Release 1.7.7 - 12 March 2026
This release brings some exciting new features to Live Learning and capability assessments, alongside a solid round of performance improvements, accessibility fixes, and data integrity enhancements. We've also squashed several bugs that were affecting reporting accuracy and supervisor workflows. Here's everything that's new in 1.7.7.
What's New 🎊
AR-10194: Activity Completion Email Nudge
Admins and Facilitators can now configure a custom email nudge on a specific activity within a course. When a learner completes that activity, the platform automatically sends a personalised email to that learner immediately upon completion. This feature is designed to support structured learning journeys where timely follow-up is important — for example, prompting a learner to take a next step right after completing a key module.
The nudge is configured at the activity level within the course authoring experience, making it straightforward to set up and maintain across many courses without introducing new email template complexity.
Why did we do this? This feature was developed to support customers who require automated, activity-triggered communication as part of their learning workflows, enabling more responsive and personalised learner experiences.
AR-10131: Multiple Reminder Emails for Live Learning Sessions
Admins and Facilitators can now configure multiple reminder emails for a single Live Learning session — for example, at 14 days, 7 days, 1 day, and day-of. This extends the existing single-reminder capability using the same familiar reminder email content and template, so there's no additional complexity when setting up or editing reminders.
This setting is available when creating or editing a Live Learning session, and each reminder can be independently scheduled.
Why did we do this? Previously, only one reminder email could be sent per session. Multiple touchpoints before a live event significantly improve attendance rates, and customers needed a simple way to configure these without managing multiple templates.
Changes ✨
AR-10316: RSVP Confirmation Email Reply-To Header Updated
RSVP confirmation emails triggered by Live Learning session registrations now include a Reply-To: noreply@acornplms.com header. This ensures that auto-generated replies are routed to a no-reply address rather than a customer's monitored inbox.
Why did we do this? Customers using a custom sender email address were receiving RSVP auto-replies in their active inboxes, creating noise and confusion. This change eliminates that issue without affecting customers using the default sender configuration.
AR-10281: Ratings Data Removed from Shared Capability View
When a supervisor opens a capability that they share with an employee, assessment ratings and scores are no longer displayed on that screen. The capability view now shows only the capability title, description, proficiency level descriptions, and related links. Scores remain accessible via reporting and assessment history screens.
Why did we do this? The shared capability view was incorrectly displaying the supervisor's own assessment scores instead of the employee's. Rather than risk showing incorrect data during review conversations, ratings have been removed from this view as an interim fix while the underlying data logic is improved.
AR-10299: Improved Validation Messages for Required Fields
Validation messages across Live Learning session forms have been reviewed and updated to ensure users receive clear, accurate feedback when required fields are missing or invalid. This includes more specific messaging when a reminder field is left empty, when a duplicate reminder day is entered, and when an invalid value such as zero is used.
Why did we do this? Some validation scenarios were showing incorrect or misleading error messages, which made it harder for users to understand what needed to be corrected before saving a session.
AR-10037: Assessment Forms Used in Campaigns Can No Longer Be Deleted
Custom capability assessment forms that have been used in any campaign — regardless of whether that campaign is active, completed, or archived — are now protected from deletion. The delete action is disabled in the UI, and a clear message explains why.
Why did we do this? Deleting a form that had been used in a campaign caused assessment history, user submissions, and reporting data to become unavailable. This change protects data integrity and prevents accidental loss of historical assessment records.
AR-10125: Pending Assessment Slider Performance Improved
The pending assessment slider on the Assessment Supervisor Dashboard has been significantly optimised for tenancies with large data sets. The backend endpoint has been rewritten to return a streamlined data structure, and the frontend has been updated to work with this lighter payload.
Why did we do this? The slider was loading very slowly for tenancies with large numbers of users and submissions due to the volume of data being cross-referenced to build each card. This improvement ensures the feature remains usable at scale.
AR-10097: Settings Dropdown Text Corrected to Sentence Case
Text within the Capability Dashboard settings dropdown has been updated to use sentence case, matching the established design system conventions. The "Delete Capability Library" option was previously displayed in title case.
Why did we do this? This was identified as a discrepancy during Design QA and has been corrected to align with the approved designs.
AR-10096: Capability Assessment Tab Panel Height Increased
The tab panel height on the Capability Assessment page has been increased from approximately 453px to closer to 600px, improving spacing between the illustration and surrounding elements.
Why did we do this? The previous height made the layout feel cramped and didn't match the approved design specifications.
AR-10094: "Updated" Date Added to Individual Capabilities Cards
Individual Capability cards on the Capability Dashboard now display an "Updated on [date]" value, bringing them in line with the design specification.
Why did we do this? This date was missing from the card, identified during Design QA as a discrepancy from the approved designs.
AR-10093: "Updated" Date Added to Capability Sets Cards
Capability Sets cards on the Capability Dashboard now also display an "Updated on [date]" value.
Why did we do this? Same as AR-10094 — this date was absent from the Capability Sets card and has been added to match the approved designs.
AR-10092: Past Campaigns Button on Capability Assessment Page Reviewed
The "Past Campaigns" button on the Capability Assessment page has been reviewed and updated as part of the Design QA pass for the Capability Dashboard.
