SurveyCTO release notes

Please find all SurveyCTO server console release notes below. If you’re an existing customer, updates are always free, and will generally be rolled out automatically. For updates that we think may be disruptive to your work in any way, we allow your server administrator to choose exactly when to update. You can log in to your Manage Subscription page at any time to see what version you're on and if any server updates are available.

Other components

If you're looking for the release notes for specific SurveyCTO components, please see their component release note page:

  SurveyCTO Desktop
  SurveyCTO Collect (Android)
  SurveyCTO Collect (iOS)

If you're new to SurveyCTO and would like to learn more, please visit www.SurveyCTO.com. There, you'll find user interviews and case studies, our video library of tutorials and feature overviews, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and other helpful general information about the SurveyCTO platform.

surveycto.com
2.81.2
Dec 19, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users from editing existing publishing configurations to Google Sheets.
2.81.1
Nov 29, 2023

Improvements

  • Added support for repeated fields as parameters in the plug-in-metadata() function.
  • Improved the UI/UX when people import items from the Hub.
  • Improved some security aspects around the integration with Google Drive.
  • Updated some backend components to increase security.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing datasets to be properly updated in Collect when these were originally deployed via the Hub.
  • Fixed a bug that to allow .svg files as form attachments to work properly when the forms are installed via the Hub
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users from attaching .docx and .pptx files in form submissions.
  • Replaced the "lorem ipsum" text in the new Discover tab with an actual help text and a link to product documentation.
  • Fixed a bug that was affecting the proper installations of Hub items when the latter contained server datasets with preloaded data that were used to update the formids columns in cases datasets.
  • Fixed a bug that was could make the server console totally unusable in some cases when multiple users were concurrently manipulating the group structure.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the quality checks report to fail when more the too many report lines needed to be updated at the same time.
2.81
Oct 2, 2023

New feature

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users to use one or more white spaces as the separator when concatenating values during form data publishing into datasets.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users of custom roles to become aware of newly created top-level groups that are created after they are logged into the server console.

Improvements

  • Improved how the server console is sending mail notifications to account for transient network errors.
2.80.8
Jul 14, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug during the loading of the Data Explorer for some Chrome users that was throwing an error message mentioning "outerHeight()" among other things.
  • Fixed a bug that some times didn't allow users to create multiple quality checks on the same form, causing the following error in the UI: "Duplicate key KEY"

Improvements

  • Updated some 3rd-party libraries to improve security.
2.80.7
Apr 21, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a regression from 2.80.6 in web forms that prevented some form submissions from being automatically published into server datasets.
  • Fixed a regression from 2.80.6 where the saved progress in the form designer was preserved even if the user had chosen to discard it.
  • Fixed a very old bug for servers with thousands of forms and datasets, where the server console could not load at all.

Improvements

  • Improved some aspects of the security layer related to user role permissions.
2.80.6
Mar 30, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a web form bug that sometimes created redundant submission attachments for encrypted forms.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some classes of errors from being reported in the server console when forms failed to publish into server datasets (like when an emoji was in the form data).
  • Fixed a web form bug that was causing false "traffic jam" errors even when there was not really a lot of traffic.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented forms and datasets with emojis in their names from being downloaded in Collect.
  • Fixed a bug in web forms that prevented users from attaching media files that contained emojis into their names.

Improvements

  • Improved the server's performance when loading data into the Data Explorer.
  • Updated some 3rd-party libraries to improve security.
2.80.5
Mar 17, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Updated the UI of the server components to support emojis and all the latest Unicode characters.
  • Fixed a bug that was blocking publishing to Google Sheets when the field to uniquely identify data was wrongly classified as a number.
  • Fixed a bug that was rendering a publishing connection from a form to a server dataset when the latter didn't actually exist.

