Release notes

Release 1.15.2

Release date: April 24th 2019

All users

• Fixed a bug with announcements displaying for incorrect user types
  

Adopters

Link Maker is working in partnership with Adoption UK to provide Adoption UK community features that are now live on the site. These features are an expansion of our current community features for adopters.

The newly branded Adoption UK community features include an extensive community forum moderated by the Adoption UK team, and the continued ability to advertise play dates and chat with other verified adopters.

We hope that this partnership will increase the number of community users and therefore expand the insight and resources shared within the community on Link Maker.

• Fixed a bug on the ‘Finding children’ and ‘Interest & discussions’ pages for families
• Fixed a bug preventing families from creating an account

Adoption UK community and community users

• We have added a ‘View archive’ button to the internal Adoption UK public forum page, this will open a view of the Adoption UK forum archive in a new window
• We have made the LA/agency contact name/email an optional field when registering for access to the full Adoption UK community features
• Fixed a bug preventing users from replying to topics
• Fixed a bug preventing existing community users from accessing the community chat
• Fixed a bug on the Adoption UK home description
• Fixed a bug displaying the incorrect banner message on the Adoption UK archive
• Fixed a bug preventing users from adding their Adoption UK membership details  

Release 1.15.1

Release date: March 7th 2019

All users

• Fixed a bug preventing users from commenting on a Q&A post.
• Fixed a bug preventing users from using Chat.

Adopters

• Fixed a bug that was displaying an incorrect message for adopters in the approval process on the settings page, relating to their profile being hidden.

Practitioners involved in adoption 

• Fixed a bug that was limiting the characters entered on the personality section of a sibling group adoption profile.
• Fixed a bug preventing family profiles appearing on the search page when their availability was set to consortium, RAA or a national register.

• Fixed a bug preventing users from commenting on a Q&A post.
• Fixed a bug preventing users from using Chat.

Release 1.15.0

Release date: March 6th 2019

All users

We are continuing to improve the accessibility of the site to a WCAG 2.1 AA standard. Our improvements include:

• A ‘Skip to content’ button on all pagesUse of accessible colours across the site
• Enhanced keyboard focus
• Accessible versions of graphical information
• New accessible forms

Adopters and practitioners involved in adoption

• All practitioners can now edit the profiles of adopters within their agency; adopters can also still edit their own profiles. The ability for an adopter to grant profile editing permissions to one user at a time has been removed.

Adoption Register Wales

Link Maker now provides the online platform for Adoption Register Wales, enabling social workers and adopters in Welsh agencies to work together to identify matches for children efficiently and securely. This includes the following features:

• Branded Adoption Register Wales pages for users in Welsh agencies, including a resource board and forum
• Site language option of either Welsh or English
• Email communications sent to users in both Welsh and English
• Process for practitioners in Welsh agencies to create a dual language profiles in Welsh and English
  

Release 1.14.6

Release date: February 12th 2019

All practitioners

• Added the functionality to select a postcode district as an exclusion zone.

Practitioners involved in adoption

• Added a new field to child adoption profiles, allowing practitioners to indicate when a child is in the care of a different local authority. This information is only viewable by practitioners within your la/agency or regional adoption agency.  
• Added a new field to child adoption profiles, allowing practitioners to record the date a child first entered care. This information is only viewable by practitioners within your la/agency or regional adoption agency.  
• An adopter profile, without a profile photo, can now be made available internally within your organisation or regional adoption agency. You are still unable to make the profile available to social workers everywhere until a photo has been added.
  

Release 1.14.5

Release date: January 31st 2019

All users

• Our new ISO270001 certificate has been uploaded to the site
• Improved the background process of merging agencies  
• Fied a bug with our Google Maps integration/display  
• Fixed a bug with the display of multi-page documents

Adopters

• Fixed a bug preventing adopters from viewing their past enquiries

Practitioners

• Added new fields to the profile data export for commissioning families
• Fixed a bug preventing child practitioners within the same agency as the family in an enquiry from starting discussions
• Fixed a bug with our outstanding action emails

Managers

• Added the ability to transfer a case from one organisation to another. The ability to do this is restricted to managing practitioners and requires the receiving agency to accept the case. 
  

