Release notes - OpenAthens for libraries

Release date: 13 November 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-12060] - Bug: The OIDC connector was rejecting .well-known configs that lacked certain optional fields

• [MDP-12133] - Bug: Boolean and numeric data types couldn't be used for rules in the API connector 

Release date: 29 October 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-12040] - Bug: Advanced search could not search local accounts on the account attribute for some customers

• [MDP-12070] - Bug: Advanced search could not load saved search requests that included choice attributes

• [MDP-12033] - Bug: Advanced search, when saving default advanced search parameters, did not retain "Only show results where" options if the fields were empty 

Release date: 25 July 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11980] - The OpenAthens account option on the local account login page did not appear to screen readers as a link 

Release date: 22 July 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Updates to redirector logic for greater accuracy and speed

• Updates to redirector error handling which in certain circumstances did not display the error text

Release date: 16 July 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11900, MDP-11861, MDP-11743]

  • Quick search updated to allow AND searches instead of just OR

  • Advanced search updated to include local accounts
  • See: About search
• [MDP-11349] - the status field is now sortable

Release date: 10 July 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-7705] - Search results will now automatically select a tab with results

• [MDP-11926]  - The preset search for group would try to search local accounts

• [MDP-11927]  - The preset search from permission sets would not include administrators accounts

• [MDP-11793] - Restrict the notifications menu item to the organisation you signed in to

Release date: 22 April 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10839] - The retention period for the activity stream has been updated to one year.

Release date: 29 February 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11473] - 'Position' field length increased from 50 to 100 characters

• [MDP-11718] - Could not sort local connections when there were more than 15

Release date: 12 February 2024

Alteration to workflow

• [MDP-9683] - Attribute release has been changed from from and inherited model to a default and override model
  

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11586] - Show warning when disabling schema attribute that is reportable and/or releasable

• [MDP-11514] - Remove ability to alias other attributes as calculated attributes

• [MDP-10001] - Remove ability to map local attributes to certain target names

• [MDP-11521] - Disable use of certain target names in the schema editor

• [MDP-8888] - Remove calculated attributes from the attribute aliases list in attribute release policy

Release date: 18 January 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-804] - Improve link validation in MyAthens text panels

Release date: 12 January 2024

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10576] - The owner role assignment email template displayed a variable name instead of its value
• [MDP-11648] - Downloading all local accounts from a search produced an empty file

Release date: 4 December 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11129] - New behaviour at the authentication point when the selected organisation doesn't match the user's existing login - see: When users have accounts from more than one organisation

Release date: 7 November 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11416, 11445, 11446] - Make Pairwise-ID available as a releasable attribute - See: About Pairwise-ID
• [MDP-11481] - The account move dialog had lost the ability to scroll for long lists

Release date: 23 October 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11393] - update to the behaviour of the OIDC. connector around the consent screen 

Release date: 2 October 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10092] - move the generate new password email function from the menu to the main part of the page
• [MDP-10681] - an account's UUID could change when moved between sub-organisations, affecting targetedID generation
• [MDP-11413] - corrected the error message on filter length for LDAP connections

Release date: 6 September 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10942] - fix inconsistent numbering on multi-page lists

• [MDP-11310] - could not generate an activation code for accounts that had an administrator role

Release date: 23 August 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [RED-213] - Redirector updates to handle DOI links that resolved to co-access pages

Release date: 16 August 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11293] - The daily and weekly notifications email contained broken links

• [MDP-10682] - Bulk upload (modify) will now reject accounts with an admin role

• [MDP-10730] - Fix typo in tooltip

• [MDP-11236] - Group names could be created with leading and trailing spaces

Release date: 26 July 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9844] - Error messages will, when possible, directly show the user their home organisation's contact details instead of requiring all to search

• [MDP-11174] - Added some padding to the edges of the connection chooser

Release date: 20 July 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10683] - The Modify Details action did not work on accounts with an administrator role

• [MDP-11176] - Updates to email default text

Release date: 27 June 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-123] - make raw reporting data available via API

Release date: 21 June 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-11127] - sub-orgs with local accounts mapped to them could not download them

Release date: 7 June 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10947] - Enforce validation on OIDC .well-known configurations
• [MDP-10993] - Updates to the Release notes - OpenAthens for libraries screen

