Platform & Application Changelog

4.12 – August 26, 2020

Updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

• Kivuto’s privacy policy and terms of use have been updated and split into separate documents.
• Users are now prompted to accept both policies independently of each other during registration.
• You can view the updated policies through the following links: privacy policy.

Accessibility Enhancements

• Updates have been made to ensure compliance with the latest web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.0 Level A and Level AA).

Permalinks to Offerings

• Catalog administrators can now use links to drive traffic to specific offerings or groups of offerings.
• These links are permanent, configured outside of Kivuto Cloud, and point to friendly URLs.
• Links can be configured with query string parameters for Google Analytics if required.

Improved User Searches

• User searches have been optimized to produce results faster.
• While searching users within an organization, administrators can now specify whether they’re looking for results that start with or contain their search terms.
• User searches now recognize special characters (e.g. _ and %) and treat them literally rather than as command functions.

Streamlined Library Waitlists

• An issue that caused eBooks to become temporarily inaccessible if the next person on the waitlist had already checked out their maximum number of books has been fixed.
• Now when a waitlisted book becomes available, it automatically passes to the first person on the waitlist who does not already have their maximum number of books checked out.

Smarter Adobe Federation

• An issue that occasionally caused Adobe federation to fail at schools that federate users by username has been fixed.
• Users at these schools are now prompted to provide an institution-issued email address if the email address(es) on record for them would result in a failure (e.g. if the email domain is not claimed in the Adobe Admin Console).

4.11 – December 16, 2019

More Navigable tables

• New sorting options make lists and tables in the Administration site easier to browse than ever.

Improved User Search

• Full-text searching is now available when looking for user accounts in the Administration site.
• The system automatically searches for usernames both containing and starting with your search term – there’s no more need to pick one or the other.
• This enhanced search functionality is faster than ever and yields better results.

Kivuto Cloud Transaction Visibility

• Kivuto Cloud administrators now have more visibility into how many transactions have occurred on their WebStores.
• A new dashboard on the Kivuto Cloud Administration Home Page shows how many transactions have been used and how many are remaining.
• Automated email reminders will inform Kivuto Cloud administrators when their transaction count is running low.

4.10 – August 15, 2019

Various minor improvements and fixes.

4.9 – June 25, 2019

A New Look and Feel

• The ELMS Administration site has been redesigned to provide a better user experience and a more appealing look and feel.
• The new design is cleaner, better branded, more mobile-responsive, and easier to navigate.

Automatic Renewals

• Keeping subscriptions ordered through your WebStore up to date is getting easier.
• Annual subscriptions for cloud services like Adobe Creative Cloud and Microsoft Office 365 can be configured to update automatically, so users won’t have to return to the WebStore to manually renew them.
• Users will be automatically notified by email if there are any problems with the automatic renewal process (e.g. declined payments, price updates, or changes to the user’s eligibility).
• This feature could also be used to set up recurring orders for anything from site licenses to agreements with publishers to eText library books.

Discontinued: SSL/TLS 1.0 Support for Web Services

• In line with the rest of the internet, ELMS no longer supports TLS 1.0.
• Support for TLS 1.2/1.3 is now in place.

4.8 – February 19, 2019

Recurrent Billing

• Administrators can now configure recurrent billing for subscription-based products.
• Users who order Adobe Creative Cloud, IBM Marketplace, or a similar subscription can be automatically billed for renewal every six or 12 months.

Clear Currency Indication

• The currency in which prices are displayed on WebStores is now indicated with clear text in the top-right corner of the page rather than a national flag.
• This will make it easier for users to determine what currency they’re viewing prices in.

A Friendlier WebStore

• The menu in the top-right of your WebStore now greets users by their first name (when known by the system) instead of their username or email address.
• Schools that would rather not display users’ names or usernames can use the new “Hide Usernames” option. Users on these stores will see the word “Options” as the menu’s label.
• The Hide Usernames option is particularly useful for schools that assign long strings as usernames, which may look unsightly when displayed on a WebStore.

Risk-Free Proxy Orders

• New safeguards have been introduced to prevent unintended results when placing an order on another user’s behalf.
• Subscriptions that need to be added to an external account (e.g. IBM Marketplace) are now exempt from proxy orders. To prevent duplicate accounts from being created, these subscriptions can only be ordered by the account-holder.
• Subscription-based products that automatically renew and charge users annually are exempt from proxy orders to prevent unexpected charges.

Subscription Instructions

• After ordering a subscription-based product, while waiting for the subscription to be fulfilled, users are shown new messaging that clearly indicates what the next steps will be.”

