Affino 9.0.11 - The Connected Update

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is the emerging standard that lets AI agents work directly with the tools and services their users rely on. With Affino 9.0.11 we ship the first Affino MCP service, opening up Affino's CRM, articles, media, and forums to agent-driven work. AI clients like Claude can now operate on all of this with the full capabilities your team has in the Control Centre, creating and updating contacts, managing accounts and opportunities, publishing articles, attaching media, and moderating forum threads.

Identity and accountability

The key to making this safe is identity. Every AI agent operating on Affino is tied to a real person, a member of your team who directs the agent's work and carries responsibility for it. Every write the agent makes records that person's identity. Attributions, audit trails, and team-level accountability work correctly, because agents are accountable co-workers, not anonymous automation.

Why Affino matters for agent workflows

This is why building on Affino matters. AI agents can produce impressive work in isolation, but isolation is what limits them. Affino has always been the tried-and-tested, secure platform for your audience and your content - the system you already trust, with the data you already rely on.

With MCP, agents operate through that platform rather than alongside it. Every change lands in the same audit trail as work done directly by your team. Every action respects the same security boundaries. The infrastructure is hardened; the workflows are tested; the attribution is real.

The audience-and-content loop

This release opens the CRM, Content, Article Media, and Forums - the audience-and-content loop at the heart of how Affino is used. Any organisation with an audience it communicates with and content that engages that audience operates some version of this loop, whether they're running subscriptions, memberships, campaigns, events, or community platforms. Alongside our continuing Zapier expansion (see Integration Updates), this puts Affino in both the conventional integration ecosystem and the emerging agentic one.

What's included with MCP in this release:

• CRM - creating, editing, and managing accounts, contacts, opportunities, tasks, notes, lists, and conversion events
• Articles - writing and editing articles, ordering article steps, adding categories, and attaching media
• Media - adding media items, updating their details, and managing media files
• Forums - creating threads and posts, moderating content, and managing forum moderators
• Identity - every write is authenticated per-user and recorded against the acting person

Zapier is the integration service that connects applications through prebuilt triggers and actions, and with 9.0.11 Affino's Zapier integration expands dramatically. New methods span the CRM, content, commerce, events, and awards, removing the friction of connecting Affino to the platforms your organisation already uses. Instead of building custom integrations for each platform, Zapier handles the connection, and it keeps working whichever platforms your team moves to next.

CRM integration

The CRM methods are the deepest addition. Contacts, accounts, and contact lists all have full create, update, and delete support through Zapier, plus dedicated actions for adding and removing contacts from lists. This means your CRM data can stay synchronised with external systems automatically - a new lead in your marketing platform creates a contact in Affino; a contact update in Affino pushes changes back out. The same round-trip works for accounts and contact lists.

Content workflows

Content workflows get a significant boost. New article triggers fire when articles are published or updated, and new article actions let external systems create or update articles in Affino. For editorial teams managing content across multiple platforms, this closes the loop - a story published in your editorial system can land in Affino without manual re-entry.

Commerce, events, and awards

Commerce, events, and awards are all newly connected. Order methods include both triggers (fire when an order is placed) and actions (create or update orders from external systems). Event attendee methods and awards methods with entry and judge triggers round out the coverage. Each of these opens up workflows that were previously manual - event registrations flowing from a ticketing platform, award entries captured from an external form, order data synchronised with your accounting system.

Customer Signals and administration

Customer Signals now integrate with Zapier too. New trigger and action methods fire on Customer Signal events (outbound) and fire Customer Signal events from external platforms (inbound), connecting your audience signal system to the broader automation ecosystem. Topic lists are also available as a method, so taxonomy data can flow between Affino and external content systems.

For administrators, a new Zapier Profiles listing screen and dedicated add, edit, and view screens make it easier to manage multiple Zapier integrations across your organisation and a new API Logs screen provides monitoring visibility.

Key changes included in this update:

• Zapier Account methods - triggers and actions for creating, updating, and deleting accounts.
• Zapier API Logs - monitoring screen in the Control Centre captures every API request with diagnostic tools for troubleshooting.
• Zapier Article actions - Create Article and Update Article actions let external tools push content into Affino programmatically.
• Zapier Article triggers - fire on article publication and modification, with the full article field set in the trigger payload.
• Zapier Awards method - triggers for Award Entry Created and Updated, with the full entry data across three sections.
• Zapier Contact List methods - actions for creating, updating, and managing contact-list membership.
• Zapier Contact methods - triggers and actions for creating, updating, and deleting contacts.
• Zapier Customer Signals method - outbound triggers and inbound actions push and receive Customer Signal data through Zapier.
• Zapier Event Attendees method - triggers for Attendee Created and Updated, with detailed attendee data including contact and order details.
• Zapier Mailing List method - Subscribe and Unsubscribe triggers, plus Add, Edit, and Delete actions for mailing-list membership management.
• Zapier Order method - triggers for Order Created, Updated, and Line Item events, plus actions for order and subscription management.
• Zapier Profile - the management screen for each Zapier integration, with configuration fields and automatically generated API Key and Secret.
• Zapier Profiles listing - lists every Zapier Profile with filters and a summary of profile count and Zap usage.
• Zapier Topic Lists method - push triggers for Topic List Add, Edit, and Delete, with detailed topic data for external synchronisation.
• Zapier Triggers - pagination support for large data sets keeps data consistent across pages within the same poll cycle.

Affino now has deep support for UTM (Urchin Tracking Module), the standard every marketing platform uses to tag campaign traffic. Source, medium, and campaign parameters are added to a link so that where a visitor came from can be recorded when they arrive. Every ad platform, email tool, social scheduler, and referral network emits UTM on outbound links, and Affino now captures and retains that data as a core part of the audience record.

Full journey attribution

Affino captures inbound UTM parameters at the session level and retains the campaign data for two years. The data flows into the Contact and Order records, feeding the Campaign Dashboard, Referral Report, Order Referral Report, and Customer Signals triggers. A visitor who clicks a campaign link becomes a recorded audience touch; if they register, subscribe, or purchase, the full journey from campaign to conversion is attributed to that source.

This is genuine end-to-end attribution. You can see not just that somebody clicked a campaign, but what they did next - how many progressed to signing up, how many went on to buy, how much revenue each campaign generated. The Campaign Dashboard surfaces this effectiveness directly, filterable by Zone, Source, Medium, Campaign, and time frame. It can be shared with your clients, sponsors, management team, or other teams across the organisation - giving paying customers and internal stakeholders a self-serve view of which campaigns are driving real outcomes, not just traffic.

UTM Link Builder

A new UTM Link Builder gives your team an in-platform URL generator. Zone selection uses the zone's canonical default URL as the base for SEO consistency; free-text Source, Medium, and Campaign fields autocomplete from previously-used values, keeping naming consistent across your team. Generated URLs appear live as fields are filled, with a copy-to-clipboard button and a history of the most recent URLs shown below the builder.

Automation and guest tracking

UTM now connects to automation too. A new UTM trigger event type for Customer Signals fires based on inbound UTM parameters, with AND/OR matching logic across Source, Medium, and Campaign. This lets you build campaign-aware automation directly from UTM-tagged traffic - for example, firing a specific lifecycle action for visitors arriving from a particular newsletter or ad campaign.

Guest data tracking improves substantially in this release. UTM data is retained against guest sessions as well as logged-in users, so the top of your acquisition funnel is now visible in the same reports as the rest of your audience. Combined with Zapier's 8,000+ platform integrations (see Integration Updates), data flows both ways: from your marketing stack into Affino, and from Affino back out to your marketing stack.

What's included in the UTM updates:

• Campaign Dashboard - UTM attribution with zone, source, medium, campaign, and time frame filters; shareable with clients and stakeholders
• Guest UTM retention - UTM data retained against guest sessions, extending visibility to the top of the funnel
• Referral Reports - UTM data feeds the Referral Report and Order Referral Report
• UTM Customer Signal trigger (new) - fires signals based on inbound UTM parameters with AND/OR matching logic
• UTM in Contacts and Orders - campaign source appears directly on audience and order records
• UTM Link Builder (new) - in-platform URL generator with Zone-aware base URL, autocomplete, copy-to-clipboard, and URL history
• UTM tracking - inbound UTM parameters captured at session level and retained for two years

We have updated the naming of the customer signal framework and its related elements to use the language marketing teams use today. If a new marketing person starts using Affino tomorrow, the vocabulary should feel familiar and contemporary, not something from ten years ago.

The key renames land together across the platform:

• Client Campaigns is now Campaign Dashboard
• Conversion Events is now Customer Signals
• Customer Ladder is now Customer Lifecycle
• Customer Ladder Analysis is now Lifecycle Analysis

Why the rename matters

The naming change also reflects how much these features have grown. A conversion event is transactional - somebody crossed a line. A customer signal is richer: it captures a behaviour, tracks a journey, and feeds downstream actions.

Customer lifecycle better describes what actually happens with your audience - it goes up and down, it evolves, and if you track all of that properly you can respond to it intelligently. We have reimagined the system to match that understanding.

Multi-zone support

Customer Signals now work properly across multiple sites. If you run several zones from one Affino instance, signals can be scoped to a specific zone or left zone-agnostic to fire everywhere. Signals from one site no longer incorrectly fire on another, which is a significant improvement for any organisation running a multi-site operation.

Guest data and the Sequence Visualiser

Guest data tracking has improved substantially. We now retain far more data for guest users within the system, so the top of your audience funnel is visible in the same reports as the rest. Combined with UTM retention (see UTM Tracking, above), this gives you an end-to-end view of acquisition that extends well beyond signed-in users.

We have added new signal trigger types in this release, including the UTM trigger covered above. The new Sequence Visualiser is the standout addition - it makes the paths audiences take through your signal events legible at a glance, turning what was a configuration screen into an audience-journey tool. You can see the shape of how people move through your funnel, not just the counts at the end.

A redesigned interface

The entire Customer Signals interface has been rethought and reworked. Every aspect of how people use and manage Customer Signals has been redesigned to be easier, more learnable, and more intuitive. People can see straight away what each signal does, what sequence it belongs to, and how everything connects - a genuine quality-of-life transformation for anyone managing customer signals day to day.

Key changes included in this update:

• Affino Assistant - added automatic logging of conversion events for new contacts; improves tracking of AI interactions; updates legacy requirements.
• Customer Signals - new "My" filter on the listing surfaces only the signals you created and remembers the choice between visits.
• Customer Signals - over 80 trigger names standardised to "Entity - Action" format, making the trigger picker much easier to scan.
• Customer Signals - Assigned To uses the popup contact selector, and a Customer Lifecycle filter applies across every signal selector.
• Customer Signals - mailing-list incentive fields are multi-select, so a single signal can add or remove the contact across several lists at once.
• Customer Signals - cleaner trigger selector popup with expanded readability and a clearer display order.
• Customer Signals - Redirect Trigger lookup shows both source and destination URLs with new filters, making campaign tracking easier to follow.
• Customer Signals - new listing screen with rich filters, columns, and sorting.
• Customer Signals - zone scoping now applies across 40+ trigger types with a consistent zone-filter interface.
• Customer Signals - clearer view screen with a tighter panel layout and conditional sections that keep the right controls visible.
• Lifecycle Analysis - Activity tab now shows the full Customer Signal listing at full width, with signal names visible inline.
• Redirect Conversion Events > Guest User Tracking - enabled tracking for guest users; increased event capture limit; added safeguards for guest records.
• Sequence Visualiser (new) - a vertical flowchart of the entire signal sequence shows the audience-journey shape at a glance.
• Win-Back Campaign - added feature to reduce churn; presents customisable win-back message during cancellation; stores replacement catalogue item upon acceptance.
• Zapier Customer Signals method - outbound triggers and inbound actions push and receive Customer Signal data through Zapier.

