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.

Here at Heropa we've been busy bees over the last little while! 🐝 Here's an update outlining what's in our latest release. We also have lots of other exciting things we're working on, which we'll share with you soon. If you'd like to receive these updates via email, please subscribe!

✨ Brand new    

• Configure your Heropa tenancy to not require email addresses from end users: New capability that help meets privacy compliance by providing a way for end users to use Heropa without us storing their email address. Learn more about it here.
• Event and workspace defaults: Admins can now configure default settings for Events and the workspace at a tenancy level. See: Configuring settings.
• Event history: It's now possible to view a detailed audit log of modifications made to an event, via the new History tab. See: Understanding event history.

🌱 Enhancements

• Events - Open workspaces column: The Events List page contains a new column to show the number of open workspaces in each event. This will help Administrators easily identify in progress events.
• Events - Reboot VMs in bulk: A bulk action is now available on an event’s Environments tab, to reboot VMs in bulk during an event. See: Running an event.
• Email templates: Individual email templates can now be enabled / disabled, giving you more control over email communications with users. See: Managing email templates.
• Deleting users: When deleting a user with a role, if that user owns any objects (eg. templates, VM images, etc), a prompt to transfer their ownership is now shown, and object ownership must be transferred before they can be deleted. 
• User invite URL: Should invited users not receive their email to register an account, you can now access their Invite URL containing their unique access token from the Users List page, and share it with them to allow them to complete their registration. See: Adding users.
• Templates List last modified: A new column has been added to the Templates List page showing when each template was last modified.
• Storage usage calculations: Previously, the storage usage calculation for environments was showing an hourly value in environment lists. This now shows a monthly value, allowing you to more easily determine how environments are consuming storage.
• Compatibility checks by region: For companies with >1 region you can now specify the region to run the test when using the test URL, by adding the region shortcode to the end of the URL eg. company.heropa.com/test/regionshortcode. The region shortcode is based on the cloud provider’s code for that region.
• API: We’ve improved our API interactions with cloud providers, resulting in fewer calls and improving the utilization against published cloud provider rate limits.  

🔧 Bugfixes

• Events: Seats deleted and then re-created were creating duplicate seats. This has now been fixed.
• Users - Bulk delete: A bug that was incorrectly deleting users with a role has now been fixed. Only users without a role can be deleted via bulk delete.
• Reports: Reporting on when an environment was last accessed is now showing correctly in the Last Access column.
• API: An issue where Company defaults for Events were not being respected for events created via the API has been fixed. 

A huge few months for us here at Heropa. Here's an update outlining what's in our latest release. We also have lots of other exciting things we're working on, which we'll share with you soon. If you'd like to receive these updates via email, please subscribe!

✨ Brand new    

• Credential Manager module: New capability providing a way to issue external application credentials to users in Heropa has reached general availability. Learn more about it here.
• In case you missed the post, on-demand macOS desktops are now available in Heropa.

🌱 Enhancements

• Improvements to the Access tab for Courses and Events: We've made some updates to make it easier for Admin users to manage access methods to a course or event. For LTI users, it's now easier to limit access to only via the LTI if needed. See: Providing users access to a course. 
• All resources - Sharing tab: The old Access tab contained features to help manage the sharing of resources across companies. Following on from the Access tab enhancements above, we've moved the sharing capability to a different tab, called 'Sharing'. See: Sharing resources across companies.
• Customizable Login page: In our last update, we shared how you can now update the Login page with branding elements and add instructions for users. Since then,  we've also added the ability to add a custom CSS block to this page. See: Configuring settings.
• Content preview: We've updated the content editor so that the preview panel is consistent with how the content is displayed in the workspace side panel.
• Credential Manager: When viewing details of a Credential pool, the column visibility in the Credentials tab is no longer linked to the toggles in the Configuration tab. This allows the column visibility to be specified and automatically saved to your user preferences.  

🔧 Bugfixes

• Reports inconsistencies: In the Courses and Companies reports, we fixed some inconsistencies identified between the summary and individual report data. 
• Usage report display: A bug impacting the display of date and VLU information in the VLU usage report has been fixed. 
• Events - Instructor management: Intermittent errors preventing instructors from being added to and removed from events have been fixed.
• Chrome tab display: We fixed an issue affecting the display of an object containing an ampersand in a Chrome browser tab. 
• Dashboard - Usage panel: We fixed all progress bars in this panel to show the percentage progress.
• VM Images List filter: A bug with the filter on the VM Images List page has been fixed. 

Here's an update outlining what's in our latest release. If you'd like to receive these updates via email, please subscribe!

✨ Brand new   

• Customizable Login page: Align the Login page with your branding and look and feel. See: Customize your Login page. 