Release date: 1 June 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10690, 10691, 11044] - Updates to error messages

Release date: 23 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-671] - When a secondary breakdown was selected, the table under the graph in the interface showed the primary breakdown totals (downloaded data was unaffected) 

Release date: 21 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-578] - Additional add card button now at the top of the page in MyAthens admin
• [MDP-10806] - The OIDC connector didn't handle things well if the OIDC scope was missing from a provider's '.wellknown' config  

Release date: 20 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-379] - The order of resources in the MyAthens+ curated panel can now be ordered 

Release date: 15 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-670] - The authentications report was displaying "Failed - other" instead of "Failed - password update required"  

Release date: 8 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-402] - MyAthens now also displays the username 

Release date: 7 March 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10717] - update NameID options on SAML derived connector options (e.g. Azure) to match the SAML connector
• [MDP-8597] - OpenID Connect now available as a local connector option
• MDP-8369] - Evergreen ILS now available as a local connector option 

Release date: 27 February 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10389] - Downloading data now appears in the audit stream
  

Release date: 22 February 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-570] - Administrators may now remove the contact my institution card from MyAthens as long as there is a text or button card present
  
• [MYP-644] - Improvements to the resource search function in MyAthens Plus
• [MYP-745] - All button added next to alphabetic filters on the resource list in MyAthens Plus

Release date: 13 February 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10280, 10354, 10438, 10444, 10445, 10485] - New authentication point flow for users who arrive 'undiscovered'
  

Release date: 17 January 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10424] - Restriction added to sub-organisation name changes when those organisations have a scope
• [MDP-10520] - Update guidance on the change password dialog
  

Release date: 9 January 2023

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-573] - Account reports are now downloaded in the same 'flat' format as Resource reports. See: Saving reports

Release date: 5 December 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10519] - Update guidance on the user-facing password change page

Release date: 29 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-643] - Reports with a monthly granularity could not be saved
• [REP-641] - The report download button might not always be present

Release date: 28 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10482] - Access accounts were not being deleted when they reached the set days past expiry threshold
• [MDP-10297] - It was possible to include deleted accounts in a bulk modify operation which left them in a difficult state

Release date: 21 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10192] - Add more choice about what appears in the published contact details
• [MDP-10254] - Send an email alert on a password change
• [MDP-10391] - Additional fields from public contacts for email templates
• [MDP-10458] - Passwords would  not work if they contained non-ASCII characters
• [MDP-10459] - The unique ID field was not searchable

Release date: 16 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [RED-181] - update the logic used by the redirector link generator in line with that used by the redirector itself

Release date: 14 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10463] - Improved guidance on the password set / reset page

Release date: 10 November 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10235] -
  • The updated password policy is now enforced for existing administrator-enabled accounts. They can no longer skip the password reset prompt if they have a weak password
  • Personal accounts (end users) are now prompted to change their password if it is weak, but have a skip option for now.

Release date: 11 October 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10191] - SAML connectors using Name ID as the unique ID and any other attribute as display name were not displaying correctly

Release date: 10 October 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10408] - Setting a new password would fail if firewalls or similar blocked the client-side validation code (zxcvbn.js)

Release date: 12 September 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-565/570] - Keyboard navigation improvements to the reporting interface
• [MYP-709] - MyAthens Plus resource filter improvements for mobile 

Release date: 1 September 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10235] - Admin accounts that do not comply with the new password policy are now prompted to update, with a defer option

Release date: 15 August 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10040, 10084, 10085] - Password selection changes enabled - see: About usernames, passwords and expiry dates

Release date: 2 August 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-637] - MyAthens Plus resource list search now remembers previous searches if they led to a resource being selected
• [MYP-726] - MyAthens Plus resource list no longer resets to all after setting or removing a favourite

Release date: 21 July 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-3890] - Enable download of local accounts
• [MDP-10041] - Replace password confirmation box with a show/hide button

Release date: 16 June 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [RED-200] - The redirector was handling DOI links incorrectly in certain circumstances  

Release date: 25 May 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-640, 673, 700] - Improvements to MyAthens for text size and mobile support
• [MYP-634, 635, 710] - Improvements to the resource list in MyAthens+  