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It is important to liaise with the support team to schedule an update window where they can be on hand to support the update. This is the second largest Affino release to-date with approaching 500 updates, so you should be in contact with the Affino team to be on hand during the update process. If you have a staging instance make sure you update and test thoroughly in advance of any live deployment.

Run through the complete update process starting with the Affino Updater, followed by the sequence of the system and design updates laid out on the Control > Update screen.

Note - make sure you and your team clear the browser cache to see the latest version of the Affino Control Centre (it will break your templates otherwise).

Specific to 9.0.11:

• jQuery 4.0.0: custom JavaScript on client sites should be tested against jQuery 4.0.0. The upgrade removes deprecated APIs - any client-side scripts relying on removed jQuery methods will need updating.
• Google Analytics: GA4 is now the only supported tracking mode. Legacy Universal Analytics code has been removed. Clients still referencing UA tracking IDs should switch to GA4.

Beta features in 9.0.11

Two CRM features ship as Beta in 9.0.11. They are functionally complete but still being shaken out for edge cases - some bugs have been found and fixed during pre-launch testing, and others may surface in real-world use.

Treat these as opt-in trial features. We recommend customers explore them and let us know how they get on, but please understand that things may go wrong. Hold off using them for time-critical work until we've moved them out of Beta in a follow-up patch. Anything you flag through the usual support channel during the Beta period will be looked at promptly.

• Bulk Contact Update (Beta) - redesigned screen, advanced filtering, expanded bulk actions across Contact Lists, Topics, and Mailing Lists.
• Bulk Account Update (Beta) - new screen for mass account operations with filtering and Account List membership management.

These also appear on the public Affino Beta Elements list.

The 9.0.11 AI work turns Affino's AI layer from a feature set into a pluggable platform capability. The full story sits in the Affino AI tentpole, above - GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 Flash as native model options and the standout new News Design Element. This area section gathers the detailed change set behind that story.

Reimagined AI Chat

AI Chat now carries full conversation history, intelligently retrieves complete articles when a partial match suggests broader context is needed, and displays sources in an animated scrollable panel that makes the evidence behind every answer visible. Chat agent templates accelerate setup: select a sales, customer-service, or insight template and tune it for your needs. Updates to the underlying models are rolled out automatically, so the platform keeps running the current best option without requiring action from your team.

AI Article Summaries and Sharelines

AI Article Summaries render directly on article pages in panel or tabulated mode, with live editing on the Article Edit screen and section-level controls that keep AI Profile assignments coherent. AI Sharelines generate social share text from article content, keeping your brand voice consistent across channels and saving editorial teams a small but persistent task on every publish.

News Design Element (new)

Drop the News Design Element onto any page and Affino delivers an AI-generated news summary tailored to the reader and the timeframe they pick. A first-time visitor lands on a default timeframe - last day for a fast-news site, last month for a more measured editorial cycle - and sees the key stories for that period the moment the page loads. Switching to a different timeframe is instant: every selectable window is pre-cached, so the reader can scan today, the week, the past three months, or up to six months without waiting on the page.

Logged-in readers go a step further and pick the topics they care about. Affino composes a personalised summary that surfaces the headline stories for those topics first, then loads the wider impactful news for the timeframe. Someone who wants the headline picture for the past week gets it; someone who wants a six-month catch-up on a single topic gets it instead.

The benefit is catch-up efficiency. A reader on a fast-news site absorbs every important story of the day in one place, without scrolling lists or hunting for what matters. A reader on a deep-archive site can zoom out to a six-month view of a single topic and take in everything that has happened. In both cases the value is the same: a quick, structured catch-up that lets the reader take in the picture first and then dive into the individual stories they want to read.

Features and Enhancements

• AI Agent Authentication - implemented full authentication flow for AI agents; agents now obtain Bearer tokens via User API login endpoint.
• AI Article Summaries and Sharelines - new AI-generated summaries and social sharelines on articles. Summary and Social panels appear in the article workflow with live editing on the Article Edit screen, support for Advanced Article and Blog templates, multiple display placements, security controls for visibility, accent-colour styling, and section-scoped AI Profile linking.
• AI Assistant > Relevant Sources Panel - added ranked list of relevant articles; improved display of article thumbnails and titles.
• AI Assistant > Screen Context and Feedback Reporting - added screen context to questions; introduced new activity type for AI Report.
• AI Chat - added default setting for "Recent Content" filter; ensures prioritisation of recent and relevant content upon chat load.
• AI Engine - upgraded to GPT-5 with new model options.
• AI Image Generation - upgraded to GPT Image model; added extended output controls for aspect ratio, background mode, quality tier, and output format.
• AI News Summaries - enforced one AI Profile per section; prevents conflicting settings; ensures consistent summary generation across sections.
• AI News Summaries - built backend system for article summary generation; supports caching and multiple generation routes; enhances performance.
• AI Profile > Configuration Security Group - added setting for AI configuration access; controls operator permissions for modifying AI settings.
• AI Recommended Related Articles - added AI-enhanced mode for recommending related articles; introduces new settings for content recommendations.
• AI Report - fixed a saving error on the AI Report edit screen.
• App Bar: AI Profile Display - now shows AI Profile on Search pages; ensures relevant context is visible when browsing search results.
• Assistant: Auto-Focus on Text Entry - automatically focuses cursor on text entry field when assistant panel opens; streamlines user interaction.
• Chat: Conversation History - includes full conversation history as context for new requests; enables follow-up questions referencing earlier answers.
• Chat: Full Article Context Retrieval - upgraded partial matches to full-article context; introduced settings for threshold and max articles; ranks articles by chunk-match count.
• Engine: Google Gemini 2.5 Flash - integrated as additional LLM option; offers configuration for temperature and output tokens; uses Google Cloud for optimal performance.
• Image Generation - redesigned interface with size options; supports WebP conversion for improved performance; accessible directly from Article add/edit screen.
• Live Edit - updated to use Prompt Modifier fields; allows one-time modifications without saving back to the AI Profile.
• Pop-Up AI Chat - introduced configurable height settings for Desktop and Mobile; suggested prompts can now be displayed in expanded or compact formats.
• Profile: Article Lookup - enhanced with Section, Creator, and Topic filters; simplifies locating articles in large libraries; supports multi-select options.
• Profile: Include Unsecured Forum Content - added toggle for including unsecured posts in AI indexing; allows selective indexing of secured content.
• Relevant Sources Panels (new) - new panel on AI Chat and Search that surfaces the source articles behind every answer, with a smooth response flow and horizontally scrollable source list.
• Site Search - repositioned AI response icon inline; improves visual presentation; aligns icon with response content.
• Support Chat - restored functionality for Question URL sharing; ensures shared links display full conversation context; corrects URL routing issues.

Bug Fixes

• AI > Design Coherence - the AI popup, chat panels, theatre, desktop chat, search, nav popup and Control Centre assistant now share a single coherent visual system; designed end-to-end so the AI feels like one product.
• AI > News Summary - now available on Advanced Article, Advanced Directory Article, Blog, Feature Article, Feature Article 2 Columns and Review Article templates; previously only a narrower subset supported it.
• AI > Profile - fixed a stubborn '0 selected' regression on the multi-select fields; saves cleanly now.
• AI > Profile - help text rewritten in plain English across AI Role, Organisation Information, Organisation Objectives, Services Provided and the rest of the profile fields, so editors know what each setting actually does.
• AI > Profile - new Show Processing Animation setting (default on) gives end users live progress updates while the AI generates an answer; lives in the AI Settings panel.
• AI > Profile - tidy-up before release: Contextual Retrieval and its prompt, modifier and LLM are now hardcoded and hidden; answering style replaced by a single modifier; Show Processing Animation defaults on; Lambda dropped bm25, rerank, conret and conretllmtypecode parameters.
• AI > Prompt Templates - new Custom Prompt Template Management tool ports the Affino.com prompt manager across with sortable name and status, copy and edit actions, and Live/Testing status; usable now on Affino.com.
• AI Chat Notifications - fixed duplicate notifications sent for each question; relocated notification trigger to ensure single email per completed answer.
• AI Data Regeneration - resolved missing dependency issue preventing completion; added required component to deployment package for consistent functionality.
• AI Profile - restored Regenerate Questions function; corrected script compatibility issue, ensuring accurate progress reporting during article processing.
• AI Profile Edit Screen - fixed error when opening profiles with no configuration; now handles empty settings gracefully.
• AI Profile Screen - resolved session initialisation error on loading; improved reliability of AI Profile and related screens.
• Control Centre > AI Assistant - active conversation now persists in session as you navigate around the Control Centre; previous chat is restored on reopen, and the Clear button explicitly resets it.
• Data Reindex - improved retry logic for failed indexing; fixed stuck regeneration states for better resilience and recovery.

The v2 REST API and MCP service are the infrastructure layer behind the headline MCP story (see the Affino MCP tentpole, above). Together they give AI agents and external systems a machine-to-machine interface with the same reach as a team member working in the Control Centre.

Independent credentials for every integration

A new API Profile type in the Control Centre lets administrators issue dedicated credentials to external systems and AI agents. Each profile scopes permissions independently, separating automated access from individual user accounts. Integrations become independently auditable, monitorable, and revocable, so removing one agent never affects another.

Full-range CRM operations

The v2 REST API opens create, read, update, and delete access across the CRM's core records: accounts, contacts, opportunities, tasks, notes, contact lists, and account lists. Every entity type includes a lookup endpoint so integrations can query valid field values dynamically, and a route-discovery endpoint lists all available surfaces so tools can auto-configure as the API grows.

MCP service layer (new)

The MCP service wraps the v2 API and exposes CRM write operations as native tools for AI agent frameworks. It also provides broad read access across the platform: account and contact data, opportunity pipeline, article content, forum threads and posts, and conversion event activity. An agent connected to Affino's MCP has everything it needs to read, reason over, and act on your platform's data through a single integration.

Zapier integration (new)

The whole Zapier integration is new in this release. Affino now ships as a first-class Zapier app: any platform you already automate with - your marketing stack, your accounting tool, your event-ticketing system, your CRM exports - can read from and write to Affino through the same triggers and actions Zapier customers expect.

The integration covers the breadth of what your team manages day to day. Contacts, accounts, and contact lists support full create, update, and delete with paired triggers, so external systems can keep CRM data synchronised both ways. Articles can be created or updated from outside Affino, and article publication or update events fire triggers other platforms can listen for. Orders flow in either direction, with triggers for order events and actions to create or update them. Event attendees, awards entries, mailing list membership, taxonomy topic lists, and Customer Signals all have their own methods. Pagination support keeps large polling cycles reliable, and the API Logs screen gives a per-request audit trail for troubleshooting.