Improvements

  • Improved the server's performance when incoming submissions are updating multiple rows in server datasets.
  • Improved the server's performance when mobile clients are requesting new versions of server datasets.
2.80.4
Feb 18, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing the Collect app to end up with corrupted local copies of server datasets.
  • Fixed a bug that could potentially cause a server crash when downloading server dataset changes from the Design tab for very large server datasets.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented users from re-activating servers from very old versions.
  • Fixed a minor bug that was adding a systemic field (__data_created_millis) to server dataset changes when datasets were manually edited in the Design tab.
2.80.3
Jan 26, 2023

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was causing Collect for Android to fail to update the cases list, showing "empty values" in the error message.
  • Removed database queries from the login page in order to improve page speed and overall system performance.
2.80.2
Dec 15, 2022

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a regression that prevented users from opening the settings panel for some old datasets.
2.80.1
Dec 12, 2022

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a regression that was causing cloud publishing to stall after upgrading to 2.80.
  • Fixed a regression that was preventing users from deleting server datasets after upgrading to 2.80.
  • Fixed a bug during form uploads that was wrongly warning users about misconfigured forms publishing to server datasets.
2.80
Dec 7, 2022

New features

  • Added support for offline dataset publishing.
  • Added support for long format publishing to datasets.
  • Added support for Add and Concatenate server dataset publishing field mapping options.
  • Added a new function in server datasets for downloading dataset changes.
  • Consolidated the Settings and Configure functions for server datasets.

Improvements

  • Dropped the UI for Desktop datasets for those that still had any.
  • Stopped having the server advertize Collect updates in favor of the Google Play Store's automatic updates.
  • Updated some 3rd-party libraries to improve security.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug in the review and corrections workflow that was causing submission classifications to not show up.
  • Fixed a typo for the Download button for the default device configuration QR code.
2.72.2
Sep 24, 2022

Improvements

  • Changed the printable versions of a form to also include images when present.
  • Removed database queries from the login page in order to improve page and overall system performance.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing forms from publishing into enumerator datasets when manual publishing configurations existed on top of automatic ones from the enumerator field.
  • Fixed a bug that didn't allow server administrators to configure OneLogin as an SSO provider.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing some users from downloading monthly usage reports.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented users from viewing publishable data in an encrypted form without supplying a private key.
  • Fixed the position of the name property when adding enumerator fields in the form designer.
  • Fixed a typo in the hint under the team ID when creating new teams.
2.72.1
Aug 13, 2022

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that made prefixes and suffixes in the auto-generated enumerator IDs contain "null" instead of being blank when an enumerator dataset was created via the enumerator field in the form designer.
  • Added future support for an upcoming update of an underlying library.
2.72
Jul 20, 2022

New features and improvements

  • Added support for enumerators, including the new enumerator field type, enumerator datasets, the enumerator-id() and enumerator-name() functions, and the ability to link cases to enumerators when using case management. Also added support for the new enumerator field type in the form designer and Data Explorer, added enumerator counts into data export reports, and extended the Start new form process to make it easy to add enumerator fields, create enumerator datasets, and even populate enumerator datasets when creating new forms.
  • Improved the interface for editing datasets directly in the server console, to make it easier to edit datasets with many rows and/or columns. For datasets with over 1,000 rows, this includes a new option to filter which records are displayed.
  • Added the ability for specific forms to require a minimum version of the SurveyCTO Collect mobile app, in order to ensure that those forms will operate properly. As a first application, forms with the new enumerator field type will require that users with older Collect versions update to at least version 2.72.
  • Improved the performance of loading form media files when filling out forms on the web.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed the auto-generated summaries in the Data Explorer for select_one and select_multiple fields to default to categorical views even when the values are numeric.
  • Updated the error message shown when somebody tries to publish a form to the same dataset multiple times.
2.71.5
May 28, 2022

Improvements

  • Replaced the data processing library with a version that resolves a code vulnerability.
  • Resolved an issue that was not allowing the server to free up memory.
2.71.4
Jan 15, 2022

