VIVO 1.15.0 Release Candidate 1 available for community testing

[Dragan Ivanovic]

The VIVO 1.15.0 Release Candidate 1 is available for community testing

For instructions, please visit https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/VIVO/Release+Testing+-+1.15.0

We will be testing this release candidate until 4 July 2024.  Please consider helping to test: community involvement in the testing process is critical, especially for ensuring a smooth upgrade process for existing VIVO sites.  See the release testing page above for links to forms where you can submit your findings directly.  Any parts of any of the forms that you are able to fill in will be greatly appreciated by the development team. Thanks to TIB, there is also a VIVO instance for testing available at https://vivo.tib.eu/vivorc/

What's New in 1.15.0

Search Facets

Extended search ontology has been introduced. This ontology enables configuration of searching. Filters for refining search results can be defined. Search results can be sorted by different criteria, i.e. by relevance or by some field such as date or name. At the end, type of objects (classes) and instances which can be searchable for different roles can be defined. The feature is documented at Using Search.

The improved role management

The role management module is based on Attribute based access control from VIVO 1.15.0. For this purpose, an ontology has been introduced. This approach enables more control over definition of permissions for certain roles.

I forgot my VIVO password

The public option for resetting password which a user can carry out individually without administrator has been implemented. The option is based on sending an email with a secured link for resetting the user password.  The feature is documented at Editing Your Profile.  

Audit tool

A module enabling tracking of changes being made in the triple store has been implemented. Changes made by users and non-person entities are recorded in a triple store, with the users ID (URI), the time, and the changes that have been made. More info about this feature can be found at The VIVO audit module. 

Private individual page

Researcher and organization individual pages can be private, i.e. visible only for users with certain permissions (not for anonymous users, i.e. visitors).

[Dragan Ivanovic]

The VIVO 1.16.0 Release Candidate 1 is available for community testing

For instructions, please visit https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/VIVO/Release+Testing+-+1.16.0

We will be testing this release candidate until 13 February 2026.  Please consider helping to test: community involvement in the testing process is critical, especially for ensuring a smooth upgrade process for existing VIVO sites.  See the release testing page above for links to forms where you can submit your findings directly.  Any parts of any of the forms that you are able to fill in will be greatly appreciated by the development team. 

What's New in 1.16.0

Customizations & UI Enhancements

• WYSIWYG Editor for Custom Pages - A visual editor enabling administrators to create and modify custom landing pages and content without editing raw HTML.

• Custom “Page Not Found” Support - Administrators can define branded or context-specific 404 pages. 

• Custom CSS - Enables institution-specific styling via uploading custom CSS. 

Role Management & Access Control

• Expanded Role Management - Continued refinement of configurable role definitions and permissions. 

• Configuration of permissions - Support for more flexible enforcement of role-based access via configuration rather than code changes. 

• Account Management Improvements - Sort user accounts by last login by default for easier account administration.

Reporting and reuse of data 

• New Reporting Capabilities - Infrastructure and UI elements for generating administrative or analytical reports directly from the VIVO interface.

• Data Distribution API - Added an API for exporting custom data distributions from the VIVO triple store.

• Enhanced vCard Integration - Support for standard vCard formats in entry forms, list views, search indexing, and visualizations - improving interoperability with external systems and contact data exchange.

Search Capabilities

• Advanced Search Features - Continued improvements to search facet configuration, filters, and sort options introduced in prior releases.  

• Search Engine Supports - VIVO can be configured to use ElasticSearch, OpenSearch, or Apache Solr as a search engine.  Prior to this release, it was only possible to use Apache Solr as a search engine