Release Updates September 2026

See what’s fresh this month with Sarah Phoenix and how the latest updates can work for you.

This week's release gives you two things you couldn't get before: new ways to make money from the catalog you already have, and meaningfully less time spent navigating the admin to do routine work.

We are excited to introduce Alternate Purchase Paths, a powerful new catalog and commerce feature that allows you to offer flexible buying options—such as à-la-carte purchasing and subscription/bundle upsells—directly on the same content item.

Previously, offering multiple purchasing models for a single course required manual workarounds, such as duplicating catalog entries or developing custom page widgets. With Alternate Purchase Paths, you can configure secondary calls-to-action (CTAs) natively within your catalog settings, providing learners with clear purchasing choices while keeping your catalog clean, manageable, and automated.

✨ Key Features & Capabilities

1. Dual Purchasing & Upsell Options on a Single Content Item

Present learners with flexible buying options right at their moment of highest intent without cluttering your catalog:

• Upsell to Recurring Revenue: Display standard à-la-carte purchasing alongside an annual or monthly subscription (e.g., "Included in our All-Access Pass" or "Subscribe & Save 20%").
• Flexible Destination Types: Link directly to another purchasable Thought Industries item, such as a Subscription, Collection, Learning Path, or bundled Course, or route learners to a custom External URL (e.g., corporate portal, external billing system, or partner site).
• Exclusive Routing (Hide Primary CTA): When you want to drive all traffic into a specific subscription or bundle rather than individual sales, toggle Hide Primary CTA so the alternate path becomes the sole purchasing route.

2. Smart, Context-Aware Visibility & Suppression Rules

Ensure learners never encounter broken links or redundant offers. The platform automatically evaluates access permissions and catalog availability before displaying the alternate CTA:

• Prevents Duplicate Purchases: Automatically hidden if the learner already owns the course or holds an active subscription/access to the destination package.
• Catalog & Pricing Checks: Suppressed if the target item is unpublished, unpriced, or unavailable in the learner's specific currency.
• Panorama & Multi-Tenant Aware: Respects Panorama portal settings and license allocations, hiding options if eCommerce is disabled or items are not provisioned.
• Frictionless Guest Browsing: Anonymous visitors can explore alternate options without disruption and are seamlessly guided to sign in or register during checkout.

3. Streamlined Admin Authoring & Catalog-Wide API Management

Manage purchasing paths effortlessly, whether you are configuring a single flagship course or updating an entire enterprise catalog:

• Native In-App Setup: Configure alternate purchase paths in seconds directly within Course Design Settings > Catalog Settings > Detail Page.
• Real-Time Validation: Built-in safeguards verify target item purchasability and prevent self-referencing loops or invalid URLs.
• Bulk & REST APIs for Scale: Use the versioned v3 REST API (/v3/admin/content/...) to programmatically query, create, update, or bulk-replace purchase paths across thousands of catalog items at once.

Take a closer look here.

4. End-to-End Checkout Attribution & Analytics

Understand which courses are driving subscription upgrades and track campaign performance:

• Learner Interaction Tracking: Emits alternate_purchase_path_clicked analytics events capturing source item ID, target type, destination URL, and button placement.
• Seamless Checkout Attribution: Originating source_content_id parameters persist through checkout onto order and subscription records across both Stripe and Foxy.io checkout engines, giving your team accurate revenue attribution.

How to Get Started

1. Navigate to Courses > All Courses and select a course. 
2. Click Design >  Catalog Settings > Detail Page tab > Alternate Purchase Paths.
3. Click Add Alternate Purchase Path, enter your custom Button Label, and choose a target item or external link.
4. (Optional) Select Hide Primary CTA if you want this path to be the exclusive purchase option.
5. Click Save for your changes to publish immediately.

For more details, see this support article.

Admin Search - New Features

We have upgraded the Admin Search (accessible via ⌘K) to include personalized shortcuts and deeper search capabilities. You can now "pin" your favorite actions to the top of the search menu, view a list of your recently visited pages and edited items, and search for specific records—such as courses, events, or users—without needing to navigate to their respective management pages first. These updates are fully permission-aware, ensuring you only see the information and actions relevant to your role and specific Panorama context.

Key Updates This Week:

• Personalized Pins: Star your high-frequency tasks or pages to keep them at the top of your search palette for one-click access.
• Recents Section: Quickly resume work with a new section that displays your recently visited destinations and recently edited items, such as courses or tracking scripts.
• Explore Search: Find specific records (Courses, Learners, Events, etc.) directly through the search bar using new server-backed discovery.
• Feature Spotlight: Look out for a new "Spotlight" slot highlighting helpful new tools, starting with a shortcut to monitor your AI Usage.

For a more in depth navigation overview, see this article.

Content API Publishing Update

Course sections and lessons created through the Content API update endpoint are now automatically published and assigned URL slugs. This change ensures that incrementally added content is immediately visible to learners without requiring manual publishing steps in the course editor.