Release 1.14.4

Release date: December 3rd 2018

All users

• Added information to the external pages detailing our partnership with Scotland’s Adoption Register
• Made changes to the ‘Terms of service’ and ‘Privacy policy’
• Added help text to the ‘Visual impairment’ field for all profiles
• Improved background case deletion processes
• Improved background processes, including software updates and vulnerability scans
• Fixed a bug preventing users from ending discussions
• Fixed a bug preventing users from sending documents within a discussion
• Fixed a bug preventing users from accessing their past discussions

All practitioners

• Improved the design of the new filters on the ‘Cases’ page
• Fixed a bug preventing practitioners connecting to adopters from their organisation
• Fixed a bug preventing practitioners from sharing adopter cases with other practitioners from their organisation
• Fixed a bug displaying incorrect banners on profiles

Adopters

• Fixed a bug preventing adopters from connecting to a social worker from their agency
• Fixed a bug with incorrect wording in an automatic email to adopters
  

Release 1.14.3

Release date: November 20th 2018

All users  

• Processes for ensuring data is not held longer than necessary to comply with GDPR have been automated.
• Users are now alerted at login if their browser’s cookies are turned off. Whilst cookies are turned off, a user will be prevented from logging in.
• Spaces at the beginning or end of a username are no longer permitted.
• Improved the copy on the ‘Alert settings’ page.
• Reordered the list of ethnicities, for ease of use.
• Fixed a bug where user sessions were expiring on login.
• Fixed a bug that prevented users from uploading or printing documents.
• Fixed an error that prevented users from exporting a discussion.
• Fixed an error that prevented users from changing their password after a password reset.

All practitioners

• Added new functionality for all practitioners to see all cases and discussions within their agency. New filtering options have been added to the ‘Cases’ page and the ‘Interest & discussions’ page to facilitate the change. All practitioners can connect/disconnect from all cases in their agency. It is no longer necessary to have a family link confirmed by the family.
• Added a search box to the ‘Cases’ page that allows users to search by case name/reference and profile name/reference.
• Added a ‘Mark as read’ button to discussions that have no action (e.g. when receiving a message). This marks the discussion as read for all practitioners in your agency, removing it from ‘Needs attention’.

Managers

• With the added functionality for all practitioners to see all cases within an organisation, managers may find their ‘Cases’ page appears differently. This is because the page will be automatically filtered to ‘My cases’ and will only display cases you are connected to. To view all cases in your organisation, change the ‘My cases’ filter to your organisation.
  

Release 1.14.2

Release date: October 15th 2018

All Users 

• Fixed a bug that in some instances prevented the reciepients from viewing a document. 
• Fixed a bug that in some instances prevented users from saving or downloading documents.

Community Users 

• Fixed a bug that prevented some users from logging on. 

Release 1.14.1

Release date: October 12th 2018

All users

• Added the Crown Commercial Service Supplier logo to the footer.
• Replaced server error screen with branded Link Maker error page.
• Fixed a bug preventing community users from viewing announcements.

Practitioners

• Practitioners now have the functionality to ‘Subscribe’ or ‘Unsubscribe’ from notification emails relating to particular discussions. Practitioners are automatically subscribed to notification emails relating to discussions for cases they are linked to.
• Fixed an bug preventing the ‘Existing children’ fields from showing on an adopter profile.
  

Adopters

•  Fixed an bug preventing the ‘Existing children’ fields from showing on an adopter profile.
  

Placement providers & foster carers

• Fixed a bug that reset the work schedule for foster carers when editing their profile.
• The local authority of residence for foster carers can now be seen on foster carer profiles, if the field has been completed.
• Increased the date range, on the ‘Available from’ field on a foster carer profile, until the end of year 2050.
  
  

Release 1.14.0

Release date: October 4th 2018

All users

• We have made changes to the way in which messages and documents are encrypted in discussions. As well as increasing security, this will improve the experience of practitioners when sharing a case, as they will have access to content on older discussions. It will also improve the response time for users who lose access to their messages after forgetting their password.
• Increased the complexity of the one time code to two random words to increase security.

Scotland’s Adoption Register users

• Removed the fields relating to ‘ADM decision’ and ‘Placement order’ on childrens profiles.