What's new in August 2026

Messaging and inbox improvements

The inbox and chat experience has been significantly refreshed to make conversations easier to identify, navigate, and act on. Conversation cards now provide clearer context and status information, inbox filters offer more targeted options, relevant next-step actions are surfaced in the details panel, and chat messages use a more familiar layout with clearer system messages and conditional CTAs. These changes should help educators, employers, and learners understand the context and status of conversations more quickly and move from messages to the appropriate next action.

Clearer employer interaction expectations for experiences

Experience setup now includes a dedicated “Project structure” step where admins define team structure, deliverable format, expected employer time commitment, and optionally describe how employers and learners will interact. This information is surfaced prominently on experience pages, and marketplace users can filter by time commitment and deliverable format, helping employers better understand what participation involves before engaging.

Improvements

• Employer learner progress is now easier to navigate by match — Employers can now view learner progress grouped by match, making it easier to understand which teams belong to each match and see key details like match status, dates, available spots, and pending applications at a glance. The employer dashboard now uses this grouped view, while the Learner progress page lets employers toggle between View by team and View by match for the level of detail they need.
• Clearer guidance for automated match request messages — Educators configuring automated match request messages will now see clearer, contextual tooltips explaining when each message is sent and what information is useful to include. We’ve also simplified this section by removing the previous hint fields and clarifying that these responses are sent within existing message conversations.
• Better visibility into portal-wide pending match requests — Educators with portal-level match request permissions will now see an informational notice when the My match requests view doesn’t include all pending requests for their portal. The notice highlights additional pending requests and provides a quick way to switch to the portal-wide view, helping explain differences between the pending count and what’s currently shown.
• PDFs can now be viewed directly in individual milestone submissions — PDF files on individual milestone submission pages now open in the embedded file viewer, bringing the experience in line with team milestone and final submission pages. This makes it easier to review submitted PDFs without leaving the submission page.
• More powerful targeting and tracking for experience admins — Segmented Updates V2 gives experience admins additional filters across matches, teams, learners, and members, including application activity, feedback, surveys, milestones, worklog hours, team participation, and applications sent. Admins can also include a selected team’s employer when sending team announcements, while bulk selections now persist across searches, filters, and pagination—making it easier to identify specific groups and communicate with them efficiently.
• Resources are now available on match pages — Match pages now include a Resources tab that brings together relevant experience-, project-, and match-level resources for eligible experience admins, project admins, learners, and Riipen admins. This gives participants a central place to access resources in the context of an active match rather than relying on resources from separate levels of the platform.
• Keyboard-friendly global search — Users can now jump directly to global search with CMD+K on Mac or CTRL+K on Windows and navigate search results using the keyboard arrow keys. This makes global search faster and more accessible for keyboard-based workflows.
• Educators can control experience feedback — Educators can now independently enable or disable learner-to-employer and employer-to-learner feedback from an experience’s Feedback settings. When a feedback type is disabled, the corresponding reminders, timeline items, tracker information, and other related feedback elements are removed, helping admins align the feedback workflow with how their experience is designed.
• Clearer required profile fields — Required learner profile fields now remain visible even when they’ve already been completed, while validation errors appear only on fields that are missing or invalid. Required company profile information is also clearly marked and enforced when accepting match requests, making requirements easier for learners and employers to understand and preventing incomplete required company information from being bypassed.
• More consistent title styling — Title hierarchy, typography, colour, and spacing have been standardized across main content areas, sidebars, metadata panels, and panel sections. This creates a more consistent visual hierarchy across dashboards and content pages.
• Automatic pending match request limits — When an experience’s projects wanted value is set or updated, its pending match request limit is now automatically calculated based on that need, while still allowing permitted users to edit the limit in experience settings. This reduces the need for admins to manually configure the setting as project needs change.
• Extension request deposits — For teams using in-platform payments, extension requests that increase project hours and create additional project costs now surface the additional payment information as part of the request. Employer deposits are collected when an employer submits their own request or accepts a request they received, helping ensure additional project costs are covered before an extension proceeds.
• Imported employer claiming flow improvements — Imported employers now have a clearer path to activate their account, find unclaimed projects, and claim both their project and company affiliation through a single action. Updated activation communications and a high-priority dashboard task help employers understand what they need to do, while experience administrators can see Accepted, Rejected, or Pending claim statuses without needing to follow up directly.
• Portal-level announcements — Portal admins can now send targeted announcements to portal companies and educators using bulk selection, with dedicated Announcements tabs available for managing sent and scheduled communications. Recipients receive email notifications and can see announcements in their platform activity, giving portal teams a more centralized way to communicate with their communities.