For administrators, the new Zapier Profiles screen makes it easy to manage multiple Zapier integrations across an organisation, each with its own credentials and audit trail. The new Zapier Test Tool lets you fire a method against a profile from inside the Control Centre, so you can validate setup before turning a real Zap live.

What this opens up in practice

AI agents can now execute the full CRM workflow in real time: qualifying leads, progressing opportunities, logging interactions, maintaining contact records, and managing lists. Each integration operates through its own credentials with independent revocation. As new surfaces are added, route auto-discovery keeps integrations current without manual reconfiguration. This is the infrastructure layer that makes AI-driven platform operations practical at scale.

Features and Enhancements

• Affino v2 REST API - expanded to support 10 entity types; introduced new API Profile type for managing access credentials.
• Chart.js - updated to v4.5.1; fixed boolean output issue, ensuring correct rendering of charts.
• Control Centre IP Restriction - restored access control for specified IP addresses; improved reliability and responsiveness of login page.
• Email Check Endpoint - hardened against enumeration attacks; implemented rate limiting and response obfuscation for enhanced security.
• PAF Provider Migration - replaced getAddress.io with Ideal Postcodes for UK postcode lookup; updated integration for checkout, registration, and profile screens.
• Zapier API Logs - monitoring screen in the Control Centre captures every API request with diagnostic tools for troubleshooting.
• Zapier Profile - the management screen for each Zapier integration, with configuration fields and automatically generated API Key and Secret.
• Zapier Profiles listing - lists every Zapier Profile with filters and a summary of profile count and Zap usage.
• Zapier Test Tool - fire any Zapier method against any configured Zapier Profile from inside the Control Centre. Launches with the matching profile pre-selected from the Zapier Profile listing, so you can validate a Zap end-to-end before turning it live.

Content and Publishing receives the broadest set of changes in 9.0.11, reaching from how your editorial team creates articles through to how those articles appear in search engines, on directory listings, and in readers' hands.

Richer article editing

The in-article editor has been refreshed with a redesigned control bar, anchor link support, and better media handling. Writers get a cleaner surface that makes the common tasks - linking, embedding, formatting - faster, while retaining the full depth editors need for complex layouts. Media uploading now supports bulk tagging and keyword assignment, so indexing a batch of images for reuse no longer means opening each one individually.

Discoverability and SEO

Structured data arrives across four schema.org types - Article, Event, Review, and Video - giving your pages richer presence in Google search results with proper markup. The SEO panels at channel and article level have been enhanced so the controls editorial teams reach for stay close to hand, and the Converting Articles Design Element has been enhanced too - related-content recommendations now personalise to reader interests, lifting dwell time and cross-reading.

Article management enhancements

Article management becomes more flexible: Category Topics can be assigned to blog articles, Overlay Panels can now target specific articles, and Forums gain threaded conversations with nested replies and @mention support. AI-generated article summaries and social sharelines flow through the same workflow, so editors can produce both alongside the article without leaving the page.

Publishing surfaces your readers see

The Carousel Design Element has been completely rebuilt with responsive transitions, giving smoother performance across every device. The Login and Menu Design Elements have been enhanced with a Logged-In Redirection Channel that routes members to a designated welcome page after sign-in, so the first post-login screen is tailored to the user.

Features and Enhancements

• Add to Calendar ICS File - fixed ICS file generation error; corrected component-level function call for reliable event calendar file creation.
• App Bar > Campaign Theme and Profile Links - restored missing links in App Bar after control profile rename.
• Article Carousel > Viewed Timeframe Field - added field to scope Most Read content; allows selection of recent timeframes for genuinely current popular articles.
• Article Category Topic - made Category Topic field optional on Edit Article; ensures consistent behaviour across create and edit flows.
• Article Creation - fixed article creation error for regular users in Workflow Profile sections; corrected permissions handling for article submissions.
• Article Edit Form - refined Edit Article form layout for better flow; standardised TinyMCE editor height for consistent editing experience.
• Article Embargo - fixed cross-midnight scheduling issue; allowed embargo and publish times to span different days.
• Article Export - renamed "Section Focus" filter to "Section" on Article Export screen; improved clarity and consistency in terminology.
• Article Export - fixed location fields not appearing in exports; corrected query to ensure location data is included.
• Article Export - optimised bulk query performance; reduced database calls by 600x for article exports.
• Article Link Clicks - preserved Link Click analytics data on article re-saves; ensured historical click tracking remains intact during publish date updates.
• Article Listing - fixed top pick display logic; corrected cloud indexing issue to ensure accurate article sorting.
• Article Structured Data - added JSON-LD structured data across seven article templates; supports various Schema.org types and includes author information.
• Article Summary - fixed paragraph formatting for AI-generated summaries; ensured correct display of multi-paragraph summaries on front-end article pages.
• Articles Listing > Control Centre - fully redesigned with modern layout; features two-level filter panel for enhanced functionality and usability.
• Blog Article - enabled Category Topic assignment for blog articles; fixed grid spacing issues on smaller screens.
• Business Directory > Priority Sort Order - fixed sort order issue; added condition to respect Priority field for manual ordering of directory entries.
• Canonical Links - added Login channel type; resolved duplicate indexing warnings in Google Search Console.
• Category Topic Field - fixed visibility issue of Category Topic field when changing Presentation Style; field now persists across style transitions.
• Category Topic Field - fixed visibility of Category Topic field on Article View screen; now hides correctly when no parent Category Topic is set.
• Channel Schema Type - added Schema Type dropdown for structured data in Article Channels; improved SEO with new SEO panel for channel settings.
• Channel Search - added "Hide Channel Name From Search Results" option; renamed existing setting for clarity; updated search indexing accordingly.
• Converting Article Listing - updated to display multiple articles; added Category Topic option to metadata settings for enhanced filtering.
• Converting Articles Design Element - improved zone filtering; personalises results for logged-in users based on interests; falls back to unfiltered view if no results.
• Default Share Image - included Zone Default Share Image in Open Graph metadata; prevents random images from displaying on social shares; checks for Main and Thumbnail Images.
• Design Centre - updated row default values to reduce repetitive configuration; new rows now match standard layout settings.
• Directory Article - fixed button styling on tab listings; corrected CSS specificity for consistent font styling across tabs.
• Directory Listing > Alphabetical Sort - fixed case-sensitive sorting issue; ensured true case-insensitive alphabetical order across all directory entries.
• Directory Step Profile - updated help text for Multimedia Upload Size Limit; reduced recommended limit to 100 MB; added browser timeout advisory.
• Display Edition Security - tightened security adjustments for edition displays; enforced content access restrictions.
• Display Refinements - improved Hero element background alignment; enhanced spacing and layout behaviour; addressed over 30 display issues for visual consistency.
• Edition Search - fixed pagination URL encoding issue; preserves original search term encoding across page transitions for consistent results.
• Edition Search - resolved wildcard character error; automatically removes leading and trailing % characters to maintain expected search behaviour.
• Edition Search - fixed wildcard pagination issue; search filter now retained across pages; redundant % characters removed from search input.
• Edition Security - enforced Content Security Rights for Editions; unauthenticated users redirected to login page when accessing secured content.
• Event Listing Design Element - fixed future events filter to exclude past events; corrected query logic for event listings.
• Event Structured Data - added Schema.org Event structured data to event templates; includes event mode dropdown for attendance type control.
• Experiences Component > URL Routing - resolved AJAX request routing issue; ensured correct server-side endpoint targeting; eliminated 'page not found' errors.
• Forum Anchor Navigation - replaced smooth scroll with instant jump to target posts; improved navigation experience for long threads; enhanced accessibility for notification links.
• Forum Thread Cross-Forum URL Redirect - fixed redirection for threads accessed via different forum URLs; ensures correct forum context; maintains security restrictions.
• Forum Thread Image Upload - added copy URL feature for uploaded images; hides duplicate thumbnails in post body; improves user experience.
• Forum Thread Screen Name - added setting for auto-updating URL on title change; preserves existing links when disabled; enhances URL stability.
• Forum Video Media - fixed CSS issue affecting video display in forum posts; ensures proper rendering and playback across all viewport sizes.
• Homepage Article Listing - resolved duplicate article display; added secondary sort field for consistent ordering.
• Horizontal Scroller Menu - fixed a display error in the Horizontal Scroller menu.
• Image Processing > SVG Handling - improved SVG file handling; validated source file existence before processing; prevented crashes during automated image generation.
• Incoming Feed > Date Validation - validated dates from external feeds; prevented malformed date errors; ensured reliable article imports.
• Login and Menu Design Elements - added support for Logged-In Redirection Channel; redirects users to designated welcome channel upon login; retains default RefDoc behaviour.
• Login Form - reliable login form rendering.
• Media Image Export - fixed crash with corrupted zip files; validated existing archives before appending; ensured reliable bulk image exports.
• Media Item Selector - restored "Any Zone" option in article-level image selector; allows image browsing across all zones.
• Media Library - improved sorting for media items with same code; removed spurious unique-filename check to prevent unnecessary suffixes.
• Media Uploader - added processing indicator during image uploads; disabled Send button while upload is active for better user experience.
• Member Profile Pages > Metadata - fixed empty title and meta tags issue; removed email bounce status check, ensuring all profiles display correct metadata.
• Menu Auto Links - corrected query regression; ensures internal auto-generated links are excluded from user menus.
• Menu CMS > Caching - fixed caching issue in Menu Builder; ensured reliable saving of menu edits.
• My Interests Display - audited and modernised component; fixed HTML tag nesting; patched XSS vulnerability; migrated session engine; improved query efficiency.
• My Library Search - search results now anchor to prime content heading; prevents scrolling past ads; enhances user experience after searches.
• Outgoing Feed - reorganised configuration screen with dedicated Podcast and Transmission panels; improved clarity by grouping podcast-specific settings.
• Overlay Panel - enabled article-level targeting for Overlay Panels; added multi-article selector for specific article targeting.
• Overlay Panel - updated display logic for article-level targeting; prioritises article-specific overlays over channel-level; applies existing settings uniformly.
• Overlay Panel - fixed rendering error when attaching Overlay Panel Design Objects; ensured reliable loading on channels.
• Page Cache - strips Google's "srsltid" parameter from URLs before caching; prevents multiple cached versions and improves efficiency.
• Postcode Lookup Popup - extended address display now includes county; avoids redundancy when county matches post town; improves address disambiguation.
• Prime Content Design Object - fixed URL parameter validation; resolved login redirect issues with malformed parameters.
• Related Items Section Option - resolved error on Section option in Related Items configuration; allows proper curation of cross-section content.
• Review Article Structured Data - added Schema.org Review structured data to Review template; includes dropdown for item types and outputs relevant JSON-LD.
• Scoped Search > Edition Indexing - fixed deduplication issue causing missing Editions; now indexes all Editions regardless of identical timestamps.
• Script Creative - removed Link URL and Target Tag fields from Script Creatives; updated help text regarding accepted formats and security requirements.
• Section Autocomplete > Keyboard Selection - fixed issue where full display string filled search field; now correctly fills only section name for accurate search results.
• Site Search Indexing - fixed timezone handling for articles; ensures future-dated articles are indexed correctly regardless of server clock.
• Sponsored Label - corrected font styling for Sponsored labels; fixed spacing issue between bookmark icon and article title.
• Syndication Feed > URL Routing - corrected routing for outgoing feeds; ensured proper application context handling; eliminated missing variable errors.
• Topic Related Content Design Element - added Category Topic filter; matches related articles based on current article's Category Topic; simplifies content curation.
• Video Object Structured Data - updated VideoObject structured data to respect content security settings; excludes sensitive URLs from JSON-LD output.
• Video Player > Display and Cinema Mode - fixed display glitches and Cinema Mode issues; removed legacy sticky mode for improved Picture-in-Picture functionality.
• Zone Settings > Forum Thread Screen Name - adds toggle for automatic screen name updates on thread title changes; preserves URL stability when disabled.
• Zone Settings > SEO Management - adds Robots.txt memo field and Crawl Delay dropdown; allows custom directives and controls crawler access frequency.

