May 25 to May 29, 2026 Release Notes

Features & Improvements

Account Admin is now a user role! If you were already an account admin, you still are; you'll now have that option to add it to other people when you edit their roles.

Lots of neat new things with file uploads:

• The file uploader got a bit of an overhaul. You can still drag-drop files to upload, and you can also use it to take a picture, record a video, or record audio (using your computer's camera and microphone).
• You have the same options in any sort of discussion or bulletin board—in course and group discussions, course and group bulletin boards, and assignment feedback.
• A new question type in tests: file upload. You can require students to upload a file (or take a picture, video, or recording), with options to allow/restrict certain file types (e.g. mp3, docx, pdf, etc.).
• On Profiles, one of the new name options lets you upload a brief audio clip for name pronunciation. I've already used this feature because even though I've worked here for 18 years, everyone here still calls me "Brandon McDonald's" like I'm some kinda fast food chain franchisee and not North Idaho's pre-eminent tech writer Brendan O'Donnell.
• The mobile apps have improved file uploaders, too, and students taking tests on their phones can upload files and make recordings.

Public Course Catalog: you can now publish your Populi course catalog (with options for custom CSS and embedding in another website).

The public term schedule lets you include/exclude certain courses, and now includes columns for description and delivery method.

Some updates to the plagiarismcheck.org (abbreviated as pc.org) integration:

• We display the service's AI score next to the originality score in Populi.
• A new setting allows the integration to register a document's author as a pc.org user when the document is checked.
• When a student who is registered as an author views a report in pc.org, they'll be automatically logged in.

The Donations report has a new view for By Fund, which splits each donation into separate rows, one for each donation fund, together with export options for XLS and CSV.

Enrollment Agreements that are created automatically on the Registration page now differentiate by the student's program based on the new Enrollment Agreement Layout setting on the program's page.

A new automation trigger for To-do completed that can also be used as a webhook.

Another new automation trigger for when tags are added to or removed from organizations.

Form response status changes and deletions/restorations are now changelogged.

API stuff:

• New calls and whatnot to let you search your library in applications outside of Populi.
• You can now use the API to create/update/remove course meeting times and calendar events.

SAML stuff... now you can:

• Select standard eduPerson and inetOrgPerson SAML attributes to add to your IdP settings.
• Define custom SAML attributes to add to your IdP settings.
• Choose an encryption algorithm to use for outgoing SAML messages. Options are SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512. These can be configured at the Servicer Provider level and also at the Populi as IdP level.
• I don't have the faintest idea what this means, but apparently now "SAML (Populi as IdP) default Entity Ids are unique, but your previous entity IDs were locked so as not to break integrations." Whatever that means, sounds like we did you a solid, so buy us a beer.

Bugfixes

The calculations behind failing a student for non-attendance weren't taking into account situations where you were counting excused absences as either present or absent.

Stumbled across ways to add multiple instances of the same communication plan to a person at the same time and then annihilated them.

If a student had duplicate programs with start/end dates that fell within the IPEDS reporting period it once was possible for the course units to be double-counted and the student's full-time status might've been reported wrongishly.

Videos and Focus Sessions

Some nice mid-Spring Focus Sessions on the way:

• Introduction to Financial Aid: Get help with hopping aboard that government money train with this look at financial aid settings, awards, packaging aid, disbursements, aid applications and so on. This will be most useful to Financial Aid and Financial Admin users. It's scheduled for June 2nd, 2026, 11:00 AM Pacific time.
• Introduction to Populi: Get help with hopping aboard that all-in-one web-based SIS and LMS (among other things) with this intro to setting up your Populi account, logging in, adding new users, login approvals, roles, search, basic reporting, Populi's global settings and so on. This will be most useful to Populi Account Administrator and Academic Admin users. It's scheduled for June 4th, 2026, 11:00 AM Pacific time.

Josh schools everyone on the lifecycle of a course.