4.7 – December 11, 2018

A Streamlined Checkout Process

• There are fewer pages to click through when placing an order that requires shipping, so you can get your products more quickly than ever.

Stored Payment Details

• Your WebStore can remember users’ payment information to make future purchases faster and easier.

4.6 – October 16, 2018

New Password and Security Guidelines

• The requirements around user passwords have been updated to improve security and meet ISO specifications.
• New passwords must contain at least 8 characters for regular users (15 characters for administrators).
• New passwords cannot:
  • Contain the user’s name, username, email address, or partial email address
  • Be a “common” password (e.g. “password123”).
• This change does not affect current passwords. The new requirements will apply to all new passwords created in the future.
• For added security, accounts will be temporarily locked after six consecutive failed sign-in attempts. Locked accounts must wait half an hour before they can attempt to sign in again.

Improved Experience for ELMS Express Administrators

• New tooltips and messaging have been added to help administrators navigate and understand the administration site.
• Buttons are hidden until clicking them will have an effect, so it’s clear when a selection or some other action on your part is needed.
• Date and time selectors have been redesigned to minimize errors.

4.5 – July 31, 2018

An Improved Administration Interface

• Administrators no longer see pages and options they can’t access on the administration site.
• New tooltips and messaging have been added to help administrators navigate and understand the administration site.
• Buttons are hidden until clicking them will have an effect, so it’s clear when a selection or some other action on your part is needed.
• More improvements to come!

Improvements to Kivuto Cloud

• Kivuto Cloud now supports the Adobe VIP program for school departments.
• Schools that use Kivuto Cloud for Adobe can choose to allow users to create Adobe Creative Cloud accounts using a personal email address instead of a school-issued email address.
• For school-wide implementations, users can be automatically provisioned licenses in the cloud service they’re trying to access when they sign in to the cloud service.

4.4 – June 19, 2018

Demo Mode for Texidium WebStores

• Schools that distribute eTextbooks through a WebStore can easily demonstrate how the WebStore and Texidium work to new users.
• Faculty with the necessary user role can place a WebStore in Demo Mode through the Account Information page. This mode lets you order an eText and register for Texidium like a new user as many times as you need without creating multiple accounts in ELMS.
• To learn more about Demo Mode, see our Texidium Demo Guide (currently available in English only).

Denied Party Screening

• Kivuto has partnered with eCustoms to ensure our compliance with export regulations.
• eCustoms’ Visual Compliance tool is now used to screen users and ensure that individuals from embargoed countries or sanctioned lists can’t access products or services through our platform.

Kivuto Cloud and Adobe

• The new Kivuto Cloud platform gives participating schools the ability to easily manage users in the Adobe Admin Console.
• Kivuto Cloud customers can sign in to Adobe Creative Cloud using the same user ID, password, and sign-in portal they use to access their WebStore.

Paid Product Recommendations

• The Shopping Cart window has been redesigned to offer users a wider selection of product recommendations.
• Free products that a user is eligible for are displayed under the heading “Recommended for You,” along with the Extended Access Guarantee (when applicable).
• Recommendations for non-free products are displayed along with their prices under the heading “People Also Purchased”.
• Users can add recommended items to their order with a single click during checkout.

4.3 – May 15, 2018

General Data Protection Regulation

• New messaging and other updates have been introduced to bring Kivuto into compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• The GDPR takes effect on 25 May 2018. It guarantees all EU citizens extensive new privacy rights, including:
  • The Right of Erasure (individuals can request to have all their personal data deleted by an organization)
  • The Right to Access (individuals can request to view all personal data an organization has collected about them)
  • Data Portability (individuals can request to have all personal data that an organization has collected about them transferred to another organization)
• Kivuto will provide the protections guaranteed by the GDPR to all users, both inside and outside of the EU.

Targeted Performance Data Collection

• Kivuto will now use Microsoft’s Application Insights to collect client- and server-side performance data.

IBM Academic Initiative Changes

• The following changes have been made to simplify and speed up the process of importing file groups for this program.
  • It is now possible to import multiple files within a single file group.
  • The maximum characters allowed in a FilegroupName value has been increased from 100 to 200.
  • The maximum characters allowed in a FilegroupName value has been increased from 100 to 200.

More Robust Tax Categories

• ELMS WebStores now support several new tax categories to provide more fine control over the rate at which products are taxed.
• More granular tax categories will allow the correct tax rates to be applied in areas where print textbooks and digital textbooks are taxed differently (e.g. Ontario).