Why did we do this? This was flagged during Design QA for review against the reference designs.
AR-10091: Launch Capability Dashboard Button Height and Text Corrected
Buttons on the Launch Capability Dashboard have been adjusted to match the correct height from the design specifications. Text wrapping has also been reviewed to avoid orphaned words on the last line.
Why did we do this? Buttons were rendering taller than the approved designs, and a single orphaned word on the last line of button text created a visually inconsistent layout.
AR-10090: Launch Capability Dashboard URL Text Colour and Spacing Fixed
The URL text colour on the Launch Capability Dashboard has been corrected from the primary colour variable to the secondary colour variable, and extra spacing between the final word and the full stop has been removed.
Why did we do this? Both the colour and the spacing were identified as discrepancies from the approved designs during the Design QA process.
AR-9943: Scorecard View Modal Width and Minimum Row Height Improved
The Scorecard view modal maximum width has been increased from 1280px to 1660px to better match the design specification. Additionally, the table now displays a minimum of 4–5 rows even when the user has only a small number of assigned capabilities, preventing the modal from appearing awkwardly short.
Why did we do this? The narrower modal was a technical limitation that didn't align with the intended design. The empty table appearance for users with few capabilities also looked unpolished and has been resolved.
AR-10224: Accessibility Improvements to QR Code Download Page
The "Backup check-in link" on the QR Code Download page has been refactored from an unstyled div with an onClick handler into a properly labelled secondary button. The button now includes a descriptive aria-label of "Copy backup check-in link," and announces success via an aria-live region after the URL is copied to the clipboard. This is found on the QR Code page accessible from a Live Learning session.
Why did we do this? The previous implementation used a link-like element for a copy action, creating a mismatch between the announced role and the actual behaviour — which was confusing for screen reader users and a WCAG non-conformance.
AR-10223: Nested Interactive Elements Fixed in Session Information Table Row
In the Session Information table row, a button element that was incorrectly nested inside a link element has been restructured. Navigation is now handled by the button component directly, eliminating the semantic conflict that caused unpredictable behaviour for keyboard and assistive technology users.
Why did we do this? Nesting interactive elements creates accessibility issues — screen readers may announce or handle the interaction unexpectedly, and keyboard navigation becomes harder than necessary.
AR-10324: Icon Alignment and Whitespace Corrected on QR Code Page
Minor visual adjustments have been made to the QR Code page to correct icon alignment and remove unintended whitespace near the "Backup check-in link" button area.
Why did we do this? This was a visual polish fix identified as part of the QR Code accessibility work in AR-10224.
Bug Fixes 🐞
AR-10305: Supervisors Can Now Consistently View Team Members' Last Self-Assessments
Fixed a permissions oversight that prevented supervisors from reliably seeing their team members' most recent self-assessments when conducting an assessment. A new suite of tests has been added to cover these specific permission gates going forward.
AR-10259: Gap Analysis Report Now Shows Most Recent Assessment Level
The Capability Assessment Gap Analysis Report was displaying the oldest (first) assessment level for each assessment type — self-assessed, supervisor-assessed, and other — instead of the most recent. This has been corrected by sorting submissions by submission time (newest first) and deduplicating before display.
AR-10243: Rapid Clicks on "Assess" Button No Longer Create Duplicate Submissions
Rapidly clicking the "Assess" button on the Assessment Supervisor Dashboard was firing multiple simultaneous POST requests before the first completed, resulting in duplicate supervisor assessment submissions for the same capability and team member. Both frontend debouncing and backend deduplication protections have been applied to prevent this.
AR-10257: Cron Job Added to Clean Up Wrongfully Migrated Assessment Records
A cron job has been introduced to identify and remove assessment submission records that were incorrectly resurrected during a data migration. This is an automated background cleanup and requires no user action.
AR-10144: Orphaned Assessment Submissions No Longer Block Form Completion
When a capability is deleted, any associated assessment submissions will now be properly cleaned up or handled gracefully. Previously, orphaned submissions caused the entire assessment workflow to become unusable, as the deleted capability's field was still treated as required.
This has significant user experience impact — affected users and supervisors were completely unable to complete pending assessments.
AR-10220: UI Flicker on Self Capability Assessment Form Submission Resolved
After submitting a self capability assessment form, the "Select a Capability" page was briefly and incorrectly re-rendered before the correct post-submission screen appeared. This has been corrected with additional state management to control page display more reliably.
AR-10207: Gap Analysis Report Timeout Fixed for Large Clients
The Capability Assessment Gap Analysis Report was timing out for tenancies with very large data sets (approximately 1,700 users and 8,600+ submissions). The underlying query has been optimised to handle these volumes without timing out.
AR-9964: Screen Reader Widget Regions Now Announce Correct Widget Types
Page regions were previously being announced generically as "widget" by screen readers instead of their actual type (e.g., "Featured Course," "Compliance Calendar"). This has been corrected so that screen reader users navigating by region receive meaningful, descriptive labels.
AR-9229: 'Program Compliance Checklist' Widget Error Resolved
The Program Compliance Checklist widget was failing to load and displaying an error for users. This has been resolved and the widget now loads correctly.