• Recent invoices on the learner dashboard — Learners participating in experiences with Payments enabled can now see up to three recent invoices directly from their dashboard, with quick access to individual invoices and the full invoice table. This makes expected payment information easier to find without requiring learners to navigate into their account payment settings first.
• Copy update posts when duplicating experiences — Educators can now choose “Copy update posts” when duplicating an experience. Copied posts are added to the new experience as undated drafts, making it easier to reuse standard communications and update their timing and copy as needed.
• Clearer unpaid project information — Projects associated with unpaid experiences now display “Unpaid, academic credit only” in the match page information, making the compensation arrangement more visible.
• Improved invoice discovery and action visibility — Learners can now search their invoice table by invoice ID or experience name, see the associated experience in a dedicated column, and receive a warning when one or more invoices are blocked and may require action. Employer and educator billing invoice tables also now support search by invoice ID or payee name, with the State filter moved onto the page for easier access.
• Clearer invoice and receipt details — Invoice pages and downloaded invoices now include a “Work details” heading above line items, making it easier to understand what an invoice covers. Receipt terminology and payment-table guidance have also been clarified with “Receipt ID” and a “Receipt” tooltip, while the Download invoice action now appears in the header or overflow menu depending on the other available actions.
• Payment instructions guidance for educators — The “Instructions for learners” field under Experience Settings > Payments now includes a tooltip explaining the types of payment guidance educators can provide, such as invoice timing, prerequisites for payment, manual payment processes, and who learners should contact with questions.
• Kickoff completion status — Completed kickoff pages now display a “Complete” status pill in the header, bringing this step in line with the status treatment used elsewhere on team pages.
• Improved learner invoice experience - Learners now have clearer guidance on what needs to happen before an invoice can be approved. On the invoice details page, payees see a next-steps timeline showing required actions and any required Portal or company approvals, including their current status and relevant approval or due dates. If an invoice is disputed, the affected approval step identifies the dispute and provides an action to view it. When required actions are blocking an invoice, the updated Required actions modal explains what needs to be completed and links learners directly to the relevant tasks. This gives learners a clearer path to understanding what is holding up an invoice and what they can do next.
• Resume upload and parsing during learner onboarding - Learners can now optionally upload a PDF or document resume during the first step of onboarding. The resume will then be used to pre-fill their education, work experience, and projects sections of their profile. The user will be able to see the parsed information as they continue through onboarding and edit it as needed. The uploaded resume is also saved to their profile, and learners can continue onboarding without adding one.
• Gradebook CSV exports - Experience administrators and Riipen Admins can now export the gradebook to CSV from Experience > Teams > Scoring when scoring is enabled. The export includes learner, team and match information, along with the status and score of each scored item, making it easier to work with grading data outside Riipen.
• Invoice attention indicators for learners - Learners in paid experiences can now more easily spot invoices that may need attention directly from the Team page. The Invoice tab shows the number of invoices they can view and identifies how many are blocked, pending or in dispute; educators, employers and admins see the total invoice count.
• Easier review of incomplete final submissions - Educators and employers can now open an incomplete final submission from the team timeline to view its details rather than being taken directly into a new submission flow. Learners also see this view when the timeline action is View details, with the submission status, description, due date and rubric displayed where applicable; users who can complete the submission can continue using the Submit action from the page.
• Clearer guidance for incomplete teams - Milestone pages now show more accurate guidance when a team itself is in an Incomplete state. Instead of suggesting that preceding tasks need to be completed, users are told that the team is incomplete and cannot make further submissions, with a link to learn more about project completion.
• Rich text preserved in individual milestones - Rich text formatting in milestone descriptions is now preserved when viewing individual-completion milestones from the Team page. Paragraph breaks, bulleted lists and other formatting added to the milestone description should therefore be easier for learners to read as intended.
• Employer announcements for individual teams - Experience administrators sending an announcement to an individual team through Team Tracker can now choose Send this to the employer for the team, consistent with the option already available for non-individual teams.
• Updated education step in learner onboarding - The Education step now uses a clearer add-and-manage experience rather than displaying the education form directly on the page. Learners add education through a modal and can edit or delete records before continuing; at least one education record is still required to move forward.
• New experience step in learner onboarding - Learner onboarding now includes a third Experience step for work and volunteer experience and personal projects. These records are optional, can be added, edited or deleted directly during onboarding, and information pre-filled from a resume is identified for the learner.
• Simplified navigation during onboarding - While users are completing the onboarding wizard, the profile menu is now limited to Settings, Help, and Log out. The usual profile-menu options return after onboarding, helping keep users focused on completing the setup flow.