🌱 Enhancements

• User View: Users can now see more details about each course in their Library. Details about their progress through a course's sections and exercises are also available in My Labs by expanding the course details. 
• Content - Mark as complete: When content is included in the workspace, we've made it easier for users to mark each exercise as complete, immediately taking them to the next exercise.
• Password security: We've done some work to improve the security of our password hashing.  

🔧 Bugfixes

• Bulk delete of VM images: A bug preventing the bulk deletion of VM images has been fixed.
• Datatable column header alignment: A longstanding issue affecting the alignment of column headers in datatables has been fixed. 
• Create new environment - Picklist ordering: A bug affecting the ordering of Companies when creating a new environment has been fixed.   
• Order of VMs in the workspace: An issue affecting the ordering of VMs in the workspace when content is used in an environment has been fixed. 
• Reports - Column sorting: We fixed a bug where the sorting of columns in the Companies and Courses Reports was not working. 
• LTI Course - Submit for grading: An issue where the 'Allow grades' toggle was not being respected has been fixed.
• Environment resets: A bug preventing some customers from resetting their Azure environments has been fixed.

Lots of things happening behind the scenes here at Heropa. Take a look at what's in our latest release below. If you'd like to receive these updates via email, please subscribe! 

✨ Brand new   

• VM workspace settings: Admins can configure VM workspace settings for a template, environment, course or event. See: Enhance your users' workspace experience with new VM configurations. 
• Company Details: We've added a Courses tab within Administration / Company details. It's now possible to view courses a company has access to, and see how many users from the company are enrolled in each course. Drill down on the course name to see detailed information about the company’s users enrolled in the course, including their progress.
  

🌱 Enhancements

• Long running VMs: We've changed the way we handle long running VMs. See: A new way to handle long running VMs.
• Event settings: Several event settings that used to be managed in the event's Template tab are now in its Configuration tab. This makes it easier to configure settings for an event. See: Creating an event / Configuring event settings. 
• Usage Report: When viewing usage grouped by Environment, click on the Environment name to view usage for a single environment during the specified report period. See: Using Reports / Usage Report.
  
• Left hand menu item name change: In the Administration menu, the 'Company Details' menu item has been renamed to 'Settings'. This is to avoid confusion with other capability in Heropa to manage Companies. From Settings, you can still manage everything to do with your Heropa instance.  
• Reset view: On List pages, Admins can customize which columns are visible, and their order. A'Reset view' action has been introduced to allow Admins to restore List page columns to their default view if needed.

🔧 Bugfixes

• Event seats: A bug allowing for event seat numbers to exceed the maximum seats allocated to the event has been fixed.  
• LTI users: We fixed an issue so that users accessing Heropa via an LTI are correctly assigned to their company if the company also exists in Heropa. 
• Reset password: Some users were unable to complete the reset password process. This has now been fixed.
• Workspace side panel: We addressed an issue where the right hand edge of the desktop was being slightly obscured by the Content side panel in the workspace. 
• Workspace mouse click: An issue where the left mouse click was being unresponsive while in the workspace has now been fixed.
• Expired video-only courses: An issue causing these courses to expire for end users has been fixed. 
• Managing groups: We fixed a bug preventing companies from being added to / removed from Groups.
• Leave without saving: Within Administration / Company Details, there was an error preventing a user from leaving a screen without saving changes. This has now been fixed.

Happy 2023! We're really excited about what we're working on for you in the coming months. Don't forget to subscribe to receive these updates via email! 

✨ Brand new   

• Resource filtering and sharing: New capability that provides a way to limit resources to certain sets of users, via Companies. This is being progressively rolled out. To learn more, read this post: Resource filtering and sharing capability.
• Labels and Tags: Labels and tags can be created for your company, and can then be used to help categorise resources. Read all about it here: Manage resources using labels and tags. 

🌱 Enhancements

• Events - Shared drive: It's now possible to add / modify a shared drive to an event after it has been launched. Existing event attendees will also see the shared drive. See: Creating an event.
• Showing videos in the workspace: We've made it easier to add YouTube video URLs to show these in the workspace. Wistia videos are also now supported. See: Adding content to a course.
• Editing information: We've standardised how information about objects and resources can be edited. Modifying an object's name or description is now done via an 'Edit information' modal. Labels and tags are also managed from here.
  

🔧 Bugfixes

• Error when switching views: Fixed an issue where an incorrect screen was loading for users when switching from the User View to the Admin View.
• Editing templates: An error preventing the editing of networks within templates has been fixed. 
• End users unable to access the workspace: For users with an event seat allocated directly by a host there was a bug that sometimes disabled the "View workspace" button.
• Event creation browser load: During the creation of an event we created duplicate user configuration files that were passed to the admins browser. This had the effect of impacting performance of the UI.
• Event classroom thumbnails: We fixed an issue where user updates were not reflected in the classroom having the result of missing thumbnails.
• Video only courses: In certain circumstances users enrolled in a video only course were receiving an expired message almost immediately.

