Technology Changelog

The Mountaineers values transparency and takes pride in celebrating our successes. Our team is continuously working on updating our website, e-learning, and automated processes to enhance the user experience for members and volunteers. In this Changelog, we capture what improvements we have made over time so you can follow along and take advantage of new features. 

Highlighted tech improvementS:

Piloting new improvements to course management

The Mountaineers developed a new Course Management Tool (CMT) to address the challenges volunteers face in managing courses, automating key tasks and streamlining workflows. Learn more about the tool and the current pilot using it in this blog!

Launched new map finder tool

Mountaineers Books collaborated with Green Trails Maps to build a new interactive map finder tool. The tool allows user to search key map features and locations to then see what map covers their intended area of travel. The tool will allow map purchasers to feel confident that their online purchases will cover their needs.

Current Quarter

6/5/25: added lead image event summary listing

Search results and lists of events now present the lead image of an event is one is provided. We also removed set-up and departure times to this summary view to avoid confusion for attendees.

6/5/25: changed leadership permission language and display on activities

The leadership permission portlet on activities has been updated to provide useful resources on what leadership permission is, improve visibility on the permission form, and ensure that both a request and approval are required for registration. 

5/23/25: removed retired items from search results

Users who use the top navigation search bar will no longer see items in a "Retired" state. 

5/20/25: Added incident reporting to lodge stays and events

Participants and leaders are now able to submit a General Incident Report for any safety concern that occurred during that stay/event. This form is now linked to Feedback as well to help direct those with a safety concern to the form. Leader resources has been updated here.

5/14/25: introduce rich text in permission forms

Users requesting leadership permission for activities or courses are now able to use a rich text field to format their information for the leader.

5/13/25: fixed salesforce sync for guests at events

Guest registrations with free tickets will now sync to Salesforce so that guests will receive registration conformation emails and events will show proper registration count.

5/13/25: Updated ups SHIPPING api

UPS shipping API now uses a more secure token process as requested by UPS.

5/6/25: filter on single/multi-day activities

Users are now able to filter based on single and multi-day results when using "Find Activities" or any of the three volunteer activity search pages.

4/30/25: send course activity notifications for youth

Participants in youth courses will now receive an email notification when a new trip or lecture is added to their course.

4/28/25: Prevent course activity late cancellation

Users are no longer to 'uncheck' their registration and cancel within the 'Manage Registration' pop-up after registration has closed.

4/2/25: Improved page load performance

Performance was improved for pages that are not associated to profiles (example - Routes & Places) for users with significant activity history.

FY25 Quarter 2

3/18/25: launched new map finder tool

Users are now able to search and find Green Trails Maps by using an interactive MapBox search tool.

3/17/2025: Added new volunteer activity pages

Additional search pages were added for trip leader activities and all activities for volunteers to provide more ways for volunteers to find opportunities.

3/6/2025: Ensure Tax is Applied

Changes were made to the cart process to ensure taxable products (lodge stays, merchandise, etc.) are taxed online.

3/1/2025: Improve feedback form questions & options

All feedback forms were improved to follow industry standards for question formats and selection options. These changes did not impact historical results so if looking before/after 3/1/25 both response options will be provided.

2/4/2024: ensure stewardship trips are by stewardship committees

Automated email alerts are now in place to monitor and prevent non-stewardship committees from leading stewardship trips.

1/31/2024: Send activity reminders to participants

An email is now sent to activity participants five days before registration closes reminding them of their activity and prompting them to cancel if they no longer can make it so that others can register in their place.

1/29/2024: moved leader notes above meeting place/time

To ensure potential participants read/see Leader Notes before applying, these notes now appear before Meeting Place & Time.

1/29/2024: present all course/activity feedback

Leaders are now able to see course and activity feedback from participants no matter if the course is > 12 months old.