New features and improvements

  • Improved how very long labels are displayed on horizontal bar charts in the Data Explorer.
  • Updated some 3rd-party libraries to mitigate security vulnerabilities including Log4Shell.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed the password fields in the "Add user" and "Edit user" panels to prevent password managers auto-filling those fields.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing an error during statistics gathering for the JPAL-102x course servers.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing JPAL-102x course servers from counting example form submissions properly.
  • Fixed a bug that was making the server use too much memory when cleaning up expired web form sessions.
2.71.3
Nov 20, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Back-end performance improvements for publishing data to the cloud.
  • Improved how labels are displayed for horizontal bar charts in the Data Explorer to ensure that the full label is always accessible.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug with auto-adding relationship summaries for integer fields to blank Data Explorer workbooks.
2.71.2
Oct 9, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Major performance improvements for console users who work with very large datasets, both in the Data Explorer as well as exporting data. We've reduced the amount of browser memory required to export data, so more data can be exported without the browser slowing down or freezing up, and exporting will continue in the background if you switch to another window or browser tab.
  • The Data Explorer will now intelligently scan your form and automatically create summaries for you when opening a form for the first time.
  • Made it much easier to find and use the example form with example data.
  • Strengthened the default mobile security settings. This will affect all new servers and ones that update to v2.71. Existing servers will not be affected.
  • Strengthened server API access security. The Allow server API access setting will now be disabled by default for all new user roles. Existing user roles will not be affected.
  • Added the ability to enforce a minimum version requirement for SurveyCTO Collect devices interacting with your server. This new setting is located in the Mobile security settings section of the Collect tab.
  • Removed the Require private workspace storage mobile security setting. The new Don't allow outside access setting includes that requirement as well as others.
  • Changed the default time frame in the submission statistics chart in the Monitor tab to 30 days to improve performance on servers with lots of historical data.
  • Improved the response message when multiple API requests are being sent to the server at once.
  • Improved it so that leading and trailing white space and line breaks are automatically removed when pasting public or private encryption keys.
  • Improved the example responses included in the sample form with data (hh_listing_2) to make them more realistic and better able to showcase the capabilities of the Data Explorer.
  • Started defaulting formdef_version to categorical when it participates in relationship summaries in Data Explorer workbooks.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug with the XLSX to CSV conversion process which was adding extra quotation marks around strings.
  • Fixed it so that server logs are never cached. Now, you can download the current log multiple times in the same day and it will always contain the most recent server activity.
  • Fixed an XSS vulnerability in the language label field for web forms user interface languages.
  • Fixed an XSS vulnerability in the email address fields in the server settings section of the Configure tab.
  • Fixed it so that, when selecting which media attachment to use for a field in the online form designer, only one media file can be selected at a time.
  • Fixed a bug with the login screen caused by the Adobe Acrobat Chrome extension that would prevent the right side from being able to load properly.
2.71.1
Aug 14, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Added detailed publishing status information in the Advanced: publishing form and dataset data to the cloud section of the Export tab for forms and datasets that are actively publishing data.
  • Added email address validation when configuring usage reports to ensure that those reports are able to be delivered.
  • Increased the maximum allowable form version from 2147483647 to 9999999999.