Here's some of the new things you can now enjoy using in Heropa! We'd love to hear how these are working for you! 

✨ New features

• Events: When creating a new event, you can now optionally select a time period during which no automated shutdowns of user environments will take place. This will override the policy setting related to user inactivity shutdowns.

• Editing VM networks: When modifying a VM's network rules, we automatically detect your IP address to simplify the process of adding additional inbound and outbound rules to your local computer.

🌱 Enhancements

• Events: Classroom panel enhancements: We've made some awesome improvements to the Classroom panel to make it easier for hosts and instructors when running a virtual event. Read all about it here: An improved classroom experience
• New ‘VM shutdown’ notification: Users with an inactive workspace are now automatically alerted 10 mins prior to their VM being shutdown by the policy, allowing them to cancel the automatic shutdown.
• User registration form: It’s now possible to add a second, separate URL for new users to review when registering their account with Heropa. For example, links to a separate Terms of Service and Privacy Policy can now be included in the registration form. See: Configuring user settings in Configuring settings.

🔧 Bugfixes

• Enrolling users in Courses: Fixed an issue preventing users from being enrolled in a Course via the Course detail / Enrollments tab.  
• Branding: Resolved intermittent issues saving images in the Branding module. 
• Protected environments: Options were available allowing VMs within a protected environment to be protected or unprotected. These have been removed. 

Over the weekend we released the following updates to Heropa. We look forward to your feedback!  

✨ Features

• Pin VMs: We've made it easier to access VMs you work with regularly via a new Pin VM feature. See: Working with VMs in the workspace.
• AWS status check: A tool has been created to help troubleshoot failed connections to AWS VMs. See: AWS VM status check.
• Notify users by email when a new environment is created: Select to notify a user via email when a new environment is created for them. See: Creating and launching an environment.
• Copy content sections: At a section level, content can now be copied and inserted into into other content, making it easier to re-use content. See: Creating content.

🌱 Enhancements

• Events - Classroom thumbnails: Thumbnails are now retrieved directly from the server without requiring local user workspace information. This should result in a significant improvement in the delivery of thumbnails in the Classroom view.
• User session management: Some general enhancements to user session management were implemented to better recycle stale user sessions.
• Deleting a VM within an Environment: When deleting a VM, the name of the VM is now shown to the user prior to deletion.
• Dashboard role permission optimisations: It's now possible to restrict a role's visibility of the Dashboard. See: Using Roles and Permissions.

🔧 Bugfixes 

• Terraform updates are now asynchronous: Updates to existing environments incorrectly showed a failed / rollback status. This was due to the synchronous implementation of Terraform updates to AWS. We have now implemented asynchronous updates, removing the false positive failure status.
• Updating Environments: Row actions available for specific environment states were incorrect and could lead to unwanted actions being available for selection. These have now been updated so only applicable actions based on the environment state can be selected.
• User timeline: For some users, timeline information was not visible in the User Details / Timeline tab due to required data fields being missing. This has now been resolved. 
• Reconnecting to disconnected VMs in the workspace: This was only updating once a successful connection was established, and not showing the attempted reconnection in progress. This has now been resolved.

A huge update from our team here at Heropa, with lots of news about what we've shipped recently! 

✨ Features

• Course enrollment email: Select to notify a user via email when they are enrolled in a course. See: Providing users access to a course.
• Company role permission optimisations: We've introduced some granular role permission optimisations for Companies. It's now possible to restrict a role's visibility to their own company only. It's also possible to configure which Company tabs are visible for a role. See: Using Roles and Permissions.
• Record T&Cs acceptance: Company Admins can now configure whether new users are required to accept T&Cs upon user creation. Acceptance is recorded in the user's Profile. See: Configuring user settings in Configuring Company details.
• Content import and export: Export and import JSON content files from Heropa so they can be used in other templates and courses. See: Exporting and importing content. 

🌱 Enhancements

• Events: LTI users can now be assigned seats in Events.
• Direct enrollment in Courses: We introduced a concept whereby Companies need to be assigned access to Courses, to make it easier to enroll users in courses, See: Assigning a Company access to a Course. 
• Adding users to a Company: It's now possible to add a user directly from the Company Details / Users tab. 

🔧 Bugfixes

• Deleting LTI users: A bug preventing deletion of LTI users has been fixed.
• Deleting users in Events: We've fixed a bug preventing users from being deleted in Events.
• Deleting Groups: A bug preventing the deletion of empty Groups has been fixed.
• Public IP addresses: It's again possible to save notes in Public IP addresses.
• Users created via csv import: We were having some issues where new users created by csv import were not being created correctly. This caused access issues for new users. This has now been fixed.
• New users and email domains: We removed the automatic creation of email domains when new users are created as this was causing issues with users being assigned to Companies.
• Templates - Replacing VM images: Searching for VM images was broken. This is now working. In addition, deleted VM images are no longer visible in the list of VM images.