Brief Connect v2.5.4 Release Notes

Release date - 26th March, 2026

Package version: `2.5.4`

This release introduces Group Assignment so teams can collaborate on roles and workflow tasks, adds notification and accessibility enhancements, and delivers broad usability and platform improvements across document handling, People and Roles visibility, upload safeguards, and deployment resilience. It also includes a substantial set of stability fixes across workflows, record creation and editing, authentication, SharePoint integration, dashboard behaviour, CSV exports, notification delivery, and public record visibility.

This release consolidates all changes from previous v2.5.x releases. Previous 2.5.x releases are deprecated and are no longer available for deployment.

New features

Group Assignment - Assign Roles and Tasks to Groups

Brief Connect supports assigning roles and workflow tasks to User Groups, enabling teams to collaborate on assignments without individual task management overhead.

Key capabilities:

Team-based assignment: Assign a User Group to any single-select Role field configured with "Groups Enabled"
Flexible task completion: Any member or owner of a group can complete tasks assigned to the group
Clear accountability: Activity logs show which group member completed each task on behalf of the group
Proxy support: Proxies to group members can also complete group-assigned tasks
Business-level control: User Groups are managed within Brief Connect (not Entra ID), giving business administrators control over team membership
Shared ownership: User Groups can have multiple owners to share management responsibilities

Please note:

Group assignment is opt-in and not enabled by default
It works with single-select Role fields only - not all roles and tasks are compatible
If you're interested in enabling group assignment for specific roles or workflows, contact the Brief Connect team and we can help with the configuration

Limitations:

Groups are limited to 15 users (owners + members combined)
Only single-select Role fields support group assignment (not Role Multi Select)
Nested groups are not supported

For setup and usage instructions, see:

Customisable email subject lines

Administrators can customise the subject line for most email notifications directly from the Admin Panel. Subject templates support tokens such as {RecordId}, {RecordTitle}, and {TaskName}, making it easier to standardise messaging and highlight important actions.

If no custom subject is configured, Brief Connect uses the default system-generated subject line.

For setup details, see Managing Notification Templates in Brief Connect.

Changes and improvements

Proxy selection persists on dashboard

Your selected proxy now persists across page navigations on the dashboard, so you do not need to re-select your proxy when moving between tabs.

Simplified signed document management

Documents now follow a simpler two-state model (signed vs unsigned). Uploading a signed copy replaces the displayed version while preserving the original unsigned document. Users can remove a signed copy to restore the original.

File size limit for uploads

A 150MB limit has been applied to file uploads to prevent failures caused by excessively large payloads.

Key Dates included in the People and Roles tab

Key Dates are visible in the People and Roles tab aligned with the roles they correspond to.

Record documents tab changes

Users can move documents between sections within a record (Primary, Supporting, Attachments) and download documents directly from the documents tab.

Record type tokens supported in notifications

Notifications can include the record type, improving clarity for recipients.

Improved document handling

Document sections keep a consistent ordering, and document filenames retain their original casing when moving between sections.

Improved SharePoint group ownership sync

Group membership updates now handle additional owners more reliably instead of skipping them during synchronisation.

Accessibility improvements across the interface

This release improves colour contrast, restores clearer keyboard focus indicators, improves screen reader support for controls and decorative imagery, and provides better guidance when disabled submit buttons cannot yet be used.

More resilient deployment behaviour

Deployment flows now handle environments without a provisioned Web API app more gracefully.

Database migration now supports Azure Document DB as a single-instance target

The migration tooling can migrate directly to a single Azure Document DB instance without requiring a secondary replication step.

Security hardening

Added secure response headers to strengthen the security posture for internal responses.

Bug fixes

Fixed invalid values being accepted in combobox fields

Combobox fields on the UI now properly validate input and reject invalid values.

Fixed dashboard date filter not working with today's date

The Date Initiated filter on the dashboard now correctly filters records when selecting today's date.

Fixed delayed dashboard updates

Resolved an issue where the dashboard could take weeks to reflect updates by improving SharePoint sync behavior.

Fixed lengthy values not visible in combobox hover

When lengthy values are selected for fields like Action Required, the full value is now clearly visible on hover.