Microsoft Software & Systems Academy Integration with Arvato API

• Kivuto now pulls vouchers from Arvato on an as-and-when-needed basis when fulfilling orders for the Microsoft Software & Systems Academy (MSSA) program.
• The new process for pulling vouchers to fulfill these orders is similar to the processes used to retrieve vouchers for the Student Option and Work at Home programs.

Book Adoption Import

• The “Book User Group Resource Import” page is now the “Book Adoption Import” page. It’s found through the Miscellaneous menu in ELMS Administration.
• Resources can now be imported without being associated with a course and academic session. This will support the Texidium Library Model and web-service clients that offer Texidium resources through their own sites by allowing them to offer books without restricting access to users from a specific course/session.

Cross-Sell Improvements

• Users on integrated WebStores are no longer shown cross-sell offerings they aren’t eligible for (e.g. deals offered only to users from a department they aren’t a part of.
• This corrects a known issue with integrated WebStores wherein users were occasionally encouraged to order products that were only available to members of other departments at their school.

Enhanced Accessibility in ELMS Administration

• A variety of changes have been made to make the ELMS Administration site more accessible.

4.2 – December 12, 2017

Cross Sell Offerings from Shopping Cart

• A new cross-sell functionality has been introduced to encourage WebStore users to order more of the free software for which they’re eligible.
• The Shopping Cart page and Added to Shopping Cart window display free products that users can add to their order. Checkboxes allow users to select which of these products they wish to order. All available items are selected by default.
• Kivuto administrators can configure cross-sell offerings through the Offering Property List page of the ELMS Administration site. Currently configured cross-sell offerings can be viewed through the new All Cross-Sells page.
• This feature replaces the “complimentary offering” functionality we previously offered.

Product Searches by Course Code

• On WebStores that offer course-specific resources (e.g. course textbooks/eTexts), users can now search for products by course code.
• This feature is primarily intended to help faculty locate course resources. Unlike students, faculty cannot find all of their required resources on a centralized “Program Essentials” page, so it’s important that they be able to find them easily through product searches.

WebStore Names on Credit Card Statements

• Users who purchase products through a WebStore will now see their WebStore’s friendly URL (e.g. schoolname.onthehub.com) on their credit card statements instead of “Kivuto Solutions Inc.”
• If a WebStore’s name is more than 20 characters long, users will see “OnTheHub.com” on their credit card statements instead.
• This change will prevent confusion among users who aren’t familiar with Kivuto and may question where the charges came from.

Accessibility Enhancements for ELMS Administration

• The ELMS Administration site will be brought into compliance with WCAG 2.0 A-level standards for accessibility.
• This change is a legal requirement, as all Ontario businesses were obligated to achieve the A-level standards by December 31, 2015.

Willo Support for LMS

• Kivuto has partnered with Willo Labs to provide two key services for schools that distribute resources through a Learning Management System (LMS).
  • One-click access to courseware sites provided by publishers without the need to enter a code
  • The ability to provide a free access period for resources before users are prompted to opt in or out.
• Users can be issued trial licenses that automatically expire at the end of the window to add or drop courses. A permanent license is then issued only to users who opted in. This eliminates the need for schools to provide whitelists at the end of the add/drop period.
• Willo also makes it possible to configure book-specific links in schools’ LMS that can optionally direct users straight to a specific page when clicked.

4.1 – September 19, 2017

New Search Options for eTexts

• eTexts, course packages, and courseware are now easier to find on WebStores that offer them.
• Product searches now allow users to search for these resources by author name and ISBN.

Office 365 Single Sign-On (SSO) for Departmental WebStores

• Single-department WebStores can now be configured to verify and sign users in through Office 365. Previously, this verification option was only available to campus-wide WebStores.
• Contact sales@kivuto.com to learn more about Office 365 SSO or have it configured on your WebStore.

4.0 – August 1, 2017

New “Order Details” and “Order Invoice” Pages

• Order information has been split into two locations to make it easier for users to find what they need.
• Product keys, activation codes, and links to download software, redeem products or activate subscriptions (i.e. delivery information) are found on the new Order Details page.
• Financial and transactional information about an order (i.e. receipt information) is found on the new Order Invoice page.
• Each new page links to the other and is easily accessible through your Orders & Downloads list.

More Informative Alerts

• More information has been added to Order Placed alert emails.
• These alerts will now display details such as the name, country and state/province of the WebStore from which they originated.
• This change will reduce the amount of time alert recipients have to spend generating reports to gather order information.

Improved Messaging When No Products are Visible

• The message shown to users who see no products when they visit a WebStore has been refined to include more helpful information and instructions.
• This change will reduce confusion among users who navigate to a WebStore and find no products available for them to order.