Release date: 10 May 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-636] - Navigation of the resources list in MyAthens+ has been enhanced with an alphabetic filter
• [MYP-642] - MyAthens+ resource list favourites button is now a filter rather than a sort 
• [REP-556] - Download options weren't working on read-only report views

Release date: 13 April 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [OASD-17818, 18335, 18475], [PROXY-277, 377, 378, 388, 392] -  Various fixes and improvements to the managed proxy service including
  • Improved rewriting of URLs within parameters & JavaScript
  • Improved handling of XHR and CORS requests

Release date: 28 March 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-10069] -  the SAML1 format of scopedAffiliation had stopped being automatically scoped

Release date: 24 March 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-638] - Truncated resource descriptions in MyAthens can now be expanded up to 10 lines 

Release date: 22 February 2022

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9510] - Last signed in date added to list for local accounts

Release date: 24 November 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-55] - Added Wayfinder to MyAthens to streamline the login process

Release date: 22 November 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9885] - Some accounts were imperfectly deleted causing conflicts fields set as unique    
• [MDP-9935] - Links in notifications were failing due to using an admin identifier instead of an organisation identifier 

Release date: 2 November 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9671/9462] - All administrators and sub-organisations can now, again, be deleted when necessary  

Release date: 29 October 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Updates to the managed proxy to improve the handling of session cookies 

Release date: 14 October 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MYP-511] - Resources set as hidden from users were visible in the admin view of MyAthens+
• [MYP-537] - A widget for the CORE Discovery platform can now be added in MyAthens+ to search Open Access resources: https://core.ac.uk/

Release date: 9 August 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Administrator accounts can now be used to access resources as well as the administration area. 

Release date: 4 August 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9271] - Unable to create permission set mapping rule at the organisation mapped org in certain situations
• [MDP-9599] - Entitlement value lengths could be set longer than maximum
• [MDP-9637] - Certain customers could not view the groups page
• [MDP-9647] - Could not impersonate into reports for an organisation that had no administrator
• [MDP-9654] - Some account account downloads were failing for some sub-organisations
• [MDP-9672] - Accounts created via Self-registration were incorrectly being recorded against the activity stream of the administrator
• [MDP-9677 / 9685] - Misuse monitoring updates to support future functionality
• [MDP-9678] - Creating a new organisation sometimes did not refresh the All organisations summary screen
• [MDP-9682] - The organisation button on a manually mapped connection had stopped working correctly

Release date: 22 July 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9079] - IdP metadata now includes an error URL, and libraries can have the SIRTFI entity category set if their federation requires it (https://refeds.org/sirtfi)
• [MDP-9680] - Some recently enabled admin accounts would have their password rejected on certain changes. 

Release date: 29 June 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9058] - You can now set the order that local connections are displayed to the user when you have more than one. See: Sorting connections
• [MDP-9419] - Sub organisations can no longer modify username prefixes

Release date: 24 May 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9499] - Successful authentication events now appear in an account's activity stream

Release date: 5 May 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Updates to the interface including a new organisation switcher. See: How to act as a sub-organisation
• [MDP-8264] - Default status can now be applied to a permission set at creation time
• [MDP-9487] - The reporting API no longer returns a 500 error for certain queries 
• [MDP-9495] - Advanced search was not showing all values in dropdown lists

Release date: 27 April 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9455] - In certain circumstances, moving an account between sub-organisations might not be recorded in the activity stream
• [MDP-9461] - Bulk upload functionality had started rejecting non-UTF-8 characters

Release date: 3 March 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9190] - Data downloads and bulk uploads now reference the organisation number instead of the admin username

Release date: 10 February 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9117] - Access code generation added to the activity stream
• [MDP-9249] - Libraries in multiple federations could have problems using the redirector in certain circumstances
• [MDP-9264] - Permission set schemas incorrectly denying add/edit permission in certain circumstances
• [MDP-9270] - The old organisation name was indexed when accounts moved to new organisations
• [MDP-9273] - Resource catalogue display issues around some resources
• [MDP-9289] - Changes to password reset request limits

Release date: 2 February 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9248] - Group affiliation was not maintained when moving accounts if the group was not present in the target organisation 
• [MDP-9260] - Access accounts could not sign in