Fixed blank screen when creating records

Resolved an issue where the screen could go blank while creating a record.

Fixed restricted values reverting in combobox

Resolved an issue where restricting a classification value and navigating away would cause it to reset.

Fixed PDF Pack generating blank pages

Resolved an issue where PDF Packs could generate blank pages for certain uploaded documents.

Fixed "No further action" dialog wording

Corrected the wording in the Remove No Further Action dialog box.

Fixed activity log display issue

Resolved an issue with activity log entries not displaying correctly.

Fixed incorrect emails for role assignment notifications

Resolved an issue where You've been assigned a role emails could be sent to incorrect recipients.

Fixed column reordering and width issues

Users can now reliably change the order of columns, with column widths adjusting correctly after reordering.

Fixed missing email notifications in DFFH TEST environment

Email notifications now send correctly in the DFFH TEST environment with a fallback configuration in place.

Fixed correspondence actions being removed when deleting collaborators

Removing a collaborator no longer incorrectly removes correspondence actions due to improved role checks.

Fixed Time Only field not saving values

The Time Only field now correctly sets and persists its value, with backend cleanup applied.

Fixed inability to unassign optional roles

Users can now successfully unassign optional roles in the People and Roles tab, with changes persisting as expected.

Fixed Workflow Builder tabs disappearing

The Workflow Builder (Workflows / Main Blocks) tabs no longer disappear briefly after first use.

Fixed opening password-protected snapshots

Password-protected snapshots now open in SharePoint file viewer and no longer show blank pages for images.

Fixed role tile Add/Edit button naming inconsistency

The Add/Edit button labels in role tiles are now consistent across the UI.

Fixed combobox hover tooltip behavior

Resolved an issue where combobox hover tooltips behaved incorrectly when the value was empty.

Fixed switch account not working

Users can now reliably switch accounts.

Fixed intermittent "record modified by another user" workflow errors

Reduced intermittent workflow failures by validating workflow actions server-side.

Fixed background SharePoint authentication failures

Resolved intermittent background function failures caused by SharePoint context authentication errors.

Fixed access denied in Teams app

Resolved an issue where users could receive access denied errors when using Brief Connect in Microsoft Teams.

Fixed signed document rename edge cases

Resolved issues where renaming signed documents could fail in specific scenarios.

Fixed clearing date fields not saving correctly

Cleared date values now persist correctly and no longer cause access-related issues on some records.

Fixed admin users unable to create records

Resolved an issue where some admin accounts could not create records even when Can create records was enabled.

Fixed SharePoint content type propagation issues

Resolved intermittent issues where SharePoint content types did not propagate correctly.

Fixed PDF Pack and snapshot handling after signed document changes

PDF Packs and snapshots now correctly handle signed-document replacement and removal scenarios.

Fixed repeated results in dashboard pagination for table storage environments

Dashboard paging no longer repeats the same first set of records across later pages for customers running Brief Connect v2.5.2 on the SharePoint/table storage path.

Fixed incorrect dashboard statistics in SharePoint search mode

Dashboard cards now calculate counts more accurately when the SharePoint search path is in use.

Fixed missing data in CSV exports

CSV exports now populate core record fields more reliably.

Fixed orphaned SharePoint folders after failed record creation

Rollback behaviour now cleans up incomplete SharePoint folders more reliably when record creation fails.

Fixed metadata parsing and user validation edge cases

Resolved issues that could cause metadata parsing exceptions and user validation failures when invalid SharePoint user references were present.

Fixed issue with notifications for Group owners/members

Users with notifications configured to Only my tasks now correctly receive notifications for tasks assigned to a group where they are an owner or member.

Fixed 'Role assigned' column showing incorrect values on the Dashboard

The Dashboard's Role assigned column could display values unrelated to the record's current workflow stage. This has been corrected so the column accurately reflects which role the record is currently assigned to.

Fixed missing or empty columns in CSV exports

Several core record fields (such as Correspondent From/To, Date Received, Related Records, and role columns) could appear blank or be omitted entirely from CSV exports. This has been resolved so all selected columns are included with their expected data.

