We’re excited to announce powerful new features and improvements designed to give you more flexibility, control, and visibility in your platform experience. This release includes integrated communications for Events, flexible time-based environment access, the ability to switch templates and regions mid-session, and several UI and usability enhancements.

✨ New features

• Integrated comms for Events: Built-in voice, video, and chat are now available directly in the Event classroom. Hosts can share their screen, individual apps—or even a participant’s VM—with the entire class. Participants can also follow the host’s view changes in real-time, making it easier to guide students through complex workflows. Learn more here.
• Limit access using Active time: Set a time limit on how long students can actively use their environment—while keeping their access window open for a longer period. Great for controlling costs while offering flexibility. Learn more here. 
• Change template or region of a running environment: Need to switch a running environment to a different template or region? Now you can—without restarting from scratch.
• Customizable “Access currently disabled” screens: The workspace view now shows different screens depending on whether an event hasn’t started, has ended, or is outside class hours. Customize these messages via the Language module.
• New notifications for changes to events:
  • Event ending soon notification: Warn users when an event is nearing its end, with configurable lead time and recipient settings. Admins can define default notification behaviors per event.
  • Event cancellation notification: Send automatic alerts to hosts and participants when an event is cancelled before it starts—so no one shows up unnecessarily.

🌱 Enhancements

• Event Classroom icons for Direct RDP: Classroom tiles now display an icon to easily identify students using Direct RDP versus browser-based access—helping instructors monitor sessions at a glance.
• Improved Direct RDP mirroring controls: Instructors now see clearer feedback during Direct RDP session mirroring, with streamlined retry logic and two new controls:
  1. Mirror now for immediate retry; and
  2. Mirror session to restart mirroring after retries have stopped.
• New reference fields in Events: Add Event code and Billing code fields to event configurations (configurable at a tenancy level via Administration > Settings). Useful for API lookups, reporting, billing, or integrations.
• Parent column in Environment list: Quickly see which event or course an environment belongs to, with a clickable link for faster navigation. Toggle this column on/off as needed.
• Persistent sort preferences in lists: Lists now default to alphabetical by Name—but if you sort by a different column, the platform remembers your choice for next time.
• Delete resources directly from Detail pages: Remove individual VMs, templates, policies, and environments right from their Detail page (via the Actions menu)—reducing navigation steps and minimizing errors.

🔧 Bugfixes

• Visiting /login in a new tab no longer logs out active sessions in other tabs.
• SSO with MFA users can now sign in seamlessly without unexpected prompts / errors.
• Credential state updates (e.g. assignment status or visibility) now appear instantly without needing to refresh.

We look forward to your feedback!

The Heropa team has been super busy of late. Here's some of the highlights we've been working on over the last little while:

✨ New features

• VM backups for AWS environments: You can now back up and restore environment VMs hosted in AWS. This enables customers to create safe rollback points, restore environments in place, or generate new VM images from backups—offering greater flexibility and protection for critical environments. Learn more here.
• Webhook notifications: You can now configure webhook notifications to receive real-time updates when key events occur within your Heropa tenancy. This enables better integration with external systems and improved visibility across workflows. Learn more here.
• Protected environments – override capability: Users can now override protection on a protected environment when making simple changes. A confirmation modal will warn users that their actions may impact the environment, and all overrides are logged in the audit trail. This allows administrators to make necessary adjustments without first removing protection—while still maintaining traceability and accountability. Learn more here.
• Default environment logo: Companies can now set a default logo for all course and event environments. This logo will appear in students’ MyLabs view, providing a more branded and consistent experience across all environments. Learn more here.

🌱 Enhancements

• Templates: Added deletion protection for templates that are in use by courses or events, preventing accidental removal of templates currently in use.
• Event classroom: A confirmation modal is now shown when selecting View workspace, helping prevent accidentally disconnecting students who are actively using their environment. 
• Event classroom: We have added a Hide option to the classroom tile dropdown to make it easier to hide event seats that you no longer want to see. 
• Event classroom: The View Workspace button has been moved into the tile dropdown to reduce the risk of instructors accidentally interrupting students actively using their environments. We’ve also reorganized the tile dropdown menu—options are now context-specific based on user and environment statuses, and the order has been adjusted for greater consistency and clarity. Learn more about all our classroom updates here.
• Protected environments: Destructive actions such as Reset Environment, Destroy Environment, and Delete VM are no longer available for protected environments. This ensures important environments remain safe from accidental changes or deletions. Learn more here.
• SSO: Company administrators can now configure a Logout URL for SSO users. When set, users will be logged out of their SSO session with the identity provider upon logging out of Heropa. This is an optional field and will only be used if configured.

🔧 Bugfixes

• Event templates: Fixed a missing validation when adding a template to an event where the selected credential pool had no credential sets available.
• Event classroom: An issue where newly provisioned student environments were not appearing in the classroom view without refreshing the page has been fixed.
• User imports: Column headings in the User import CSV were case sensitive. Headings are now treated in a case-insensitive manner for smoother imports.
• Credentials: An issue where updates to credential sets were not immediately reflected in the credentials list without refreshing the page has been fixed.
• Events: Deleting participants as part of an event deletion will no longer remove users who have a role assigned. Only users without a role will be deleted.

Note: The v7.67.0 release will be rolled out to customer environments over the coming week.