Release date: 18 January 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-9192] - Could impersonate from the ownership information hover on search results
• [MDP-9193] - Links in daily/weekly notification emails were not working
• [MDP-9194] - Account data download link was not working
• [MDP-9195] - Redirector and visibility icons were not appearing in the resource catalogue

Release date: 13 January 2021

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Start of transition process for changes to administrator accounts 
• [MDP-9105,6] - Attributes were not removed from the attribute release policy properly when disabled or changed to no longer be releasable in the schema editor
• [MDP-8918] - The organisation summary page was not listing organisations in alphabetical order
• [MDP-8992] - Creation of sub-organisations was not included in the activity stream

Release date: 21 July 2020

New functionality:

• [REP-446] - Resource access reports can now be obtained via API calls for easier integration into analysis tools. See: Fetching statistics reports via the API  

Release date: 14 July 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-491] - Very large reports could not be exported. 
• [REP-515] - Resource reports are now supplied 'flat' for greater flexibility and compatibility. See: Saving reports 

Release date: 28 May 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-8569] - Metadata now includes names of sub-organisations where they have distinct scope values. 

Release date: 6 May 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [My-41] - Accessibility improvements for MyAthens. 

Release date: 30 April 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [REP-498] - Fixed a problem affecting the map view of authentications in the reporting interface

Release date: 21 April 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [RED-170] - Could not paste links into the redirector link generator if using IE11

Release date: 4 April 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-8585] - Fixed inconsistency between "Join requests" number in summary page and the list "Accounts awaiting approval to join this organisation" function
• [MDP-8587] - The fast forward button on search results has had the jump increased
• [MDP-8609] - The search backend was having problems when very large numbers of custom attributes were being used
• [MDP-8653] - Could not search for local accounts by their email addresses

Release date: 20 March 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Update to the admin sign-in page for remote working - see: How do I work from home

Release date: 16 March 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [RED-138] - Updates to the redirector link generators
• [MDP-8287] - SAML based local auth connectors now support the forceAuthn option (SAML, ADFS, CAS)
• [MDP-8347] - Previously set filters on audit streams were not applied on initial view

Release date: 30 January 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-8542] - The OpenAthens account option alongside local connectors can now contain custom text. Set it under domain preferences

Release date: 13 January 2020

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-8524] - Default settings on a new SAML local connection were incorrect
• [MDP-8526] - Validation on the bulk modify details function would incorrectly fail in certain circumstances

Release date: 1 November 2019

Notable bug fixes and changes:

• Administrators were unable to use the 'Log a query' link within the Administration area as an error was occurring on the support portal (https://support.openathens.net)

Release date: 30 October 2019

Bug fixes and changes:

• A HTTP header of referrer-policy has been added to the Administration area (admin.openathens.net) with the enforcement of strict-origin
• A HTTP header of content-security-policy has been added to the Administration area (admin.openathens.net) in reporting only mode
• [MDP-8449] - Display name attribute and Unique user attribute on a SAML connection could not be left blank even when "Use Subject NameID" is selected

Release date: 26 September 2019

Bug fixes and changes:

• [MDP-8276] - A new non-interactive signin API option has been added (the old method will still work).
  • See: Generating authentication tokens for end-users via the API -
• [MDP-8284] - The uniqueID used for local account can now be case normalised to aid OALA migration. 
• [REP-400] - Deleted reportable attributes could still appear in breakdown options on reports

Release date: 24 September 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [REP-408] - Multi-dimension reports that included permission sets were producing errors
• [REP-409] - Accounts > Authentications reports would not load

Release date: 18 September 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [REP-404] - Group name changes were not always reflected in reports
• [REP-407] - The top resources widget on the reports dashboard was not displaying data

Release date: 28 August 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [RED-91] - the redirector didn't like how some links were encoded / decoded

Release date: 19 August 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [RED-67] - the redirector could get a bit confused when there were multiple link formats for the same target

Release date: 31 July 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [MDP-8278] - Security headers were being sent twice in MyAthens

Release date: 25 July 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [MDP-8125] - certain characters could cause an error when clicking on an account that contained them in the audit stream
• [MDP-8152] - local accounts were not always cleaned up correctly when organisation mapping was being used

Release date: 18 July 2019

Notable Changes:

• [MDP-8163] - A scoped version of the targetedID attribute is now available in the Attribute release policies to help people who are migrating from other systems. To support use of this, the regular (unscoped) targetedID attribute that has always been released by default is now visible and selectable in policies.

