of the answer.
Fixed issue with grant cycles that wrap around a year boundary.
Updated message displayed when no programs are available to tell applicants that came from direct link to check back later.
Added applicant video to public Register page.
Updated password checking and error message to include ampersand, updated password and userName error messages to display symbols to remove ambiguity.
Modified thumbnail code to not display thumbnail on grantmaker uploads (i.e., templates for applicants to fill in/upload in the application process).
Added formatting and currency display to amount requested field types in custom report display and PDF export.
Fixed display of table questions in custom report output.
Added code to delete messages older than 1 year.
Removed grantmaker program/application documents from the public side of the Web site.
Fixed issue where documents would bulk download instead of displaying inline for PDFs viewed by the grantmaker.
Fixed issue where some application Amount Requested fields were missing their currency symbol and suffix.
Fixed issue with evaluation notes visibility when the matrix contained "Question Only, Long" questions.
Added show/hide password functionality (eye icon) on register page.
Fixed issue where grantmaker logo was not displaying correctly on grantmaker-specific links to register and login pages.
Added inline viewing for all uploaded document types except audio/video files.

September 2025

Fixed issue with sending certain unicode/UTF-8 characters via "Send Email" option.
Updated Help pages to reflect new and/or updated Web site functionality.
Fixed various issues with setting application form fields to Final and moving fields from Final back to Draft status.
Added the ability to set a custom expiration date for push invitations.
Fixed issue with displaying next grant cycle open date in some situations.
Fixed issue with monthly subscription charge not correctly displaying in confirmation email.
Code and database cleanup to prepare for future improvements.
Fixed issues with moving multiple applications to a different program.
Added pages for Release Notes and Newsletter Archive.
Fixed issue where some application links were not applying the correct filter (Scholarships and/or Grants) when applicant reached the Select Program page in the application process.
Updated grantmaker dashboard to only display Scholarship section for customers who don't use Grants functionality.
Removed display of applications on public grant statistics page.
Fixed display of default for enumerated list in add / edit object page.
Added September 2025 Newsletter.

August 2025

Relocated Send Email fields on some popups for consistency.
Fixed issue with checklist and input string question type where entering a non-numerical value caused an issue with automatic totaling.
Modified document upload code so relevant errors are displayed with the relevant document rather than at the top of the page.
Fixed issue with deletion of grant reports where data was not getting completely deleted under certain conditions.
Fixed issue with application submission advisory not displaying line breaks to applicant.
Added show/hide password functionality (eye icon) on login page.
Added functionality to hide grantmaker programs that are not currently open for applications to simplify process for applicants.