AuditDashboard Release Notes

All release notes are stored here, categorized by month.

November 2024 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released in November 2024:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:

• Version 8.0!
  

  We are excited to announce AuditDashboard 8.0, a better, faster AuditDashboard. Like occasionally needing to upgrade your computer’s operating system, we rebuilt AuditDashboard to prevent performance issues that can develop as software ages. Version 8.0 is a commitment to customer success and continuous improvement. It introduces performance enhancements, new features, and subtle improvements that align with user feedback. While the overall look has been kept familiar to avoid disruptions to your workflow, the rebuild allows us to deliver new features, enhanced designs and powerful integrations faster than ever before.

  A phased conversion and rollout process is underway. The update is seamless, with virtually no changes to the overall client experience. Firms will be notified after their portal has been upgraded.

  What's Immediately New and Available in Version 8.0?

  • Global Search: Find exactly what you need faster by centrally searching for users, engagements, or client companies and accessing related information. For example, by searching for a client’s name, you can see if they've registered, what engagements they're a part of and the engagement’s status.
  • Enhanced Search & Filters: Use new filter options to drill down in lists to find what you’re looking for. For example, you can now identify overdue engagements and see which ones impact John, your Senior Associate, before assigning them additional work.
  • Delete Comments: Maintain control of your conversations by deleting accidentally submitted comments.
  • Enhanced Notification Settings: Customize your notification preferences for individual engagements. For example, now you can receive instant notifications for all new comments and file upload notifications for select engagements.

2. Performance improvements and bug fixes to Version 7.0

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail] or your Customer Success Director.

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January 2024 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, January 2024:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • Automations: Designed to streamline your engagement management process. With Automations, you can continue to create and manage engagements as usual, but with the added benefit of automating visibility and notification preferences.
     • 'Draft' engagements are now exclusively visible to firm users, so engagements can be drafted, and clients can be assigned without notifying them.
     • Engagements become visible to client users when they are 'In Progress.'
     • Automatic notifications are linked to the engagement status and are activated once an engagement is 'In Progress.'
     • Control when an engagement becomes 'In Progress' or ‘Complete,’ pre-determining its visibility and the status of client notifications.
     • Set preferences individually per engagement or across the board for your entire portal.
2. Performance improvements and bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

September 2023 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, September 2023:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • Introduction of ‘To Mark Complete’ flag for engagements.  Engagements classified as 'To Mark Complete' have been inactive for 30, 75, or 200 days yet achieved a reasonably high client progress, 99%, 90% or 75%, respectively.
   • To Mark Complete flag available in All Engagements report
   • Ability to mark engagements complete from the engagement detail view in All Engagements.
   • Improved help content
     
     
2. Performance improvements and bug fixes.
   
   

June 2023 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, June 2023:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • Download Request Data allows a professional user to download files (or file versions) not already downloaded by any professional.  This is useful to collect any newly uploaded files that have not previously been downloaded for review.
   • Exports from Insights reports are filtered based on the selected Insights filters.
2. Performance improvements and bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

 

March 2023 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, March 2023:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Introduced “Industry” field for client companies.
   • Signing request history is visible within engagements for documents that are digitally signed from a request.
2. Enhancements to improve the Professional experience:
   • The “Requests Pending Review” widget is re-designed and shows requests assigned to you as well as requests not assigned to anyone.  The widget also features the date the request was last submitted.
   • Each request now has a indicator badge that describes if the request will be rolled-forward into a new engagement.  Clicking on this badge will allow users to change the roll-forward status.
   • Added number of Client Uploads and number of Firm Uploads to the “All Engagements” report.
3. Usability improvements and bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

January 2023 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, January 2023:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   1. Introduced enhanced international telephone formatting for all phone and mobile fields.
   2. Added filtering and grouping on left navigation items for Engagements. Users can now search to filter engagement titles and view engagements grouped by status.
   3. Added filtering on the left navigation for User Administration. Users can now search to filter by company name.
2. Usability improvements and bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

December 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, December 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   1. The Download Request Data button now downloads all request activity if “Include request activity with comments” is selected. This includes request activity for requests with no uploads
   2. User Activity Report includes counts of “New” and “In Progress” engagements for each user
   3. General Client Users can not edit request details (title, description, reference) or re-assign / change professional users.
2. Usability improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

September 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, September 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   1. Client user dashboards now feature the My Team widget. This shows the contact information of the professional team they are working with.   Professional users can update their contact information and opt in or out of sharing their contact details.  Learn more about the My Team Dashboard widget here: https://auditdashboard.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9321572644877-My-Team-Dashboard-Widget
   2. The firm name now appears on the “Employee Log In” (e.g. left) side of the login page
   3. User records now include a “Title” field that can be filled in with the user’s business title
   4. Improved help section for client users with professional team contact information
2. Usability improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