Bug Fixes

• Article Carousel Design Element - fixed metadata alignment for article information; ensures consistent rendering across all carousel instances.
• Article Edit Popup - fixed layout issue with popup rows on Edit Article form; ensured consistent display when adding or editing articles.
• Article Steps - fixed error preventing viewing or creating Article Steps; resolved database reference issue in Step query.
• CMS > Account Channel - new Account Profile setting adds a download button below each download image on the Overview and Documents listings; uses the secure tracked download path so reporting and security still apply.
• CMS > Article Listing - first set of working filters in the new Control Centre: predictive Title/Channel/Section lookups, single-select Zone and Presentation Style, multi-select Active Status and topic/security, plus a Publish Start date range - all wired into the listing query.
• CMS > Editor - TinyMCE updated to v8.5.0; adds a content_language option for the iframe, improves inline diff styling for Suggested Edits and the AI plugin, and fixes a script/style element removal regression.
• CMS > Media Item - hardened the upload path against intermittent 'sFile has no content' errors that surfaced sporadically on client error logs.
• CMS > Media Item - thumbnails and main images now generate automatically when a PDF, video or other media file is uploaded; the manual Generate Image button is no longer the only path.
• CMS > Share Button - all article templates now honour the new Exclude Article URL setting on the Share Profile; tick it and the Article URL parameter is left out of the generated share link.
• CMS > Sponsored Content - the Sponsored Article label flipping from 'Advertorial' to 'Sponsored Article' on Load More is fixed; the label now stays consistent across paginated batches.
• Control Centre Login - fixed password reveal eye icon functionality; restores show/hide password toggle; improves user experience during login.
• Forum URL Encoding - status dropdown text now renders correctly.
• My Profile - ampersands now display correctly across demographic fields and the recruitment view.

Commerce in 9.0.11 reshapes the experience at both ends of the transaction. Your customers get a cleaner, faster path from browsing to payment. Your team gets richer reconciliation between Affino and the commerce systems you run.

My Account and checkout, rebuilt

The My Account area now brings together subscriptions, orders, event attendance, and award entries in one coherent space. Checkout introduces a cardholder name field, pre-filled billing addresses, and clearer payment messaging across the flow, so customers meet fewer friction points at the point of payment and feel informed at every step. Quantity selection arrives for Catalogue Group items with accurate basket totals, and the Pro Forma Order flow now displays prices correctly on payment links.

Subscription handling

Subscription cancellation messaging has been rewritten to be clearer about what happens next, and lapsed-renewal handling is more graceful with improved payment-gateway timeout and lock management. A new Subscription Win-Back Campaign presents a customisable retention message during cancellation and stores a replacement catalogue item on acceptance, giving your commercial team a structured way to reduce churn in the moment.

Catalogue, reconciliation, and payment-gateway resilience

Catalogue Items now carry an External ID that maps directly to products in your payment platform, making reconciliation faster and cleaner. Payment gateway integration has been upgraded with automatic retry logic across all API calls (five attempts maximum), centralised API version management, and hardened webhook race-condition handling. Full details of the payment-gateway and Zapier changes are in Integration Updates, below.

Events and awards, connected

The My Account Events tab now surfaces non-purchase events and award entries alongside ticketed orders, and Zapier integration for Orders, Event Attendees, and Awards (see Zapier, above) means commerce data can flow into the accounting, CRM, or fulfilment platforms your organisation already uses.

Features and Enhancements

• Catalogue Item - repositioned External ID field below Payment Method; groups it with relevant payment-related fields for Stripe mapping.
• Catalogue Item - updated session engine to eliminate intermittent errors; improved reliability when navigating from the listing screen.
• Catalogue Item Edit - resolved error when creating Catalogue Item from Product Article; fixed missing method reference in definition file.
• Catalogue Item Health Check - fixed Stripe price ID validation; improved accuracy of diagnostics for catalogue items.
• Catalogue Item Import/Export - included External ID column in import/export files; simplifies bulk management of products for Stripe.
• Checkout Catalogue Group - added quantity selector for Catalogue Group items; improves basket total accuracy and user experience.
• Checkout Profile Channel Selector - added Channel Code filter and column; enhances clarity for multiple subscribe channels.
• Checkout Quantity Display - fixed CSS issue affecting quantity display; ensures correct rendering regardless of Design Style.
• Checkout Quantity Display - corrected quantity display issues caused by custom CSS; maintains accurate display across configurations.
• Coupon Reuse - updated coupon validation logic; excludes incomplete orders from usage; allows coupons to be reapplied within the same session.
• Deferred Income Report - extended lookback period to 13 months; increased historical report display limit to 50.
• Event Attendee Custom Fields - supports dropdown, checkbox, and radio types; ensures dropdowns default to blank selection for active choice.
• Invoice Email - corrected background colour to match Design Style; fixed issue where Table Border Colour was incorrectly applied.
• My Account Events Tab - restored Assign Attendee button; corrected attendee count display; ensures additional attendees can be assigned.
• My Account Events Tab - removed redundant attendee count in parentheses; declutters event listing header for improved clarity.
• My Account Events Tab - now displays non-purchase events and award entries; shows "N/A" for orders without a number; preserves existing sort order.
• Order Confirmation Email - removed spurious "true" text from emails; ensures clean display without unexpected artefacts.
• Order Invoice - restored bank details display on final Order invoices; fixed rendering issue that previously omitted details despite settings.
• Order Line Item Report - fixed export to process all records correctly; ensured processed count matches total records.
• Order Line Item Report - added Catalogue Group filter; optimised URL handling to prevent errors; improved date logic.
• Order Line Item Report - fixed dropdown filter popups displaying extra line; corrected rendering across affected templates.
• Order Line Item Report - added PaymentID column; renamed GatewaytRef to GatewayReference for clarity; displayed PaymentID after GatewayReference.
• Order Notification Emails - resolved regression preventing order confirmation emails from being sent; corrected shopping cart status handling.
• Order Notification Emails - ensured reliable sending of confirmation emails post-purchase; resolved shopping cart status code issues.
• Order Processing > Payment Link - fixed tax rate error during payment link transactions; ensured Pro Forma orders can be paid without issues.
• Order Referral Analysis - incorporated UTM dimensions; added Group By selector and dedicated text filters for analysis.
• Order Refund Details - corrected Refund Date format to consistently display in DD/MM/YYYY; resolves issues caused by validation errors.
• Orders - integrated Tasks and Contact Notes; added inline management on Order View; introduced "Next Task" column on Order Listing.
• Orders - added UTM campaign tracking data; introduced new Marketing Panel and text filters for order searches.
• Payment Gateway > Error Message Display - improves clarity of error messages by showing specific provider messages instead of generic errors.
• Pro Forma Catalogue Item Selector - fixed search issue preventing catalogue item selection; ensures reliable search across all sites.
• Pro Forma Invoice - fixed Payment Method display to respect Invoice Profile settings; corrected footer banner image rendering.
• Product Search > Price Filter - fixed crash on missing Price column; added guard check for column existence; resolved query parameter injection vulnerability.
• Products Load More - fixed duplication issue with Load More button; ensures correct fetching of next product batch.
• Promotion Channel Currency - fixed currency handling issue; ensures correct currency is passed to checkout from promotion channels.
• Promotion Channel Currency - fixed currency pass-through from promotion channels; ensures correct currency displays at checkout.
• Stripe Auto-Renewal - increased timeout for Stripe API calls; fixed lock handling during timeouts; improved reliability of renewal process.
• Stripe Checkout - added Cardholder Name field; pre-fills billing address from earlier stage; allows full edit of cardholder name.
• Stripe Payment Calls - added retry logic for all API requests; reduced failed transactions from transient issues.
• Stripe Payment Provider - fixed an issue where duplicate payment-provider rows could appear on orders.
• Taxonomy - added "Updated" and "Updated By" fields to Category and Topic Edit screens; supports Zapier integration triggers.

Bug Fixes

• Catalogue Group Item Selector - improved consistency in search results; removed Payment Method requirement; added Payment Method column for visibility.
• Catalogue Groups - corrected Name filter width; resolved layout issues caused by excessive width on the Catalogue Groups screen.
• Catalogue Item Pricing Matrix - restored functionality of Add Row button; users can now add new pricing rows as expected.
• Catalogue Item Save - fixed error when saving items with many fields; resolved numeric field type mismatches in the save query.
• Catalogue Items Listing - fixed duplicate display issue; ensured items appear correctly without duplication in the listing.
• Commerce > Catalogue Item - View screen now runs a checkout-channel health check for the item's Zone; surfaces a clear 'Checkout Channel not detected' warning when no live channel exists for the Zone.
• Commerce > Checkout - tidied wonky padding and stray black borders around images and panels on the Checkout screens; visuals consistent again.
• Commerce > Payment Gateway - Stripe View now displays the API version linked to the publishable key (e.g. 2024-09-30.acacia) so support can see the client's Stripe API version at a glance.
• Stripe - subscription renewal generation no longer times out against Stripe in occasional high-volume scenarios.
• Commerce > Stripe Checkout - fixed the Name field flickering off once the page loaded; the regression was tied to a stale Link payment card and now resolves cleanly.
• Commerce > StripeV2 - 429 Too Many Requests on order processing tightened up; rate-limit handling on the Stripe call path improved.
• Custom Order Export - added execution lock to prevent duplicate exports; ensures single export runs to avoid multiple entries in ERP systems.
• Invoice Profile - fixed double spacing in payment link emails; ensures consistent email rendering as per profile settings.
• Pro Forma Order Payment Link - restored price display on payment screen; ensures charge amount is visible post-migration.

CRM receives the broadest functional expansion in 9.0.11. Your team gets new ways to group, target, and update customer records; richer engagement signals to act on; and cleaner flows for everyday tasks like bulk edits, search, and form building.