Topic Type Validation

The Content API now prevents standalone-only topic types, such as "article," from being added to standard course lessons. This update ensures that only compatible topic types are used, preventing learner errors and admin editor crashes.

Content API Navigation

Courses built or updated through the Content API are now fully navigable for learners. Sections and lessons added via the API now receive the necessary URL slugs to ensure all navigation links function correctly.

Events API Validation

The Incoming Events API (v1) now correctly validates date parameters. Requests using non-numeric values for startDate or endDate will now return a clear error message instead of providing incorrect results.

User API Pagination

Paging through users with the v1 Users API now returns the complete list of people without skipping records between pages. We updated the cursor logic to ensure it aligns correctly with the sort order, preventing the list from truncating prematurely.

Essay Editor Fix

We resolved an issue where text editor dropdowns for tables, lists, and links were appearing behind the quiz window. These tools are now fully visible and accessible for both learners taking assessments and admins using the preview mode.

Onboarding Survey

Asset Library items, including images and rich text, now render properly within onboarding surveys. Both learners and administrators will see the actual content instead of a gray placeholder box when viewing survey questions or responses.

Wistia Video Poster Image

Video poster images now display reliably for learners, even when the underlying Wistia media has been updated or re-encoded. The system now automatically detects and refreshes outdated poster URLs to prevent broken image icons on video pages.

Get the scoop on this month’s updates with Sarah Phoenix and see what they can do for you.

This release focuses on improving platform reliability and the learner experience.

API Content Limits

We have increased the number of items you can include when creating a course via our API. You can now add up to 100 sections, lessons, or topics in a single call, making it easier to import comprehensive course content.

API Content Attributes

We’ve expanded our public REST API to include authors and source fields when creating or updating courses. This update allows for more comprehensive content management directly through the API, ensuring your catalog data remains consistent across all platforms.

For more details, see our API documentation.

Panorama User Management Search

We’ve updated the Panorama User Management search to ensure all panoramas are easily findable. You can now search for and select any panorama by name when moving learners, regardless of your total panorama count.

Panorama Access Visibility

Sublicense assignments now display consistently on the learner Access tab, regardless of the number of sublicenses in a panorama. We have also improved the sublicense picker to ensure all assignable options are visible and correctly named for managers.

Shared Enrollment Access

We fixed an issue where deleting a sub-license could accidentally revoke a learner's course access. Learners will now keep their access and progress as long as they have at least one valid license for the course.

Duplicate Course Access After Collection Purchase

We have resolved an issue where purchasing a Collection could create duplicate access records for the same course. Learners were seeing the same course appear twice on their dashboard with conflicting completion statuses. Collection purchases now correctly grant a single access record per course.

Course Branding Fallback

Removing course-level branding now fully clears all custom settings, ensuring shared courses correctly display each Panorama's unique style. This update prevents branding overlaps and ensures a consistent look across your different learner environments.

Secure File Attachments

We updated how the platform handles file attachments in comments and assignments to improve overall security. The system now automatically verifies that every attachment link is safe and comes from a trusted source, ensuring that your instructors and moderators can interact with learner submissions without risk.

Improved Accessibility Labels

We updated the labels used by screen readers on Discussion and Assignment pages to be more descriptive. Instead of just hearing "Delete" or "Yes/No," users using assistive tools will now hear specific confirmations like "Delete comment" or "Yes, delete comment," making the platform easier to navigate.

Payment Status Visibility

We have restored visual indicators for failed payments in the learner history. Administrators will now see these transactions clearly marked with red text and a "Failed" label for better visibility.

Manager Content Access

We fixed a bug where managers with limited permissions were unable to re-open SCORM or xAPI content they had created. Previously, clicking these items would lead to an incorrect page and cause errors, but they now correctly open to the proper settings view.

See what’s new this month with Sarah Phoenix and discover how the latest updates can make an impact.

Learning data is most valuable when it sits next to the rest of your business data. Reporting on learner activity alongside CRM, product, and revenue data is how most of our customers prove the return on their academy, and the BI Connector is the pipe that makes that possible — which is why we've treated it as core infrastructure and have been steadily rebuilding it for freshness, coverage, and reliability.

Thought Industries' Near Real Time (NRT) BI Connector is the current BI Connector. BI Connector 1.0 support ends 28 October 2026. BI Connector 1.0 will be retired 31 December 2026. After 31 December, 1.0 connections will no longer be available.

Both connectors remain available until 31 December 2026 so you and your team can update connections and queries before 1.0 is retired.

If you are already using NRT, no action is required for access. If your reporting still runs on BI Connector 1.0, reach out to the Thought Industries Support Team to request NRT access. Include the BI tool you will use, the email addresses that should receive database communications, and which instance the database should be created for if you have more than one. Setup steps are in Accessing a Database with BI Connector.

