March 20, 2026

V.138 Release Notes

This release continues our refined release cadence, focusing on security, stability, and ongoing system modernization.

Release V.138 supports the One UCalgary.ca web strategy by continuing our focus on strengthening the stability, security, and sustainability of the UCalgary Web System. This sprint combines core upgrades, targeted bug fixes, and platform enhancements to improve overall system reliability. 

During this sprint, the team prioritized resolving issues across News, Profiles, feeds, and navigation, while also applying security updates and advancing key improvements in analytics and content management. This release reflects a strong emphasis on system stability and day-to-day usability, alongside continued efforts to modernize the platform and streamline internal processes. 

Our focus areas for V.138 include: 

  • Security Enhancements: Core updates and patch releases to maintain system security and stability. 
  • Stability & Error Reduction: Resolving issues across News, Profiles, feeds, Webforms, and site navigation to improve reliability. 
  • System Modernization & Technical Debt Reduction: Code cleanup, test coverage improvements, and backend refinements to support long-term maintainability. 
  • Platform & Experience Enhancements: Improvements to analytics, content management, and user experience across the web system. 

For a deep dive into this sprint’s technical work, see below.

 

Security Enhancements 

Major core upgrades, advisory patches, SSO improvements, and secure integration updates. 

  • Upgraded Drupal core to version 10.6.3 to apply the latest patch updates.  

Stability & Error Reduction

Fixing errors across News, Profiles, Redirects, Webforms and site navigation. 

  • Corrected tag filtering in dynamic New Feeds to ensure tags can be added and applied correctly. 

  • Fixed display issues in News Feed blocks to ensure correct labels and formatting for multimedia and “In the News” content types. 
  • Resolved an error in OpenGraph metadata handling when invalid block references were present, ensuring pages load correctly and metadata displays as expected. 
  • Restored image display in static News Feed blocks. 
  • Corrected an issue where menu links containing quotation marks caused invalid paths and redirected users to the cold site.

  • Improved error handling for Event Feed blocks to prevent page failures during LiveWhale outages. 

  • Corrected permissions for the Graduate Degree List block to ensure consistent access for content editors.

System Modernization & Technical Debt Reduction 

Dependency updates, patch cleanup, migration improvements, and backend refinements.

  • Improved automated test coverage, including the introduction of visual regression testing for blocks. 
  • Cleaned up coding standards issues across custom modules and themes to improve consistency and maintainability. 
  • Improved consistency and management of reusable blocks within the content block library. 

Platform & Experience Enhancements 

Analytics, embeds, and small UX improvements.

  • Improved Banner block image alignment to provide more consistent cropping. 
  • Added new Google Tag Manager (GTM) containers to support enhanced analytics tracking across the web system. 
  • Implemented core and edge GTM containers in Drupal 
  • Extended GTM integration to LiveWhale 
  • Enhanced the content view to support bulk selection of specific nodes, enabling more efficient content management. 
  • Improved menu display when overview links are not configured to ensure more consistent navigation behaviour. 

 

In Progress 

Work that is currently in progress and will be included in an upcoming release. 

Enhancements 

  • Continue work on the Funding Opportunities integration with PeopleSoft data feeds. 

  • Refactor PHP code to leverage PHP 8.3 features and improve performance across custom modules. 

  • Investigate the use of cache bypass mechanisms to reduce performance impact and improve caching behaviour. 

  • Review robots.txt and sitemap configurations to improve SEO alignment and consistency across sites.

  • Continue work to update deprecated SASS functionality in the Docker build. 

Fixes 

  • Investigate dynamic news feeds not consistently updating in News Feed blocks. 

  • Improve the reusable blocks cleanup script to safely disable one-off blocks without impacting layouts. 

  • Investigate an issue preventing migration of the SPP main menu between environments. 

  • Review issues with news sitemap generation failing during scheduled updates. 

 Other 

  • Review and standardize enabled modules across Drupal sites to reduce technical debt. 

  • Address post-provision configuration issues to improve reliability for newly provisioned sites. 

  • Prepare updates to the Toolbox IT link in alignment with upcoming platform changes. 

  • Remove legacy GA4 tracking codes in favour of GTM-based analytics. 

  • Review the ongoing need for the 40Roar cron task to improve efficiency and reduce system overhead.

 

For more information on the UCalgary Web System, visit web.ucalgary.ca.

If you have questions or need to report a bug or issue, let us know! 

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