Account Lists join Contact Lists as first-class objects

Account Lists arrive alongside Contact Lists with their own listing, view, edit, and delete screens. You can now group accounts for targeted operations the same way you group contacts, and the two list types behave consistently across the platform. Primary, Marketing, and Invoice contact lists on the Account screen are pre-filtered for faster selection, removing a long-standing source of confusion.

Bulk Update, redesigned end to end

Bulk Update for contacts and accounts has been rebuilt with advanced filtering, expanded field support, and action-based selection replacing the previous limited interface. Your team can now select a subset of records by precise criteria and apply a targeted change across the group in a single pass, whether updating permissions, changing assignment, or refreshing topic tags.

Richer engagement data on Contact and Account views

The Contact View panel has been cleaned up with better layout and richer engagement data. The Last Touch panel now tracks five additional signals, giving your team a more complete picture of how a contact is interacting with your platform. Account Size and Annual Turnover fields now accept alphanumeric values throughout import and export, and Account Featured Content lets you pin articles, images, documents, and a custom link tab per account.

Search Profiles and forms

Contact Search Profile supports saved searches with configurable columns, and a new Find Contacts integration lets operators search directly from the Contact listing without switching screens. Dynamic Forms add a Date Picker control with min/max validation, and the form builder improves drag-and-drop handling for complex multi-page layouts.

Topic management across the CRM

Topic assignment becomes more flexible: a new Assign Topics button on the Contact Detail screen, an upgraded topic selector with better search, and the Contact List Add-to-List filter now maintaining its state correctly across pagination. Over a hundred CRM updates across the release make the workflows faster to run day to day.

Features and Enhancements

• Account and Contact Main Panel > Layout Redesign - redesigned panels; added Contact counts and resolved Guest User attribution issue for improved clarity.
• Account Contacts Tab - added Contact Type column to Contacts tab; displays before Contact column when Show Contact Type is enabled in CRM Settings.
• Account Edit - introduced hierarchical Topic Selector; features search-as-you-type, expand/collapse buttons, AJAX-loaded child topics, and multi-select support.
• Account Listing - upgraded Topic filter to new hierarchical selector; provides consistent topic selection experience with expand/collapse navigation and search-as-you-type.
• Account Lists > CRM Capability - introduced Account Lists for grouping accounts; includes listing, view, edit screens, and filtering across various sections.
• Account Profile - added Featured Documents panel with Download Button On Listing option; enables direct document downloads from Overview and Document tabs.
• Accounts and Contacts > Account Name Autocomplete - fixed autocomplete functionality to return results correctly.
• Accounts Data Filter - updated terminology from 'No Keywords' to 'No Topics'; ensured consistency across the interface; avoided user confusion.
• Accounts Listing > Account Code Search - fixed error handling for non-numeric input in Account Code search field.
• Affino Assistant - added automatic logging of conversion events for new contacts; improves tracking of AI interactions; updates legacy requirements.
• Bulk Account Update > New Screen (Beta) - added screen for mass account operations; supports filtering and bulk actions like adding/removing Account Lists.
• Bulk Contact Update (Beta) - redesigned screen with advanced filtering; added Action Contact Selection link; expanded bulk actions including add/remove Contact Lists, Topics, and Mailing Lists.
• Contact Create Account > Address 2 Field Transfer - fixed transfer of Address 2 field when creating an account from a contact.
• Contact Detail - added External User ID to summary panel; displayed below User Code for consistency with Account summary panel.
• Contact Detail > Topic Assignment - added Topic assignment button; upgraded topic selector for improved usability across CRM screens.
• Contact Edit - fixed issue where saving contact stripped forum and mailing list subscriptions; ensured preservation of existing subscriptions during edits.
• Contact Edit > Avatar Replacement - fixed silent failure for avatar replacement by non-admin users; ensures reliable updates regardless of security group.
• Contact List > Add-to-List Filter Pagination - fixed filter persistence issue across pagination; now maintains filter state when navigating pages.
• Contact List > Auto Assign Settings - fixed display issue; now shows all configured Auto Assign settings for improved clarity.
• Contact List > Bulk Add to List - fixed bulk add action for large result sets; ensures reliable list management.
• Contact List > Status Field - fixed visibility issue; status field now displayed in edit mode for better list management.
• Contact List Selector > Group Filter - added Contact List Group filter to selector popups; improves ease of locating and selecting lists.
• Contact Profile > Avatar Caching - fixed caching issue; new avatar now displays immediately after upload.
• Contact Send Info > Password Reset Links - added zone selector for password reset links; directs to correct site based on admin's zone.
• Contact View - fixed subscription sections ordering on Contact View panel; ensured logical grouping of Mailing List Subscriptions and Unsubscribes.
• Contacts Listing - adjusted column widths to reduce excessive row height; tightened column spacing while maintaining necessary widths for link-containing columns.
• Contacts Listing - fixed inconsistency in Contact Type filter; dropdown and popup selector now correctly display all available contact types.
• Contacts Listing - upgraded Add to List action to multi-selector popup; includes Name and My List filters with predictive text search.
• Contacts Listing - renamed date range filters from "Event Date" to "Signal Date"; aligns with broader terminology updates across the platform.
• Contacts Listing & Contact Edit - upgraded Topics filter and assignment to hierarchical popup; enhances navigation of large topic trees.
• Contacts Listing > Account Topic Autocomplete - fixed autocomplete to return valid suggestions; ensures reliable filtering.
• Contacts Listing > Account Topic Filter - fixed filter to return only contacts with assigned topics in linked accounts.
• Contacts Listing > Login Count and Activity Time Frame - fixed login count filter accuracy; ensured time frame selection persists across searches.
• Contacts Listing > Missing Details No Country Filter - fixed filter to correctly identify contacts without a country value.
• Contacts Search > Enter Key Throttle - added debounce to prevent excessive requests from held-down Enter key; protects server from overload.
• CRM > Contact Types - public-profile users can now have their profile page rendered; previously the new contact type silently routed to 404.
• CRM > Opportunity - errorphant on Control > Opportunity caused by an empty-string-to-number cast resolved.
• CRM > Project - long-standing errorphant on Control > Project (missing HRPROFILECODE column) traced and squashed.
• CRM > User Export - the Contact Attributes With Account Details export now also carries the linked account's email, website and notes columns.
• CRM Navigation > Analytics Items - removed analytics items from CRM navigation; declutters sidebar; functions accessed via dedicated Analysis navigation.
• CRM Navigation > Tasks - excluded accounts contacts have left; now displays only current active accounts in task views.
• CRM Settings - added "Show Contact Type" setting; displays Contact Type column on Accounts Contact tab for quick reference.
• Data Export > Status Column - fixed export to show specific ranking statuses; differentiates between ranking tiers.
• Dynamic Form - consolidated Contact Email Address field into Contact Mapping; removed redundant configuration option with database migration for continuity.
• Dynamic Form - streamlined field configuration; changed Title input to single-line text field, auto-generating Data Field Name from Field Label.
• Dynamic Form - fixed validation issue where Confirmation text was mandatory when Skip confirmation was enabled; now optional.
• Dynamic Form > Acknowledgement Screen - enforced session-based access control; prevents unauthorised access to gated content.
• Dynamic Form > CTA Button - corrected spacing for submit button; improved separation from last form field.
• Dynamic Form > Landscape Video - fixed aspect ratio display for landscape videos; eliminates letterboxing.
• Dynamic Form Entries > Create Contact Action - fixed error in contact creation due to URL parameter issue; ensures successful contact creation.
• Dynamic Form Entries > Merge Contact - fixed paging reset to page 1; improved filter persistence after Merge Contact action.
• Edition Analysis > Contact List Dropdown - fixed filter persistence issue; selected filters now remain after submission.
• Last Touch - expanded touch point tracking to include five new engagement signals; displays detailed breakdown in Contact summary panel; enhances engagement insights.
• Live Users > Account Link - fixed legacy URL issue; account links now navigate correctly to account records.
• Mailing List Subscriber Import - renamed 'Source' column to 'PermissionSource' for clarity; improved mapping to contact record permissions.
• Mailing List Subscriber Import - resolved task processing issue; ensured reliable completion of subscriber imports to contact record creation.
• Mailing Lists - excluded Public Persona contacts from Mailing List search results; ensures these contacts do not appear in operational workflows.
• My Interests > Topic Entries - removed duplicate topic entries in alphabetical sort; maintains hierarchical view with multiple parent categories.
• Opportunities Listing > Paging Controls - fixed pagination issue; page links now persist correctly when navigating.
• Opportunity Edit > Reminder Date - removed future date requirement for reminders; allows edits regardless of reminder date.
• PAF Provider Profile - updated to Ideal Postcodes for address lookup; renamed Administration Key to User Token; cleared previous provider credential data.
• Public Persona - introduced Public Persona contact type; enables curated public profiles with automatic privacy settings and disabled marketing subscriptions.
• Search Profile > Search Form Prompt - restored missing prompt text item in edit mode; allows customisation of default search prompt.
• Security Rights Popup > Security Groups Column - adds Security Groups column to display group associations; shows first three groups with a '+' for expansion.
• Task Listings > Due Date Display - corrected display to show actual task due date instead of creation date.
• Task Notes > Collapse Button - added functionality to collapse expanded task notes across all display locations.
• Task Notifications > Domain URLs - corrected domain links in task notifications for multi-zone sites; ensured accurate access to tasks.
• Topic Import > Delete Mode - fixed targeting to require TopicCode; prevents incorrect deletions of similarly named topics.
• Topic Import > Duplicate Validation - added validation for duplicates in Add mode; requires TopicCode in Update and Delete modes.
• Topic Import - Delete mode no longer requires ScreenName, and single-row imports process correctly.
• User Export - added ContactListDateAdded column; displayed dates for contacts in multiple lists; improved visibility into contact list membership.
• User Export - added Created Dates filter for export; updated date fields to use date range picker; clarified Registration Date fields.
• User Export - included Customer Signal Points in activity data export; updated help text for Activity Data fields.
• User Export - added Requested column to align with User Import format; improved data round-tripping between export and import.
• User Export - deprecated legacy CRM Topics field; renamed Keywords to Topics; improved topic selection experience with cascading popup.
• User Export - fixed error accessing User Export from Contact List link; ensured zone parameter initialisation regardless of entry point.
• User Export > Account Email and Website - added Account Email Address and Website columns to User Export; improved data extraction for CRM.
• User Export > Security Groups - includes profile-assigned security groups in export; resolves discrepancies with User Security View.
• User Import > Contact Type Update - adds validation for email matches when changing Contact Type; returns descriptive error messages for mismatches or missing emails.
• User Import > Public Persona Support - supports Public Persona contact type; defaults Privacy Level to Public if unspecified; ensures correct visibility for high-profile individuals.
• User Import > Update Mode - accepts EmailPrimary as a unique identifier; prioritises UserCode, ExternalUserID, then EmailPrimary; checks zone context for email matching.
• User Merge > Self-Selection Prevention - excluded merge source from target selector; added Member Type column to selectors.
• User Security View > Error Fix - resolved database error in security group editing; improved display for security sections.

Marketing teams see 9.0.11 change how they think about customer intelligence, not just which buttons are available. Customer data now flows from inbound campaign traffic all the way through to revenue, and the signal framework that drives lifecycle automation has been redesigned and renamed to match the language marketing teams actually use.