  • Updated a code dependency (Rhino) to remediate a security vulnerability.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug with publishing data to Google Sheets which could cause some records to not publish automatically.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing line break characters in Excel files to be interpreted as new rows when converting to .csv.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing errors when publishing data to Google Sheets spreadsheets set to a locale that uses a comma symbol (,) as a decimal separator.
  • Fixed a bug in the Data Explorer so that the choice value will now be shown if the choice label is unavailable.
  • Fixed a bug in the submission details view of the Data Explorer that was incorrectly attributing some comments to the currently-logged-in user.
  • Fixed a typo in the server API's error response message when no date parameter is supplied.
2.71
Jul 17, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Added a suite of new settings to be able to enforce security policies for mobile devices.
  • Added a new feature to allow API access to be restricted on a per-role basis.
  • Added extensive new documentation about how SurveyCTO can keep your data safe, including best practices and recommendations.
  • For forms that use case management workflows, added the ability to manually supply a case ID when testing using the test view of the online form designer.
  • Improved the loading screen for the Data Explorer to provide more detail about loading progress when loading forms with many submissions.
  • Further restricted the conditions under which attached datasets will be distributed with forms, in order to keep them safer.
  • Updated help cards to promote the quick setup page as the preferred means of installing the Collect app.
  • In the form designer, made it easier to know when you are working on a form that has been optimized but not yet saved.
  • Updated libraries to resolve potential security vulnerabilities.
  • Added support for localized (translated) error responses from the server to Collect, so that Collect users can see certain error messages in their local device language.
  • Improved it so the case ID is now part of the unique identifier for web form sessions.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that made it difficult to select choices in web forms on newer iPads.
  • Fixed a bug related to auto-scrolling in the test view of the form designer.
  • Fixed a bug with uploading files from a shared drive in Google Drive.
  • Corrected a description in one of the help sheets in Data Explorer workbook definitions.
2.70.19
Mar 27, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Added a feature to automatically optimize huge or complex XLSX form definitions that take a long time to load in the form designer. The optimized version should not only load faster in the form designer, but in Excel as well. Overwriting your existing form definition with the optimized version is optional.
  • Isolated the process the server uses to load form definitions to improve performance and reliability.
  • Improved the error-reporting in web forms to be more helpful and specific. Some errors were being incorrectly reported as simply "traffic jam" errors.
  • Major performance improvements for servers that use the review and correction workflow to classify and review submissions.
  • Added better support for identifying and reporting on field plug-in errors when filling out web forms.
  • Added full support for text-only encryption keys (instead of using key files).
  • Updated a back-end library (Apache POI) to remediate a security vulnerability.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug with the "Go-To" UI in the Form Designer's test view that could stay open when switching to the design view.
  • Fixed a bug with the index() function that was preventing some forms to load fast.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users from publishing to Google Shared Drives when those were configured to allow sharing to non-members.
  • Fixed a bug with uploading form definitions when the local file is changed after being selected in the console.
  • Fixed a bug with the text audits in web forms that caused the duration of the entries in the .csv file to be tracked incorrectly.
  • Fixed a bug with the field plug-in console when a field plug-in attempts to set an invalid choice for a select_one or select_multiple field.
  • Fixed a bug with the test view of the form designer that could cause the form to restart instead of going to the next field when you click the Next button.
  • Fixed a bug with the field plug-in console that would cause an error if you passed a number directly to a field plug-in's metadata.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented self-hosted servers from properly validating their license in some cases.
2.70.18
Mar 6, 2021