Notable bug fixes:

• [MDP-8178] - Bulk downloads could time out when downloading very large numbers of accounts
• [MDP-8238] - OA federation metadata was not updated when enabling a scope on a sub-organisation

Release date: 12 June 2019

Notable bug fixes:

• [MDP-8176] - Local accounts where the unique ID was an empty string are now reported in audit as having their unique user identifier missing
• [MDP-8183] - Improved error handling when users were sent to sign in at a disabled domain
• [MDP-8198] - Users using a URL containing a organisation id of 0 were seeing an internal server error

Release date: 31st May 2019

Notable changes

• [MDP-4999] - Added support for HTTP-POST for SAML based local connectors
• [MDP-7248] - Add in support for Sirtifi (https://refeds.org/sirtfi)
• [MDP-7426] - Changes in the schema editor were not always reflected in the UI until the cache cleared
• [MDP-8050] - The 'Account > Totals > By attribute' report now includes local accounts
• [MDP-8058] - Accessibility improvements on the authentication point
• [MDP-8112] - Some less-common characters were not supported in the Unique ID field for local accounts
• [MDP-8139] - ADFS connectors using organisation mapping could be downgraded to http from https in certain circumstances
• [MDP-8140] - Fixed a CSS issue around the forgotten password confirmation message
• [MDP-8150] - Fixed CSS issues when selecting connections at the authentication point
• [REP-244] - Could not transfer to reporting from the admin area in certain circumstances
• [REP-246] - Attributes that have the reportable option removed will no longer appear as breakdown options in reporting
• [REP-300] - Clean up duplicates created before the release of [REP-245] -
• [REP-319] - Non-interactive sign-in via the management API was not recorded in reports
• [REP-356] - Could not remove people from a scheduled report distribution list

Release date: 25 April 2019

Notable changes

• [REP-293] - Removed the unique average column from reports (was of no use unless the period matched the granularity).

Release date: 3 April 2019

Notable changes

• [CSP-3115] - Hide from discovery option moved from a domain preference to a connection preference
• [MDP-4245 / 7527 / 7637 / 7797] - Various improvements to auditing, including local account activity
• [REP-201] - Account totals reports now distinguish between organisations that do and don't have their own scopes
• [REP-280] - Account totals reports displayed zero for breakdowns of choice attributes if the name contained a space

Release date: 14 March 2019

Notable changes

• [REP-174] - Added a link from the reporting interface to the admin interface
• [REP-206 / MDP-7819] - Column headings could be unclear in certain circumstances
• [REP-214 / 236] - Interface shows a progress bar and no longer times out when generating very large reports
• [REP-245] - Local authentication usernames could appear twice in reports in certain circumstances

Release date: 7 February 2019

Notable changes

• [REP-21] - Replace unique total with average on the authentication report
• [REP-142] - Remove totals series from the Account totals by status report
• [REP-207] - Fixed error on accessing some scheduled reports from emailed links
• [MY-35] - Fixes to the MyAthens panel editor

Release date: 9 October 2018

Notable changes and enhancements

• [REP-144] - The old statistics menu item now says 'Archive'

Notable bug fixes

• [MDP-7616] - A more helpful error is now returned when a non-decodable SAML request is received from a Publisher.
  

Release date: 6 September 2018

Notable bug fixes

• [MDP-7216] - Expiry date was reduced by 1 day on save when the expiry date was within daylight saving time of the admin-user's locale

Release date: 22 August 2018

Notable bug fixes

• • [MDP-7434] - Users mapped to multiple organisations using a local authentication connector were encountering a 500 error
  • [MDP-7490] - Accounts that had been deleted still received an account expiry email if they were within the recovery window

Release date: 14 August 2018

Notable bug fixes

• [MDP-7264] - "Contacting your OpenAthens administrator function" in the MyAthens help page was not working

Release date: 17 July 2018

Notable bug fixes

• [CSP-2880] - Edits to MyAthens web content panels were not published
• [CSP-2881] - MyAthens was not setting target = "_blank" when specified on web content panel links