Terminology that fits modern marketing

The Customer Signal framework replaces Conversion Events, Customer Lifecycle replaces Customer Ladder, Lifecycle Analysis replaces Customer Ladder Analysis, and Campaign Dashboard replaces Client Campaigns. The full rationale and visual story live in the Customer Signals tentpole, above - the short version is that "signal" captures behaviour and journey, not just the transactional moment of a conversion.

UTM tracking and the Campaign Dashboard

A new in-platform UTM Link Builder generates tagged URLs with autocomplete for consistent naming, so your team can trace campaign spend to revenue without leaving Affino. Inbound UTM data is captured at session level and retained for two years, flowing into contacts, orders, and the Campaign Dashboard. The Campaign Dashboard itself has been overhauled with a cleaner layout, improved mobile responsiveness, and corrected navigation - it is now shareable with clients, sponsors, or management as a single view of what every campaign is driving.

Full-funnel attribution for marketing

Taken together, these changes give marketing teams a cleaner picture of the full funnel: where visitors came from, what they did next, and how campaign effort translates into audience growth and revenue. For the first time, that picture extends into guest-user activity, giving you visibility from the very top of the funnel.

Features and Enhancements

• Campaign Analysis - removed legacy charting code; transitioned to Chart.js, eliminating console errors and reducing page load overhead.
• Client Campaigns - default sort by Campaign Start date in descending order; enhances management of active campaigns.
• Screen Renaming - renamed Customer Ladder to Customer Lifecycle; renamed Customer Ladder Analysis to Lifecycle Analysis; renamed Conversion Event to Customer Signal.
• UTM Link Builder - added in-platform URL generator for UTM-tagged URLs; includes autocomplete for consistent naming.

Bug Fixes

• Campaign Dashboard - corrected Manage button navigation; now returns to Campaign Dashboard as expected.
• Client Campaign Dashboard - overhauled layout and theming; improved mobile responsiveness and fixed JavaScript errors.
• Conversion Events - fixed zone editing, first-time triggers, and reliable firing issues; improved event configuration.
• Marketing > SEO - added max-image-preview:large to Affino site meta so Google Discover can show full-size preview images; confirmed live.

Automation in 9.0.11 makes the machinery that connects customer actions to platform responses more reliable and far more expressive. The Customer Signal framework (renamed from Conversion Events, see the Customer Signals tentpole, above) gains richer configuration, new trigger types, and a redesigned interface that reveals the shape of your signal chains at a glance.

New trigger types, more flexible conditions

New trigger types join the framework, including a UTM trigger event with AND/OR matching logic that fires on inbound UTM parameters. Zone support has been extended to over forty trigger types, so multi-site operations can scope automation precisely to the right zone. Trigger names across every event type have been standardised to an "Entity - Action" shape, making it faster to find what you are looking for in a long list.

Reliability at the point of firing

The automation pipeline has been hardened across the board: event firing is more reliable under edge cases, zone editing for conversion events works correctly, and first-time trigger conditions are restored across every event type. Task notifications from Customer Signal tasks are delivered reliably, and the My filter on the Signals listing persists across page visits so your personal view stays as you left it.

UTM tracking flows into automation

UTM data now flows through contacts, orders, and campaign analytics, closing the loop between marketing spend and automated audience response. Combined with the redesigned Sequence Visualiser, your team can see exactly which campaigns are driving which downstream actions and iterate on the sequences that work.

Features and Enhancements

• Conversion Events - added "My" checkbox filter to the listing; shows only conversion events created by the current user; filter selection persists across page visits.
• Conversion Events - standardised trigger names to "Entity - Action" format; over 80 triggers renamed for clarity and grouping.
• Conversion Events - added Sequence Visualiser panel; displays a vertical flowchart of the entire conversion event sequence.
• Conversion Events - overhauled Redirect Trigger lookup; displays both Redundant and Destination URLs with filters for improved campaign tracking.
• Conversion Events - major overhaul of listing screen; added new filters, columns, and sorting capabilities for enhanced usability.
• Conversion Events - extended zone support to over 40 trigger types; consistent interface for zone filtering across trigger categories.
• Conversion Events > Bounced Email Mailing List Protection - ensured bounced contacts are not added to mailing lists.
• Customer Signals - introduced UTM trigger event with AND/OR logic; allows firing signals based on inbound UTM parameters.
• Task Notifications > Delivery Fix - fixed delivery issues for task notifications from Conversion Events; ensured reliable email notifications.
• Zapier Account methods - triggers and actions for creating, updating, and deleting accounts.
• Zapier Article actions - Create Article and Update Article actions let external tools push content into Affino programmatically.
• Zapier Article triggers - fire on article publication and modification, with the full article field set in the trigger payload.
• Zapier Awards method - triggers for Award Entry Created and Updated, with the full entry data across three sections.
• Zapier Contact List methods - actions for creating, updating, and managing contact-list membership.
• Zapier Contact methods - triggers and actions for creating, updating, and deleting contacts.
• Zapier Customer Signals method - outbound triggers and inbound actions push and receive Customer Signal data through Zapier.
• Zapier Event Attendees method - triggers for Attendee Created and Updated, with detailed attendee data including contact and order details.
• Zapier Order method - triggers for Order Created, Updated, and Line Item events, plus actions for order and subscription management.
• Zapier Topic Lists method - push triggers for Topic List Add, Edit, and Delete, with detailed topic data for external synchronisation.

Bug Fixes

• Conversion Events - fixed first-time trigger not firing; corrected underlying logic for reliable execution.
• Conversion Events - fixed the edit screen to display the selected trigger article correctly when a Gallery Article trigger is configured.
• Conversion Events - corrected email paragraph spacing; single paragraph breaks now render consistently in sent emails.
• Conversion Events - improved trigger selector popup layout; expanded for readability; corrected display order and navigation flow.
• Conversion Events - restored [Member_Type] placeholder substitution in notification emails; now displays actual member type value correctly.
• Conversion Events - resolved error on add/edit screen; corrected query definition for event configuration.
• Conversion Events - restored multiple trigger types after zone extension; all triggers now fire reliably with correct zone filtering.

Messaging in 9.0.11 is about reliability and polish. The Newsletter Message Template Builder has been audited end to end so every component renders consistently, the Message Creation flow is streamlined, and delivery infrastructure handles bounces and confirmations more cleanly.

Newsletter Template Builder audit

The Template Builder has received a thorough pass that touches every component: bold font weights render correctly, padding and spacing are consistent across content layers, image error handling includes fallback placeholders, and font family defaults are standardised throughout. Article List components align correctly in multi-column layouts, background colours isolate properly, and navbar underlines render as intended in Outlook. The result is newsletters that render consistently across email clients - a long-standing pain point that this release addresses systematically.

Streamlined message creation

Message Creation has been simplified by removing the initial selection screen that added an unnecessary step before configuration. Your team now lands directly in the composition surface and can get to the work faster. Email delivery infrastructure gains better bounce handling and confirmation tracking, so the downstream reporting matches what actually left your platform.

Features and Enhancements

• Campaign Dashboard - aligned click reporting with newsletter tracking; provides accurate engagement metrics for mailing-only campaigns.
• Conversion Events - upgraded mailing list incentive fields to multi-select; allows adding/removing users from multiple lists simultaneously.
• Email Logs - renamed to Email Send Logs across Control Centre; clarified distinction from Email Notifications screen.
• Email Notifications - added filter controls for troubleshooting; includes filters for Message Type, Bounce Type, Recipient, and Message Text.
• Mailing List > Deletion - fixed deletion error from Add/Edit screen; corrected logic for removing mailing lists.
• Message Campaigns - fixed tab navigation issue; corrected font size inconsistency causing visual shifts; restored reliable tab switching.
• Message Creation - removed initial selection screen; streamlined workflow to message configuration; consolidated campaign selection and message format options.
• Message Send - added check for Live status of parent Message Campaign before sending; stopped sends for Not Live campaigns; updated Messages listing and view screen.
• Message Send > Estimated Reach Button - hidden button during active sends; prevented accidental interference with message deliveries.
• Message Sending - excluded Public Persona contacts from all message sending paths; applied exclusion at initial filtering stage; updated Estimated Reach breakdown.
• Message Template Builder - removed "Article Main Text" placeholder; advised use of Header, Message, and Footer fields for email content.
• Message Template Builder > Article List Alignment - fixed misalignment of titles, images, and buttons in multi-column layouts; reworked responsive table layout for consistent alignment.
• Message Template Builder > Article List Background Colour - fixed background colour bleed issue; scoped settings to individual blocks, preventing global colour application.
• Message Template Builder > Navbar Links - fixed underline rendering issue in Outlook; applied inline text-decoration styling for consistent rendering across email clients.
• Message Template Builder > Undesired Bold Text - fixed unintended bold formatting in text blocks; ensured text elements render with intended styling.
• Message Templates - added Campaign filter to listing; includes multi-select options for quick template location.
• Messages and Newsletters - unified placeholder format support across all three first/last name formats for consistent message rendering.
• Messages Listing - added scheduled send date display; renamed column from "Date Sent" to "Send Date" for clarity.
• Newsletter Heatmap and Message Preview - fixed admin links to resolve correctly; ensures navigation to proper destination pages; prevents 400 errors.
• Newsletter Template Builder - completed audit and resolved multiple rendering issues; fixed font weights, padding, image handling, and layer naming conventions.
• Personal Messages - added option to hide Unsubscribe Notice; setting defaults to off for more personal communications.
• Registration Confirmation Email - fixed admin message placeholders; ensured no user-specific links appear in admin notifications.
• Scheduled Messages > Send Timing - corrected timing for scheduled messages; ensured dispatch at intended times.
• SMS Provider Profiles - fixed error when accessing profiles due to broken JSON configuration; added error handling to prevent access failures.

Bug Fixes

• Client Campaigns - improved visibility of Content Tab; filtered out unsent messages; removed zero-value stats.
• Conversion Events - fixed pagination issue in Mailing List selector; now loads additional mailing lists correctly.
• Message Template Builder - fixed layout issue causing unwanted gaps in article lists; now handles multi-row grids correctly.
• Messaging > Send Engine - second scheduled task drains non-newsletter messages on its own (up to 100 every 30 seconds); notifications no longer wait a minute behind a newsletter batch.
• Messaging > Templates - new Parent Campaign filter on the Message Templates listing makes it practical to navigate large template libraries (The Stage already manage 127 templates).
• Newsletter Scheduling - accepted midnight (00:00) as valid time for scheduling; corrected previous rejection error.

Subscriptions gain the visibility and self-service controls that commercial teams have been asking for. Your team gets a single dashboard to see the state of every subscription. Your customers get a clearer cancellation flow and a more graceful experience when a renewal attempt encounters trouble.

A single view of the subscription base

A new Subscription Dashboard presents active, lapsed, and cancelled subscriptions in one place, with revenue tracking across currencies so commercial teams can see the health of the base at a glance. The Subscription Listing screen has been rebuilt alongside it with improved filtering and sort options, so drilling into a segment is a quick task.