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users from exporting very large datasets via the v1 of the server API.
2.70.17
Feb 27, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Added support for the new eventlog appearance for text audit fields.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug with updating existing form definitions from Google Sheets.
2.70.16
Feb 13, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Added paging controls at the bottom of very long case lists for web forms.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug when searching through very long case lists for web forms. You can now clear the search even when there were no search results.
  • Fixed it so the width setting in web forms will now also control the width of the go to menu.
  • Fixed it so that the controls for audio and video in field labels in web forms are properly sized to fit on the screens of mobile devices.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing people from downloading blank forms and submitting data when the server had already recovered from an outage.
  • Fixed a bug in the new web forms UI that wasn't properly disabling the navigation buttons while a file upload was in progress.
  • Fixed a bug with showing case lists for web forms when the formid was set as the first column in the table.
2.70.15
Feb 6, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Made minor improvements to sorting and filtering case lists on the web using the users and roles columns.

Bug fixes

  • Resolved a recently-introduced problem that caused the Manage Cases screen not to load for some web users.
  • Patched a small bug introduced in 2.70.14 having to do with how whitespace in the users and roles columns is treated when rendering the case management screen in a web browser.
2.70.14
Jan 30, 2021

New features and improvements

  • Redesigned the user interface for web forms.
  • Added new web forms settings for controlling the web surveying experience.
  • Added the ability to set per-team monthly submission limits.
  • Added a field plug-in testing console to the test view of the form designer, which can be used to test live changes to a plug-in's code.
  • Added pagination to the Manage cases page for web forms when the case list contains over 1,000 cases.
  • Changed it to allow field plug-ins to use placeholder text from the interface translation tables for supported field types. See QUESTION_PLACEHOLDER_LABEL in the field plug-in API doc for more details.
  • Added new terms to the web forms interface translation tables to cover the Manage cases screen.
  • Changed the "appearance" option (when available) for web forms to now be called "width".
  • Improved the interface for uploading and attaching form files.
  • Made the initialization process of the server more robust to better account for possible errors.
  • Added a limited server diagnostic information page (available at [server URL]/health.html) to help identify and troubleshoot potential server issues.
  • Enabled the “secure” directive on all cookies to make sure they are only sent over secure connections.
  • Improved server start-up time so that system restarts require less down-time (including during weekly maintenance).

Bug fixes

  • Fixed embedded forms for Google Chrome users to preserve their status and data when the page is fully refreshed.
2.70.13
Dec 19, 2020

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug caused by a recent Chrome update that prevented embedded web forms from loading. Embedded forms are now able to load, but will start over completely if the page is refreshed (losing all current progress, if any).
  • Fixed a bug that could cause issues properly loading cases in the Manage Cases screen in Collect.
  • Fixed a recent bug that was preventing browsers with disabled cookies from filling out web forms.
  • Introduced a new method to calculate the allocated storage space that is faster and more scalable.
2.70.12
Dec 5, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Improved the number format used for datetime fields when exporting to Excel.
  • Added a direct link to the Support Center in the user dropdown menu in the top right corner of the server console.
  • Removed the "Auto-convert .xlsx to .csv" checkbox for form attachments. Users will now be prompted for what to do each time they attempt to attach an .xlsx file to a form.
  • Improved the .xlsx import process to allow .xlsx sheets containing merged cells to be imported to server datasets and/or converted to .csv.
  • Improved swipe gesture support for web forms.
  • Updated several server components as part of ongoing server security program.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed it so that now when you attach Google Sheets as form data, the number of Google Sheets converted to .csv files is shown in the confirmation popup.
  • Fixed a bug with importing .csv data into datasets that would improperly shift columns over if there were missing column headers.
  • Fixed a bug with the login page for web forms that would show the "This form is private" box even for public forms if you attempted to log in while filling out a public form.
  • Fixed a bug with uploading .xlsx data into datasets that would cause zeroes to be ignored.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users on self-hosted servers with non-SSO email addresses from being able to log in to the Support Center from the global login page.
  • Fixed a bug with form definition attachments that could not be downloaded when they contained invalid characters like %, /, \ and ;.
2.70.11
Nov 7, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Added support for Google Sheets to be imported as .csv files for form attachments and server datasets.

Bug fixes

  • Patched a bug introduced in 2.70.10 that prevented local .csv files from being merged into existing cases datasets.
  • Fixed a UI-related bug when invalid local .xlsx files failed to convert to .csv data for translation tables.
2.70.10
Oct 31, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Improved .xlsx exports to apply the proper data type/format, depending on the field type and contents.

Bug fixes

  • Patched a bug introduced in 2.70.9 that was causing errors when uploading server dataset definitions.
2.70.9
Oct 24, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Added support for exporting form data directly to .xlsx format. When exporting to .xlsx using the LONG format, repeat group data will be exported to separate sheets within the same .xlsx workbook.
  • Added support for importing .xlsx and .xls files instead of .csv files in the following places: uploading data from your computer to a server dataset, uploading form attachment data from the Design tab, and uploading translation tables.
  • Improved the web forms login page, and added a note to help clarify when a form is private (i.e., when a form does not have the Allow anonymous form access setting turned on).
  • Updated the HTML editor (used for editing HTML labels in the online form designer).
  • Improved the error response message from the server API when locked out due to too many failed login attempts.
  • Patched two XSS vulnerabilities in web forms.
2.70.8
Oct 3, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Added new terms (some of the most common error messages) to the web forms translation tables.
  • Removed database queries from the login page in order to improve page and overall system performance.
2.70.7
Sep 26, 2020