Fixed notifications not being sent to supplementary area members on Send to Allocator

When a record was sent to the Allocator stage, email notifications were not being delivered to users listed in the record's supplementary areas. Notifications are now sent as expected.

Fixed public records not appearing on the Dashboard

Records marked as public could be invisible on the Dashboard because the underlying SharePoint permissions did not grant read access to the public principal. Public records are now visible to all authorised users as intended.

Upgrade instructions

Use these instructions to deploy package version 2.5.4.

Note

If you are upgrading from a version earlier than v2.4.4, please refer to the Brief Connect team for specific release notes for additional pre-deployment steps (including pipeline setup and environment variable updates).

Manual pre-deployment steps

Review release pipeline variables

Apply any changes to pipeline variables before you create a release, because every release creates a snapshot of pipeline variables at the moment of creation. To redeploy the application with updated variables, you must create a new release.

Go to Azure DevOps and open your Brief Connect project.
In the left panel, go to Pipelines → Library → Variable groups.
Review variables for all environments included in this release and update values where required.
Save your changes.

Create a new release

Go to Azure DevOps and open your Brief Connect project.
Go to Pipelines → Releases.
Open the Deploy Brief Connect Application release pipeline.
If there is no release with version 2.5.4, click Create Release.
Set the Package Version variable to 2.5.4.
Add a description (optional).
Click Create.
After you refresh the page, confirm the release v2.5.4 (n) appears in the list.

Pipeline deployment steps

Deploy release v2.5.4 (n) (where (n) is the latest number available) from the Deploy Brief Connect Application release pipeline in Azure DevOps to the target environment.

Manual post-deployment steps

Clear the server cache

Role required: Brief Connect Administrator

Log in to the target Brief Connect environment as the Brief Connect Admin user.
Open the Admin Panel (https://[WEB_APP_URL]/#/adminPanel).
Open your browser's Developer Tools, go to the Console tab, and run this command.

javascript window.clearCache();

Confirm this message appears: Cache cleared. Server Result: true

Update security headers for Azure Front Door

Role required: Brief Connect Azure Resources Contributor

Update BriefConnectSecurityHeaders rule for Brief Connect Azure Front Door instance, using detailed instruction from section 2.12 of the latest deployment guide: Brief Connect Deployment Guide - 2 Azure Resource Deployment

Smoke tests

Follow the baseline guide after this release: Basic testing of Brief Connect

Release-specific tests for v2.5.4

Group Assignment:

Create a User Group with at least one owner and one member
On a role field configured with "Groups Enabled", search for and assign the group. Confirm the group appears in search results and can be selected
As a group member, confirm the record appears in My Records
Assign a workflow task to a group. Confirm all group members see the task in Active Tasks
Complete a group-assigned task as a group member. Confirm the activity log shows the task was completed on behalf of the group
Confirm proxy users for group members can also complete group-assigned tasks

Dashboard and search:

Open Dashboard > My records with enough records to show more than one page, move to later pages, and confirm each page shows the next set of records rather than repeating the first page
Apply a dashboard filter that returns more than one page of results and confirm the Results count matches the number of results shown
Open the Dashboard and confirm the Role assigned column shows the correct current role for each record
Mark a record as public, then log in as a different authorised user and confirm the record appears on the Dashboard

Documents and exports:

Open a record's Documents tab, upload one file to Primary documents and one to Attachments, and confirm both uploads complete successfully
On a record with a signed replacement document, generate or open a PDF Pack and confirm the signed version is used instead of the original
Remove the signed replacement, confirm the live record falls back to the original document, confirm a new PDF Pack excludes the removed signed copy, and confirm the related snapshot still preserves the earlier signed state
Export records to CSV including fields such as Correspondent From, Date Received, Related Records, and role columns, and confirm all selected columns appear with expected data

Notifications:

As an administrator, update the subject template for a supported email notification, save the change, reload the page, and confirm the updated subject is retained
Trigger that notification and confirm the received email uses the configured subject line, while unchanged templates continue to use a valid default subject
Confirm users with notifications set to "Only my tasks" receive notifications for tasks assigned to groups where they are an owner or member