Cancellation and renewal flows

The cancellation flow is clearer: customers see better messaging about what happens when they cancel, and the platform handles lapsed renewal attempts more gracefully with improved payment-gateway timeout and lock management. A new Subscription Win-Back Campaign presents a customisable retention offer during cancellation, giving you a structured way to reduce churn at the decisive moment.

Operator controls

Renewal profiles now expose source-code access in the rich-text editor so operators can remove hardcoded styling from renewal communications, and dashboard integration pulls all of this into a single view alongside the Audience Dashboard - see Analytics, below, for how the lifecycle reporting ties in.

Features and Enhancements

• Account Subscription - fixed auto-assignment for new registrations; corrected UnassignedYN flag to ensure proper subscription matching.
• Catalogue Item Subscription Plan Selector - fixed display issues; ensured correct plan selection and reliable popup presentation.
• Checkout Validation - validates subscription-enabled items have a plan assigned; prevents confusing errors at payment stage.
• Checkout Validation - validates subscription items have associated plans before purchase; displays clear validation messages.
• Content Subscription Profile > Sender Address - corrected sender address for confirmation emails; now uses Email Profile's Sender Address.
• Dashboard - corrected first month value display; fixed date calculation issue for accurate subscription revenue tracking.
• Gift Subscription - corrected renewal receipt logic; ensured Gift Purchaser Message only sent on initial purchase.
• Metering > Guest User Cache - fixed cookie handling for guest users; ensured accurate free article counting.
• My Account Order History - redesigned layout to match updated tabs; added search and filter bar; displays multiple items with a "more" link.
• My Account Subscriptions Tab - redesigned layout for cleaner navigation; presents subscriptions in a compact table format with active and lapsed tabs.
• Renewal Profile - added Source Code access in TinyMCE editor; allows removal of hardcoded font styles.
• Stop Code Report - fixed display of subscription cancellations via webhooks; ensures Stop Code Date populates correctly for affected records.
• Stripe Payment Processing - improved resilience against connection interruptions; prevents duplicate subscriptions from occurring during payment.
• Stripe Payment Processing - enhanced handling of interrupted connections; prevents duplicate subscriptions during payment processing.
• Subscription Dashboard - corrected churn chart figures by resolving duplicate row issue; ensures accurate subscription counting.
• Subscription Expiry Report - added Active row for counting subscriptions due to expire; includes all Active statuses.
• Subscription Expiry Report - major update to align with Subscription Dashboard; added new filters and improved revenue calculations.
• Subscription Expiry Report Filter - renamed filter options for clarity; improved understanding of filter returns.
• Subscriptions Month Dropdown - fixed dropdown width; corrected layout disruption caused by excessive width.
• Win-back Campaign - added Win-back Time Frame field; allows setting minimum days post-purchase before triggering win-back campaigns.
• Win-Back Campaign - added feature to reduce churn; presents customisable win-back message during cancellation; stores replacement catalogue item upon acceptance.

Bug Fixes

• Subscription Dashboard - Corrected Revenue figure calculation; now aligns accurately across currencies.
• Subscriptions > Dashboard - legacy files left over from the framework move have been cleaned up; no editor-facing change, just a tidier codebase.

The four major analytics dashboards have now all migrated to the modernised framework, completing a long-running project to bring consistent layout, filtering, and interaction patterns to reporting across the platform. Your team gets a reporting surface that feels uniform and responsive regardless of which dashboard they have open.

Audience and lifecycle analytics

The Audience Dashboard, renamed from the previous Customer Lifecycle Dashboard, has been rebuilt on the updated analysis framework and now reflects the expanded Customer Signal tracking covered under Marketing, above. Customer Ladder Analysis becomes Lifecycle Analysis with updated visualisation, engagement charts restyled for consistency, and corrected month ordering on period comparisons.

UTM attribution and referral reporting

Referral Analysis gains zone, section, and article filters plus new group-by options. UTM data now feeds the Campaign Dashboard, Referral Report, and Order Referral Report, giving you full attribution from inbound campaign click through to conversion - see the UTM tentpole, above, for the full story.

Operational reporting polish

Heatmap tracking delivers better visitor-behaviour insights, the Impressions Report receives fixes for display and data accuracy, and the Deferred Income Report has had a full audit with performance and reliability improvements. Google Analytics transitions fully to GA4, with legacy Universal Analytics tracking code removed entirely (see Integration Updates, below).

Features and Enhancements

• Analysis Navigation - added new navigation tab in Control Centre; organised analytical tools into distinct blocks for easier access.
• Article Stats - fixed pre-fetch filtering to improve view accuracy; applied bot detection logic to Recent Viewers panel.
• Articles Report - fixed consumed count accuracy with server-side nonce deduplication; prevents inflated metrics from duplicate tracking.
• Audience Dashboard - renamed from Audience Analysis; updated navigation labels, main title, and sidebar entries; repositioned to the front of the Analysis list for greater prominence.
• Audience Dashboard - rebuilt on new Analysis framework; added full dark mode support; consistent responsive layout for mobile and tablet; updated timeframe labels and corrected chart tooltip ordering.
• Broken Links Export > Protocol Prefix - restored https:// protocol prefix in exported URLs for redirect setup.
• Contact Detail and Listing > UTM Attribution Tracking - added Source, Medium, and Campaign filters; displayed UTM data in multiple locations.
• Content Listing Performance - introduced a priority listing index; eliminates full table scans; improves database performance under burst traffic.
• Conversion Events - upgraded Assigned To field to a popup contact selector; added Customer Ladder filter to all conversion event selectors.
• Conversion Events - reorganised view screen for clarity; restructured panels for improved efficiency and conditional visibility.
• Customer Ladder Analysis - restyled engagement charts to match Control Centre; converted main chart to line chart for better trend visualisation.
• Customer Ladder Analysis - rebuilt Activity tab with full-width Conversion Event listing; improved clarity by displaying Conversion Event names.
• Deferred Income Report - underwent a full audit; improved performance and reliability; resolved variable scope corruption issues.
• Google Analytics - transitioned to GA4 only; removed legacy tracking code; optimised JavaScript compilation for improved performance.
• Long Running Query Log - added monitoring screen in Control Centre; logs queries exceeding 100ms; provides filterable views and detailed drill-down.
• Predictive Search > Audit - fixed crash and multiple bugs; addressed security gaps; improved variable handling and loop references.
• Redirect Conversion Events > Guest User Tracking - enabled tracking for guest users; increased event capture limit; added safeguards for guest records.
• Referral Analysis - added Zone, Section, and Article filters; introduced Group By options for Section and Article; filters combine using AND logic for precise referral traffic analysis.
• Site Analysis - renamed "Views" to "Impressions"; aligns terminology with standard analytics vocabulary; reduces confusion with content metrics.
• Subscription Dashboard - corrected revenue calculations for multi-subscription orders; ensures accurate revenue reporting; resolves inflation of monthly totals.
• Subscription Dashboard - implemented asynchronous chart loading; eliminates 504 Gateway Timeout errors; optimised revenue queries and introduced server-side caching.
• UTM and Marketing Enhancements - updated marketing terminology; renamed features to align with industry standards.

Bug Fixes

• Analytics > Referral Analysis - major rework: Referrers tab moved under Marketing, the Landing Pages tab actually shows landing pages now (was showing referral screens), Search Terms removed because engines and AIs no longer pass keywords, and the screens have been brought up to date.
• UTM Campaign Dashboard - sits alongside the Ad Campaigns dashboard with matching key metrics, a UTM Sessions metric, screen intro, and column layout; daily aggregation totals reflect actual session counts.
• Audience Dashboard - fixed a query error causing the screen to fail to load due to a missing column reference.
• Audience Dashboard - resolved a function reference error that prevented data from loading when selecting a timeframe.
• Customer Ladder Analysis - resolved popup charts loading error after zone filter introduction; hidden chart icon when no data is available.
• Customer Ladder Analysis - corrected month order on Engagement charts; months now display in proper chronological sequence.

Events management in 9.0.11 gets a more capable end-to-end workflow, from registration forms that capture what you need through to attendees finding everything in one place.

Richer registration forms

You can now build custom fields for attendees with the full range of input types: dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons, and free-text. Dropdowns default to a blank selection so each attendee makes an active choice. Registration flows now capture exactly the data your team needs without locking you into predefined fields.

One place for everything attendees need

The My Account Events area brings together ticketed orders, non-purchase events, and award entries into a single coherent view. Your attendees no longer hunt across separate tabs to find something they have signed up to, and your team has one reliable surface for enquiries and confirmations. The Assign Attendee flow is restored, attendee counts display accurately, and redundant indicators have been cleaned away.

Wider event ecosystem

Event attendee methods now flow through Zapier (see Zapier, above) so registration data can synchronise into the ticketing, CRM, or marketing platform of your choice. Awards workflows are newly connected, so panels and judging tools can integrate with Affino without manual export.

Features and Enhancements

• Advanced Event Detail Template - fixed metadata alignment issues; ensures consistent rendering across devices; uses Flexbox for layout.
• Advanced Event Template - auto-hides Sign Up tab for past events; prevents registration attempts for concluded events; enhances user experience on event listing pages.
• Attendee Add/Edit/View - updated rendering of Custom Fields to display correct types; allows administrators to change selections.
• Attendee Contact Creation - fixed type-casting error during contact creation from attendee records; handles empty Catalogue Item codes gracefully.
• Attendee Export - fixed retrieval of Custom Field values across all types; ensures correct values are exported for structured option types.
• Attendee Export > Line Total Column - corrected LineTotal column to display accurate order line item amounts; resolves previous query issues.
• Attendee Import - added validation for Custom Field values against stored options; returns clear errors for mismatched data.
• Attendee Import - added validation for Public Persona contact type; rejects rows with this type during import.
• Award Analysis - added Action Contact Selection button for bulk operations; displays unique entrant contacts for clarity.
• Award Entries > Criteria Fields - fixed stray numeral issue in criteria fields; ensured clean display of award entry data.
• Award Entries Export > Duplicate Exports - fixed issue causing duplicate export emails; ensured exports are handled as one-time operations.
• Award Entries Listing - renamed "Nominator" columns to "Entrant" to reflect correct terminology in award workflows.
• Award Entry Edit - renamed all "Nominator" fields to "Entrant" in the Entrants panel for consistency.
• Award Judging Screen - added thumbnail previews for uploaded images; opens full-resolution images in lightbox; enhances visual submission review process.
• Awards Category Edit - cleaned up TinyMCE HTML; improved performance and eliminated initialisation errors on edit screens.
• Awards Entry - fixed PDF file upload error; updated file handling code for successful PDF submissions.
• Awards Entry - fixed file upload deletion issue; ensured deleted files persist correctly after saving.
• Awards Entry Component - conducted a full audit; fixed multiple stability issues; improved variable handling; enhanced performance of reference code lookups.
• Canonical Links - added Award Entry and Site Search channel types; ensured correct canonical link tags are output.
• Event Attendee Custom Fields - added Checkbox, Dropdown, Radio, Text, and Topic field types; each type has specific configuration options.
• Events > Advanced Event Template - multimedia in the hero banner had stopped rendering on demo/microdemo; back working.
• Events > Attendee - new Event field on the Attendee Main panel ties each attendee record to its source event/product article; reporting and filtering against the right event finally works.
• Events > Attendee Edit - errorphant from the missing STARTDATE key cleared.
• Events > Attendee Export - new ArticleCode column added to the export, matching the recent ArticleCode addition to the Attendee Import.
• Events > Awards Judging - the export email a judge receives now links into the category they exported, not the default first one; download button surfaces immediately.
• Events > Judges Export - the xlsx export now leaves uploadedDocument columns blank when there's no file to download, instead of writing empty URLs.
• Events > My Account - adding or assigning an attendee from My Account now looks up the catalogue item's article and writes it to the attendee Event field; attendee-to-event reporting finally lines up.
• Events > My Account Profile - five new Required toggles for Special Dietary Needs, Disability Requirements and Custom 1-3 mean you can enforce attendee data capture from My Account.
• Events > Order - the Award Entries button on Control > Order now lands on the filtered set (Award Profile, Category and Name) instead of the full awards listing.