New features and improvements

  • The web forms user interface now supports French, Spanish, and Hindi (in addition to English).
  • If you need the web forms interface to support a language other than English, French, Spanish, and Hindi, you can now add support for any language you like by uploading your own translation table. More translation tables are available in our GitHub repo.
  • Multi-language forms opened in a web browser will now automatically attempt to switch to the language that will be understood by the form-filler. You can disable this new feature by editing the form settings in the Web data collection section on the Collect tab.
  • New limits on the number of times and rate you can request a password-reset email.
  • Added additional protection against cross-site request forgery attacks (CSRF), to cover all requests that could make any changes.
  • Improved the server to protect Collect from the case where a user attempts to run quick setup, and the default device configuration is set to download the cases dataset, but there is no cases dataset for that user role.
  • Ended support for client datasets.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was causing incorrect field mapping summaries to be shown in the Design tab when more than one server dataset was publishing into the same form.
  • Fixed a bug that could sometimes show the following error message when the server console was loaded: Comparison method violates its general contract.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent PDF export reports from being generated on the server if that server had an interlaced PNG custom logo.
  • Fixed a bug with field plug-in parameters that would prevent certain expressions from being evaluated.
2.70.6
Jun 27, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Improved the web forms so that the quick/minimal/compact/quickcompact appearances for select_one and select_multiple fields can be defined in any order. They had to be the first appearances in the past.
  • Improved the server console UI to be aware of potential teams-count violations and offer appropriate recommendations.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a spelling error in the default device configuration setup panel.
2.70.5
May 30, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Added the ability to set up 'default device configurations' for a role.
  • New Mobile data collection section in the Collect tab for settings and features related to mobile data collection.
  • New customizable quick setup instructions pages available from the Mobile data collection section in the Collect tab.
  • New function added: plug-in-metadata().
  • Web form users can now select which case ID they want to use when the case ID in the active session does not match the URL.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed field plug-ins to work for draft versions of a form in the test view of the Form Designer.
  • Expanded the coverage of the previous bug fix related to Chrome file uploads to cover field plug-ins in the Form Designer, workbook definition files, and CSV files for server datasets. From now on, when a file upload fails, Chrome users will need to re-select the file to upload it again.
2.70.4
May 9, 2020

New features and improvements

  • New server setting: Require users of SurveyCTO Collect to store forms and data in private app storage. When enabled, devices will not be able to send or receive data from the server unless they have been configured to use Private app storage from the App storage location in Admin settings. Please note: this new setting only applies to Collect 2.70.2 (and later) for Android.
  • New server feature for helping devices reset their app passcode. Please note: this new setting only applies to Collect 2.70.2 (and later) for Android.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug caused by a Chrome update that throws an error when you try to upload the same form definition multiple times in a row. From now on, when a form definition upload fails, Chrome users will need to re-select the form definition to upload it again.
2.70.3
Apr 25, 2020

New features and improvements

  • New server setting: Require users of SurveyCTO Collect to secure their device with a lock screen (PIN, pattern, fingerprint). When enabled, devices will not be able to send or receive data from the server unless they have been configured with a lock screen. Please note: this new setting only applies to Collect for Android.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that would prevent external viewers with view-only permission from being able to access forms with more than 1,000 submissions.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a display issue on small screens for web forms when using a custom uploaded server logo.
2.70.2
Apr 18, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Editing and testing forms in the form designer is now limited to form definitions 10MB or smaller.
2.70.1
Apr 4, 2020

New features and improvements

  • Added the ability to pause teams, so that you can keep your data and settings stored safely, but can downgrade your subscription level while you wait for a project to resume.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users from being able to access their server log files.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the print view of individual submissions to not show any actual data.
2.70.0
Mar 29, 2020

SurveyCTO 2.70 empowers you to adapt to evolving needs with the flexibility to use field plug-ins that control how questions in your forms look and operate, securely and conveniently share real-time data with anyone, program forms with more power and ease, and brand your work.