What you get with NRT

• Data refreshes every 5–10 minutes, instead of once every 24 hours.
• A statusgroup column on most tables (a active, i inactive, d deleted) plus statusgroupupdatedat, so reports can filter on record state.
• 74 documented tables on the Developer Hub, including tables and columns that were not in BI 1.0 — for example purchases, credits, comments and forums, competency assessments, award types, and certificate templates.
• Certificate titles, via a join from certificates.certificatetemplateid to certificatetemplates.id. An example is on the certificates table page.
• Per-table pages, common-column conventions, and tested SQL recipes on the BI Connector docs.
• Read-only access in the US and EU, with credentials sent through a one-time email link.

Updating queries written for BI 1.0

Table and column names are lowercase in NRT (userCourses → usercourses, createdAt → createdat

If this timeline is a problem for your organization, or you need help moving reports across, reach out to your Account Manager or Support.

Asset Library API

We introduced a new API that allows for the automated management of your Asset Library. This makes it easier to handle large-scale content updates and connect your external asset workflows directly to the platform.

Content Completion Date Dropped from Certificates Granted via API Ahead of Course Completion

Course certificates no longer omit the Content Completion Date when the certificate is granted through the API shortly before the course completion is recorded. The date on the certificate now matches the transcript.

Enrollment End Date Not Auto-Populating on ILT Sessions Without Pre/Post Learning

New sessions for Instructor-Led Training (ILT) events without Pre/Post learning now automatically populate the enrollment end date. This update resolves a validation error that previously prevented administrators from saving session settings without manual date entry.

Checkout Errors When à La Carte Purchases Hit a Free Volume Discount Tier

We resolved an issue in the New eCommerce Engine where selecting enough à La Carte items to reach a free volume tier caused the cart to display "$NaN" and fail at checkout. This update ensures that free transactions and gifting for volume-based discounts now process correctly without errors.

Missing Submit Button on Multi-Select Quiz Questions Without Rejoinders

Learners will now see the "Submit" button correctly on multiple-choice quiz questions that require selecting all correct answers, even when no rejoinders are provided. This update ensures that the correct/incorrect status is properly displayed upon submission, providing immediate feedback to the user.

Unintended Access to Other Paid Sessions After Purchasing One Session in a Course Group

We resolved an issue where purchasing one session in a course group could sometimes grant unintended access to other paid sessions in that same group. Learners will now only be able to access the specific sessions they have purchased or are explicitly entitled to view.

Catch up on the latest product enhancements with Sarah Phoenix and see what they mean for you.

This week’s release adds a second agent to Conversational AI Learning, continuing our investment in guidance that happens in the flow of a conversation rather than in a catalog, alongside another step forward in the admin experience.

Learners can now state a goal in their own words in Ask AI, a skill, a role, or a business outcome, and get back a sequenced plan drawn from your catalog. The plan appears in chat as a preview: the learner selects which courses to keep, confirms, and is enrolled in those courses in one step. Confirmed plans are saved under Personalized Learning in the Learning Paths tab of the learner dashboard. It is enabled by default for customers that have Conversational AI enabled.

The Personalized Learning Agent will recommend purchasable courses as well as courses the learner already has access to; the learner will have the option to complete purchase from the content detail page and then add the content to the Personalized Learning Plan.

How plans are built:

• Access: Only courses the learner is already entitled to see. The agent cannot surface anything outside their catalog access, and courses they are already enrolled in are excluded.
• Time: If the learner states a time commitment, the plan is trimmed using each course's published duration.
• Fit: Remaining courses are ranked and sequenced against the stated goal. If too few relevant courses survive the filters, the agent answers conversationally rather than proposing a thin plan.

Reviewing and Managing a Plan

Before confirming, the learner sees a plan title written for their goal, an estimated time to complete, and the course list with each course selectable on its own. Nothing is pre-selected, and confirm stays disabled until at least one course is chosen, so no learner is enrolled in anything by default.

After confirming, learners can ask to see their plans in chat, or find them under Learning Paths on their dashboard. Plans can be deleted from either place. Plans aren't editable, to change one, delete it and generate a new one.

Single-topic questions ("How do I export a report?") continue to get a standard conversational answer with no plan card.

Translations

Learner-facing copy for Personalized Learning is available in all supported languages.

See our Conversational AI Learning article for more about Personalized Learning, configuration options, and the learner experience.

We’ve added Quick Actions to the admin command palette, allowing you to jump straight into common tasks like creating courses or importing users without navigating deep menus. These shortcuts are tailored to your role and Panorama settings, ensuring you only see the tools you are authorized to use.

Group Subscription Content and Pricing Configuration

We have resolved an issue where content and pricing settings for Group Subscriptions could not be saved. Administrators can now successfully configure and save Group Subscription content and pricing.

Duplicate Course Access After Collection Purchase

We have resolved an issue where purchasing a Collection could create duplicate access records for the same course. Learners were seeing the same course appear twice on their dashboard with conflicting completion statuses. Collection purchases now correctly grant a single access record per course.