Data protection and audit controls in 9.0.11 tighten the evidence trail your compliance team relies on during audits.

Consent and processing audit trail

Cookie consent management handles withdrawal more cleanly, and the data-processing audit trail now logs personal-data operations more thoroughly. The result is a stronger evidence trail for data protection officers during compliance reviews, with less manual reconstruction required.

Metering and pageview controls

Metering Profile now enforces content security at the correct level, and guest user cache-cookie handling has been fixed so free-article counts remain accurate. User pageview-limit enforcement has a cleaner suspend audit trail, with separate security contact email configuration for pageview-limit-exceeded notifications.

Features and Enhancements

• Bot Access Logs - added Start and End Date/Time filters; enhances troubleshooting for bot activity.
• Content Security Right - added configurable Call-to-Action button settings; allows custom labels and links for insufficient rights messages.
• Cookie Policy Button > Z-Index - fixed overlap issue on mobile; ensured cookie consent button is fully accessible.
• GDPR > Cookie Consent - Cookie Policy Profile renames Accept All Cookies to Accept Additional Cookies and adds a Reject Additional Cookies text item; the bar now offers a parallel Reject Additional Cookies button, with Cookie Settings moved to the right and only strictly-necessary cookies loaded when the user rejects.
• Insufficient Rights Page - replaced login form with CTA button; directs users towards upgrading access; maintains login option without confusion.
• Metering Profile - fixed incorrect application of guest Content Security Rights to registered users; now resolves rights based on actual user access tier.
• Pageview Limit Exceeded - sends dedicated email to Security Contacts when limits are exceeded; includes user details and direct link for unsuspending.
• Security Group Editor > Pageview Limit - resolved false pageview limit triggers; adjusted counting logic for complex configuration screens.
• User Pageview Limit Enforcement - implemented pageview rate-limiting by security group; suspends accounts exceeding limits; sends notifications and redirects to 404 channel.

Ad serving in 9.0.11 gets tighter controls and cleaner reporting. Delivery logic for sponsored content has been refined, the reporting interface surfaces impression and click-through performance more clearly, and campaign management receives CSRF protection on impression and click logging to secure the pipeline end to end.

Features and Enhancements

• Ad Campaigns - implemented CSRF protection for impression and click logging; enhances security against fraudulent traffic.
• Campaign Dashboard - added UTM Campaign panel with Zone, Source, Medium, and Campaign attributes for enhanced tracking.

Bug Fixes

• Ad Campaigns - resolved visual artifact in popup selectors; corrected rendering issue for better usability.

Your platform gets faster, safer, and easier to administer with a broad set of foundations-level improvements in 9.0.11. The page caching system is fixed and tuned so content reaches your audience more quickly, security hardening strengthens the platform against emerging threats, and administrative surfaces across every control screen are more consistent and more predictable.

Speed improvements your audience sees

Page cache improvements process requests more reliably at scale, cache reads handle missing data gracefully, and internal lookup operations have been optimised so heavily-trafficked pages stay responsive even under load. The result is a platform that performs better for readers, even when your own team is running heavy content operations behind the scenes.

Security and reliability

Bot detection has been enhanced to better distinguish legitimate crawlers from the growing landscape of fake bots, cutting noise from analytics and reducing unnecessary load. Rate limiting, input validation, and page-cache access controls have all been tightened. Audit trails around suspension, re-activation, and data operations are more complete, giving you the evidence you need during compliance reviews.

Cleaner administration

Topic and keyword terminology has been unified across every control screen, completing a long-running consistency project: "Topic" now means the same thing everywhere in the interface, removing low-level confusion that used to slow down people new to Affino. The Design Centre has a new Usage screen so you can see at a glance which skins and assets are in use and where. Small fixes to sign-in redirects, password reset flows, and session handling polish the day-to-day experience.

Features and Enhancements

• Account Social Icons - fixed LinkedIn icon to open in a new tab, aligning with behaviour of other social icons.
• Article Carousel - tighter security and faster rendering on the Article Carousel Design Element.
• Automatic Maintenance Page - implemented a branded maintenance page for database downtime; improved user experience during outages; communicated service status clearly.
• Bot Detection > Verification - added Apple and Amazon Bot support; implemented fake bot detection; blocked unverified requests with 429 response.
• Bot Handling > Database Load - optimised bot detection logic; reduced database calls during high traffic; improved platform stability for human visitors.
• CDN Source Routing - ensured consistent delivery of font and icon assets through CDN; reduced server load; improved page load times.
• Channel Editor - fixed Parent Channel selector search issue; allowed clean loading of search field for available parent channels.
• Control Centre > CSS Compilation and Minification - consolidated CSS into a single compiled file; renamed Export System JSON screen.
• Control Centre Dashboards - fully migrated all dashboards to new framework; added user addition to Contact Lists; improved date range ordering and column display logic.
• Control Centre Login > Password Expiry Check - fixed login flow to check password expiry before 2FA step.
• Control Centre Styling - fixed CSS rendering issue in Safari; updated colour definitions for compatibility across older macOS versions.
• Design Centre - automated cleanup of legacy Skin files; removed obsolete PNGs and deprecated stylesheets; reduced disk usage without affecting active designs.
• Design Centre Menu Editor - fixed caching issue for menu items; ensured immediate visibility of changes on the live site.
• Design Centre Usage - added new screen in Control Centre for Design Centre element overview; improved visibility of element usage across Zones.
• Dropzone - updated to v7.4.3; consolidated library versions for consistent upload behaviour across forums and awards.
• Edition Vote - increased comment character limit from 500 to 2,000; aligned with Edition Comments Import capacity; ensured both insert and update operations respect new limit.
• HTML Parser - updated jSoup to v1.22.1; improved parsing accuracy; enhanced security for content sanitisation.
• JavaScript Compiler - updated to March 2026 release; improved memory efficiency; enhanced modern syntax handling; increased stability.
• Library Loading - dynamic loading reduces patch size and speeds up updates; one library retained for compatibility.
• Listing Screen Pagination - fixed pagination issue causing missing records in 'Load More'; ensured all records render correctly across page boundaries.
• Listing Screens - updated topic filter selectors to new popup component; removed legacy CRM Topics filter.
• Login Form - fixed password visibility toggle for all browsers; corrected JavaScript issues affecting eye icon functionality on forms.
• Media Upload - file uploads now complete reliably during heavy concurrent activity.
• Menu Login Design Element - fixed Register link colour rendering issue; ensured correct colour application from Design Object Editor settings.
• Metering Profile - fixed height issue in Metering Levels panel; ensured full display of all configured metering levels.
• Metering Profile - corrected sort order persistence for Metering Levels; ensured custom ordering is retained after saving.
• Redirect Editor - resolved error on add screen; updated template for correct redirect creation and editing workflow.
• Screen Name - added WAF protection for screen names containing 'admin'; automatically abbreviates to 'adm' to prevent blocks.
• Smart Directory Display - fixed download button spacing issue; ensured proper vertical separation from Article Questions component.
• Taxonomy Manager - fixed number format error during searches; corrected formatting mask for error-free taxonomy searches.
• Temporary Directory Cleanup - updated task to prevent timeouts; resolved cleanup failure errors; ensured reliable temporary file management.
• TinyMCE - updated to v8.4.0; improved accessibility compliance; enhanced table editing; refined toolbar behaviour.
• User Import - resolved session handling issue causing aborted imports; ensured user profile context is maintained throughout batch processing.
• User Security View - fixed duplicate Registration Zone label; removed redundant instance; updated remaining field with direct link to Zone record.
• VideoJS - upgraded to v8.23.7; improved playback, browser compatibility, and accessibility support across all media components.

Bug Fixes

• Page Cache - implemented bug fixes, security hardening, and performance improvements; optimised query parameters and cache lookup operations.

The following items have been retired in this release, each superseded or consolidated into their replacement.

• Legacy Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) - removed all UA tracking code. GA4 is the sole analytics integration.
• CRM Navigation > Analytics Items - removed analytics items from the CRM sidebar navigation to declutter the interface.
• Legacy Charting Code - removed old charting libraries from Campaign Analysis in favour of Chart.js.
• Article Main Text placeholder - removed from the Message Template Builder. Use Header, Message, and Footer components instead.
• Design Centre > Legacy Skins - automated cleanup removed obsolete PNG files and deprecated style definitions.

The following integrations have been added, updated, or refreshed in this release. Major integrations that carry their own story are covered in the Featured Updates above - this section captures the rest.

• Stripe - added automatic retry logic across all Stripe API calls; increased timeout on renewal generation; tightened rate-limit handling on the StripeV2 call path.
• OpenAI GPT-5 - three new model variants: gpt-5-nano (speed), gpt-5-mini (balanced), gpt-5-chat-latest (conversational).
• Google Gemini 2.5 Flash - integrated as alternative LLM option with regional endpoint routing, configurable temperature, max output tokens, and sampling strategies.
• GPT Image - upgraded from legacy image model; new parameters for aspect ratio, background mode, quality tier, output format, and compression.
• Ideal Postcodes - replaced getAddress.io for UK postcode lookup across checkout, registration, and profile screens.
• Google Sitemap - updated to output HTTPS URLs in XML format with Lastmod attributes; files split between article types.

Affino tracks and maintains the following browser-surface frameworks. Upgraded components are noted; unchanged ones are included so you can see the full list of tracked libraries.

• Chart.js - upgraded to v4.5.1
• Closure Compiler - v20250706 - no change
• DataTables - v2.2.2 - no change
• DropzoneJS - upgraded to v7.4.3
• Flatpickr - v4.6.13 - no change
• FontAwesome - v6.4.2 - no change
• GrapesJS - v0.21.7 - no change
• GrapesJS MJML - v1.0.5 - no change
• HighCharts - v5.0.14 - no change
• jQuery - upgraded to v4.0.0
• jQuery Migrate - v3.5.2 - no change
• jQueryUI - v1.14.1 - no change
• JSoup - v1.21.2 - no change
• TinyMCE - upgraded to v8.4.0
• Video.js - upgraded to v8.23.7