July 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, July 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   1. Customized Fields display in All Engagements lists and reports
   2. Customized Fields allow for a “Read-Only” type
   3. Engagement Title field length extended
   4. Division appears in User Activity Report when applicable
2. Usability improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

June 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, June 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   1. Global File Retention Policy in Files: AuditDashboard file portals can have a global retention policy set to delete files after a specified period.
   2. Reopened Engagements do not appear in user notification settings and dashboard widgets
   3. Importing Engagement Requests: Requests can now be imported into engagements from other engagements for the same client company.  This can be done by using the “Upload Requests” button in any engagement
   4. Downloading All Files Grouped by Reference: Files can be grouped by reference when downloading from engagements
2. Several copy updates, and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

 

May 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, May 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • When restricting requests, only users who have been included in the restriction can be added as assignees of the request. Users assigned to requests who are not part of the restricted group are removed.
   • Enhanced password policy and configuration options
   • Folder Retention Policies in Files: Users can set folder level retention policies to delete files after a specified period.
2. Several copy updates, performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

March 2022 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, March 2022:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • The User Details pane now shows all notification settings for users, including instant notification settings and engagement summary email settings.
   • Enhanced password policy and configuration options.
   • Ability to search folders in the Year-round File Sharing Portal
   • Client File Access Role: Client users can now be given access to the Year-Round File Sharing Portal to securely exchange files outside of engagements.
   • Files in the Year-round File Sharing Solution can now be deleted automatically
2. Several copy updates, performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

December 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, December 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • User Activity Report Improvements: New data has been added to the user activity report available to professional users that shows a user’s Single Sign On and Multi-Factor Authentication settings.
2. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Signature document creators can now re-send invitations to sign documents at any time from within the portal.
   • Newly created requests can now be restricted to specific engagement users without having to create them first.
   • Professionals can now “re-open” closed engagements which will allow them full access and will supress any notifications that may be sent out to users who are still part of those engagements. This is useful for professionals who want to compare previous years engagements to one they are currently setting up.
3. Several minor copy updates, performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

Oct 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, October 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Form-based login enhancements: Admins can now enforce multi-factor authentication portal-wide or for specific client companies.
   • Integrated Year-round File Sharing: We are excited to announce that Professional Users, with sufficient authority, can now receive and share one-off files (any size or type) with maximum security. To turn this feature on, get in touch.
2. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

June 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, June 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • User Workflow and Notification settings are in the User Activity report.
   • When creating new users, the divisions and / or offices available to the user will be pre-selected.
   • New requests can be marked as high priority when creating.
2. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Warning message presented to users on outdated browsers such as Internet Explorer 11 and below.
   • Improved mobile styling for the dashboard.
   • Signed and completed documents can be sent as links, rather than attachments.
   • The Request Status Overview dashboard widget can now sort by engagement start date.
   • There is the ability to filter requests lists based on Flagged items.
3. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

May 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, May 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Minor language changes for confirmation messages and support tickets.
   • Improved mobile styling for login, registration, and forgot password screens.
   • Fixed a bug where request due dates could not be adjusted for some users.
   • Item counts displayed for all lists.
   • Signatures now shows total and remaining signature licenses.
   • The Engagement Owner can be changed when creating new engagements.
   • Do Not Roll Forward flag can be set when importing request lists.
2. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

April 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, April 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Loading spinners throughout the portal.
   • Direct linking to notification settings from notification emails.
   • Improved email notification, dashboard, and engagement messaging.
2. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

March 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, March 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • E-Signatures field placement improvements.
   • E-Signature creators now receive the signed document upon completion.
2. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Improvements to content availability through the deployment of a global Content Delivery Network.
3. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

February 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, February 2021:

1. Enhancements to improve the Professional Experience:
   • Engagement fields can now have customized validation applied, including the ability to change text fields to drop-down selects, making fields mandatory, and enforcing specific input formats. Review this article to learn more. Email [e-mail] to have these customizations implemented.
   • E-Signatures now features a free text field.
   • E-Signatures date fields default to US format unless otherwise specified.
   • Divisions now appear in All Engagements list and report if multiple divisions are configured.
2. Enhancements to improve the Professional and Client Experience:
   • Firms can now customize the time-of-day Engagement Summaries are sent out and the day of the week that weekly summaries are sent out. Email [e-mail] if you wish to change these.
3. Several minor performance improvements and bug fixes

