Nov. 20, 2025

V.136 Release Notes

This release marks the first in our refined 12-week cadence, focusing on security, modernization, and long-term stability.

As part of our commitment to the One UCalgary.ca web strategy and our ongoing goal to improve the stability, security, and sustainability of the UCalgary Web System, Release V.136 marks the first in our refined 12-week release cadence. This schedule allows the development team to focus on Drupal core upgrades, module security, system cleanup, and long-term maintainability. 

Over this sprint, the team has been working hard to enhance system resilience, apply critical security updates, and resolve bugs affecting News, Profiles, Webforms, LiveWhale, and site navigation. This release captures our work as a moment in time, offering transparency into the priorities driving our current system stability and modernization cycle.

Our focus areas for V.136 include:

  • Security Enhancements: Major core upgrades, advisory patches, SSO improvements, and secure integration updates.
  • Institutional Compliance: Brand, statement, and institutional alignment updates.
  • Stability & Error Reduction: Fixing errors across News, Profiles, Redirects, Webforms and site navigation.
  • Performance & Load Handling Improvements: Improving system responsiveness and reducing strain on backend systems.
  • System Modernization & Technical Debt Reduction: Dependency updates, patch cleanup, migration improvements, and backend refinements.
  • Platform & Experience Enhancements: Analytics, embeds, and small UX improvements.  

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. 

  • Drupal Core Updated to 10.5.6 to address security advisories, ensure long-term support, and compatibility with future system updates. 

  • IRISS Database Password Update.  

  • Implemented single-sign-on authentication (SSO) for LiveWhale 

Institutional Compliance 

Brand, statement, and institutional alignment updates.  

  • Updated the Territorial Land Acknowledgement following the October 16, 2025, institutional update. 

  • Added the 60th Anniversary Logo for 2026 branding across theme-supported sites. 

Stability & Error Reduction 

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

  • Removed Legacy Layout Builder Caching Patch that was no longer required in Drupal 10 to restore expected functionality. 

  • Added automated logic to update AHS-linked profile records:  

  • Profiles containing an ahs.ca or albertahealthservices.ca email address will now be automatically switched to a ucalgary.ca email and published accordingly.  

  • Restored missing keyword filters on News landing pages, ensuring applied searches and reset options display correctly.  

  • Reapplied the Redirect module patch to maintain support for relative URLs. 

Performance & Load Handling Improvements 

Improving system responsiveness and reducing strain on backend systems.  

  • Improved News Feed performance by moving dynamic feeds to a JSON REST service and introducing a dedicated Solr index for News content, reducing load on the News database.  

System Modernization & Technical Debt Reduction 

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

  • Updated SMTP configuration to replace the soon-to-be-decommissioned server, ensuring continued email delivery for affected sites. 

  • Replaced expired Entra client secret keys to restore Profile API functionality. 

  • Technical SEO Audit of XML Sitemap Module  

  • Reviewed sitemap inconsistencies across several subdomains, including incorrect base URLs, “live-” prefixed links, and mixed HTTP/HTTPS entries. Updated base URLs across affected sites. 

  • Content Migration Updates 

Platform & Experience Enhancements 

Analytics, embeds, and small UX improvements.  

  • Added Microsoft Clarity to the Drupal theme to support enhanced user-behaviour insights across the web system.  

  • Enabled scheduled Vimeo livestream embeds in the Streaming Media block, replacing the need for custom code blocks.  

 

In Progress 

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

Enhancements 

  • Continuing module updates for Drupal 10.5.x security and compatibility.  

  • Centralize system cron detection logic to streamline related modules.  

  • Improving how News Feeds generate image URLs to reduce database load. 

  • Updating deprecated SASS functions to align with newer compiler changes. 

Fixes 

  • Investigate a PHP warning in the Page Filter Tags block. 

  • Addressing a profile List indexing error occurring during Solr reindexing.  

  • Running PHPCS scans across custom modules and themes. 

Other 

  • Update LiveWhale with the new Land Acknowledgement. 

  • Remove the retired Qatar theme and related handling. 

  • Review and update Digital Content role permissions.  

  • Explore a new Dialog Insight block to support in-page forms as a future replacement for Marketo.  

  • Provision PeopleSoft server access needed for the new Funding Opportunities integration.  

  • Audit reusable block behaviour and correct usage records where required.  

 

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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