Click here to read the full 2.70 release blog post.

New features and improvements

  • Added support for field plug-ins to allow form designers more flexibility to extend and customize the appearance and functionality of their forms.
  • Added the ability to share direct access to the data for individual forms without needing to add a user account on your server. The recipients of this new kind of sharing are called “external viewers” and can be given either view-only or view-and-download access to the form’s data via the Data Explorer and SurveyCTO Desktop.
  • Added support for users to customize their SurveyCTO servers by uploading a logo (which then appears throughout the server console, in data export reports downloaded from the console, and more).
  • Added support for a wide variety of new functions for form designers, like empty(), sum-if(), and geo-scatter() (further details below).
  • Added the ability for users to add custom notes to both groups and summaries within Data Explorer workbooks, in order to annotate them.
  • Made extensive revisions to the functions available for use in expressions:
    • geo-scatter(): add random error to a GPS location so that it can be shared more safely
    • relevant(): check to see if a field is currently relevant
    • empty(): check to see if a field is currently empty
    • choice-label(): a more intuitive name and syntax for the old jr:choice-name() function
    • count-if(), sum-if(), min-if(), max-if(), join-if(), and rank-index-if(): new “if” variations of the functions for working with repeated fields, to allow easy filtering of data
    • count-items(), item-at(), item-index(), and item-present(): new functions for working with delimited lists of strings (to get away from having to always delimit with a space and use the multiple-choice functions like count-selected() to work with lists)
    • decimal-date-time() and decimal-time(): new functions for converting date and time values into decimals, which can be more easily and safely compared
    • lower() and upper(): added functions to easily convert strings to all lowercase or all uppercase respectively
    • coalesce(): added support for an arbitrary number of parameters, for cases where you need to include more than two possible fields
    • abs(): returns the absolute value of a number
  • Dramatically improved the layout and content for the Using expressions in your forms: a reference for all operators and functions documentation page.
  • Changed how we integrate with Google Drive and Google Sheets, in order to sharply restrict the permissions users have to grant their SurveyCTO servers.
  • Updated the Data Explorer to allow users to reload an encrypted form with publishable fields only, if they don't have the private key necessary to view the encrypted data.
  • Made the export process safer and more reliable when exporting encrypted submissions with missing attachments. This includes cases where these submissions were silently ignored during export.
  • Updated sample forms to account for renamed or improved functions.
  • Updated the calculation builder in the console and form designer to account for renamed or improved functions.
  • Improved the roles management interface to enforce permission requirements (when one permission depends on another).
  • Ensured that all server API error responses would be in JSON format (including when incorrect or missing credentials are used).
  • Shifted to a newer, faster, and more-scalable browser technology for storing local console user preferences (like which form groups should be open or closed, how toggle switches and other settings should default, etc.).
  • Stopped supporting unencrypted file requests even for non-sensitive web support files, to further strengthen server security.
  • Took additional steps to safeguard user passwords by shifting to a newer, industry-leading hashing algorithm (Argon2, coupled with our existing in-transit and at-rest encryption layers).
  • Changed from digest authentication to basic authentication for all server API requests.
  • Took additional steps to strengthen all single-sign-on and temporary-token support system-wide, to further protect against potential hack attempts.
  • Strengthened the default password requirements to include at least eight characters, one uppercase character, and one special character, and to expire on an annual basis. By default, these new requirements will not apply to the data-collector role.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed the Upload option within the form designer to work even for forms that have not yet been deployed.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing people with only the "Can view form data in aggregate" permission from viewing the data of encrypted forms in the Data Explorer.
  • Fixed it so that you can now select fields from attached datasets when creating a field or relationship summary in a Data Explorer workbook.
  • Corrected documentation for the area() function, to clarify that you can pass in a geoshape field, a geotrace field, or a set of geopoint fields.
Older versions...
For changes made to SurveyCTO prior to 2.70, please see the release notes archive.