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

January 2021 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, January 2021:

1. e-Signatures by AuditDashboard: Email [e-mail] to get a demo of our fully integrated, simple e-signature solution.
2. Enhancements to improve the professional and user experience:
   • Professional firms can choose whether to require acceptance of a customized terms of service message, when registering employee and client users.
   • Improved error messaging when uploading files that are too large.
3. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

November 2020 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, November 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Users can be assigned global permissions when creating the new user, rather than having to assign permissions after the user is created.
   • All downloadable reports have a glossary of terms identifying what each column in the report means.
   • Active engagements are viewable in user details view
   • The help center has been updated with new content and ways to submit requests.
   • A help widget has been added to the login page
2. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

 

October 2020 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, October 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • The All Engagements view now has the engagement owner listed in the sortable grid. Allowing for sorting and searching by engagement owner to make it easier to manage and administer engagements.
   • Engagement Managers can now view the details of who is a part of an engagement without editing the engagement details. These details include the professional and client users name and email.
   • The Engagement Manager role has been renamed to Engagement Admin to reflect its level of access rights in comparison to other roles. While the title of this role has been upgraded from Manager to Admin, the associated permissions and access rights have not. This role and the users assigned to it continue to have access to manage all engagements.
   • A new role has been introduced called Engagement Manager which Administrators may wish to opt users into. Engagement Managers have access to manage the engagement they are a part of. In other words, instead of having the ability to see all engagements at the firm, Engagement Managers can only see the engagements they are currently apart of.
   • Updates have been made to the User Activity report which now includes visibility into a user’s workflow. Total Requests assigned and a breakdown of requests by status.
   • The colour of login buttons can now be customized, by customer instance to emphasis a firm’s brand.
2. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

August 2020 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, August 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional and client experience:
   • Enhanced system roles, access rights and permissions to allow for more flexibility and customization. An Advanced Permission button now appears in User Administration allowing Professional Users to customize access rights for all users, by client.  Read more about advanced permissions here. 
   • Enhanced multi-select functionality throughout the website. You can now use SHIFT + CLICK to select multiple rows of items, and you can use CTRL + CLICK to pick individual rows for multi-select.
   • Added Cyrillic language support to content such as comments, descriptions, and file names
   • Added longer file name support. File names can now be up to 250 characters long and will be automatically shortened, if necessary.
2. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Introduced the concept of restricted access by Firm Office(s). Professional administrators can create multiple offices and assign firm users to one or more offices.  Client’s can also be linked to one or more office(s) to segregate who can view and edit engagements. 
     
     • There is a new menu item in AuditDashboard called “Firm Offices” which a firm administrator with sufficient permissions can add and edit firm offices.
     • Read more about Firm offices here.
   • Introduced the concept of restricted access by Firm Division(s). Firms can now segregate engagements, firm users, and client companies can by division (eg. Audit, Tax, Corp. Finance, Accounting, Other, etc.).  Read more about Firm Divisions here. 
   • Client users can now belong to multiple client companies. This allows Client Users to access engagements for both XYZ Co. and ABC Co.
     • To add or associate your client user with another company, select “Add Client Company” in User Administration. This is particularly helpful for cases where two clients share controllers from say an outsourced accounting firm.  
     • Read more about adding users to multiple client companies here.
   • Added a consumed license count to the users listing when viewing the professional firm users. Professional administrators with sufficient permissions can now see how many licenses they have consumed out of their total pool of professional licenses.
   • We have created a user activity report which is accessible within User Administration. This report shows all active users as well as their date of last login.  This report can be used to verify if the organization has any dormant users that can or should be deactivated.
   • Added the fields “Days to Start” and “Percent Client Complete” to the All Engagements Report.
     • “Days to Start” shows the number of days until the engagement is slated to start and is colour coded to infer the status.
     • “Percent Client Complete” shows the percentage of requests submitted by the client for that engagement.

3. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

 

May 2020 Release Notes

 The following features and changes were released, May 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Several enhancements have been made to automate engagement workflows. Now, an engagement’s status will automatically be switched from “New” to “In-progress” at the earlier of:
     • a client uploading the first document; or
     • when the start date has passed
   • Engagement administrators can now move multiple engagements from All Engagements to the Trash without having to create a support ticket.
   • Automated retention rules can be set without having to create a support ticket. AuditDashboard client’s who wish to opt-in, can now set customized retention rules to permanently delete any trash type automatically, including engagements, requests, request documents, and global files. For example, when automated retention rules are turned on, administrators who can view Trash will now see a message that says, “Trash older than X days will be permanently deleted automatically”. To enable automated retention rules, contact your account manager.

2. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

April 2020 Release Notes

 The following features and changes were released, April 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Several improvements have been made to enhance both the visibility of restrictions and their ease of use. Professional users can now restrict multiple requests at one time and see who restrictions are set for in the request list report or by modify restrictions by clicking on the new restricted lock icon on the request list.  See this article for more about restricting requests.
   • The download all folder structure has been enhanced so users can now choose how they would like multiple-files to be downloaded – by title, then request (old) or by reference, then request (new).
   • Professionals users can now upload files directly to new requests by either selecting files to upload or using the drag & drop feature of their browser. This will queue the files to be uploaded immediately after the new request is created by pressing “OK & Close” or “OK & New”.
2. Enhancements to improve the professional and client experience:
   • As mentioned above, several improvements have been made to enhance the visibility of restrictions and their ease of use. Client’s can now see who restrictions are set for in the request list report or by clicking on the new restricted lock icon, on the request list or by downloading the request list report.
   • Industry leading authentication has been introduced, including a new login experience for professionals and clients which gives firms the ability to configure and enable Single Sign-On (SSO) via Microsoft or Google for both professional and client users.
     • This new offering allows professionals to use their corporate identity to log in to AuditDashboard, offering greater control and governance for IT teams to execute the firms identify policy, across all users and devices.
     • This feature also allows professionals to enforce specific single sign-on methods for individual client companies, if desired.
     • To upgrade to Single Sign-on, contact your account manager or email [e-mail].
   • Changes to the dashboard style to improve readability and accessibility.
   • The headings in the request list now stick to the top when scrolling through a long list.
   • Improvements to make search functionality more engaging and improve to search results.
   • Enhancements have been made to the design of key engagement metric summary email notifications; including the addition of the engagement name in the subject line, and improvements to simplify the email content. The total number of requests was removed and both outstanding and returned counts are hidden if they equal zero.
3. Several performance improvements and minor bug fixes.

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

February 2020 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, February 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Professionals with the Role: “client manager” can now see the registration and forgot password override link to help customers who may not have received their registration email. This functionality was previously restricted to Administrators.
   • Professionals with the Role: “Administrator” can now permanently delete trash without creating a support ticket. This is a full and permanent delete and is not recoverable. Encrypted global and request based files are also permanently deleted from storage. All comments are completely deleted from the database. Administrators can permanently delete any trash type, including engagements, requests, request documents, and global files.
   • The Professional Role: "Staff Manager" has been removed.  This role was under utilized by professional users and the Admin role has all the features of staff manager.
   • Several enhancements have been made to the All Engagements View, including:
     
     • New filters added for engagement types (Overdue and My Engagements
     • Filters for engagement states (New, In Progress, Complete, Show All)
   • Removal of status column in view and introduction of coloured cells to inform engagement status.
   • The All Engagement Report has been enhanced so now only the filtered engagements that a professional has selected, export. Some minor design modifications have also been added to the report.
2. Enhancements to improve the professional and the client experience:
   • Users can now sort The Dashboard in the order they last viewed their engagements or the order they were last modified by anyone
   • The visibility of "Restricted Access" has been enhanced. Now, when a professional designates a request as restricted, the users who have access will see a red lock icon in the dynamic request list. This can be sorted by clicking on the lock icon in the header.
   • The Request List report has been enhanced so users can now see which requests are restricted and to whom.
   • A submit button has been introduced in the comment field. Now, after writing a comment, any action in the request will ensure the comment text is saved and published in the activity feed (e.g. pressing Enter on your keyboard, “Submit”, “Submit for Review” “Return” or “Accept”).
3. Bug fixes and performance improvements:

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].

January 2020 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, January 2020:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional and client experience:
   
   • URLs in comments are now clickable so hyperlinks to websites will open in a new window.
2. Bug fixes and performance improvements

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail]. 

December 2019 Release Notes

The following features and changes were released, December 2019:

1. Enhancements to improve the professional experience:
   • Engagement details now includes a Start Date, Due Date, ID, Type and Owner for better organization and ongoing management. These details are also included in the All Engagements Report.
   • A confirmation step has been added before accepting or returning multiple requests. So, if a professional selects more than one request and applies any bulk action to the workflow, they will be prompted to confirm prior to completing that action.
2. Enhancements to improve the professional and client experience:
   • The term "Rejected" has been replaced with "Returned" throughout the application. The workflows are exactly the same, now it sounds nicer :).
   • The ability for clients to modify a request’s due date has been disabled.
3. Bug fixes and performance improvements

If you have any questions about this release or its features, please email [e-mail].