FY25 Quarter 1

12/19/2024: re-aligned badges on profiles

Badges listed under a member's profile now align at the top instead of at the bottom to make it easier to review sets of badges.

12/19/2024: moved application link above confirmation checkbox

For those who require applications for their trips/courses, the Apply button is now above the confirmation box to match the desired order of operations. 

12/13/2024: improved leader badge confirmation emails

Confirmation emails for leader badges now contain relevant information about next steps and additional training recommended.

12/5/2024: improve bcc email clarity

All emails sent through the website have always BCC participants. We changed the language around this feature to make sure that it followed our email policies.

12/5/2024: Removed Twitter/X from footer

Our content and communication teams no longer communicates with members through X (Twitter) so we removed this from our footer links.

11/26/2024: Lodge stay notification lists

Lodge stays that are full now offer a way for members to sign up to be notified by email if there is an available stay. Those notified can reserve their stay on a first come first serve basis. This is an optional feature that lodge hosts can enable.

11/14/2024: Program center event email reminders

Event hosts will now be reminded via email of their upcoming events and a notice if they are unpublished.

11/12/2024: Prioritize books/maps on book's site search

Book shoppers will now see books & maps only when using the top search bar on the books website.

11/8/2024: added practice sessions to search/fitler

Activity and course searches will now include Practice Sessions. Members can now filter to only practice session activities.

11/7/2024: youth information form expiration reminders

Youth will be notified when their youth information form is set to expire in the next 30 or 7 days.

11/1/2024: Add Registration Notes to Salesforce

Salesforce exports can now include any custom registration notes that are added by course and activity leaders.

10/31/2024: Move ACTIVE Activites/events to the top of 'my activities'

Activities and events that are still current/active have been moved to the top of 'My Activities' under a member's profile instead of moving down prematurely under 'My Activities History'.

10/17/2024: Added coleader/mentor roster activity notifications

Activity and course primary leaders are now able to opt other leaders, coleaders, and mentors in for notifications about roster changes through selecting a checkbox in the 'Default' section of the activity/course.

10/17/2024: added employer match question to purchases

Allowed members to submit employer match information for purchases along with donations to capture match information on memberships.

10/17/2024: Encourage multiple emergency contacts

Emergency contact fields are now set up to receive multiple names and numbers. Help text is provided recommending this approach.

10/17/2024: Allow Multiple Blog Authors

Blogs will now show all 'creators' of the blog in the blog feed and within each individual blog - allowing for all authors to receive credit.

10/10/2024: added new committee positions

Committee now have access to set members in the following positions: Basic Chair, Immediate Past Chair, Intermediate Chair, Outreach Coordinator, Safety Chair, Vice Chair.

10/8/2024: add 'Never' as an update frequency for alerts

Members can now select to 'Never' receive alerts and notifications on activities, courses, etc. but save their previous settings to easily switch back to notifications again.

10/3/2024: Youth Newsletter 

A new newsletter is launching that will provide updates and information related to our youth programming. Members can now opt-in to receive this newsletter via their profile.

10/3/2024: prevent paid memberships becoming guest

A paid member is no longer provided the option to switch their membership to a guest adult or guest family membership.

10/3/2024: New activity leader role - mentor

Leaders now have the option of assigning someone to a Mentor activity role instead of co-leader when the mentee is the primary leader.

FY24 Quarter 4

9/27/2024: ability to hide pages from top bar navigation

A published page now has the option to be hidden at the top bar navigation along with side bar navigation.

9/19/2024: ADDED book REVIEWS 

A new tab has been added to the Book product pages that show reviews and endorsements in chronological order.

9/19/2024: Leader name added to course registration popup

The leader of an activity and a link to their profile was added to the activity listing on the course registration pop-up to assist students in their selection process.

8/20/2024: TURNED GOOGLE SPREADSHEET SALESFORCE SYNCS BACK ON

For a few months, some of our scheduled refreshes for google sheets used by volunteers were turned off. We have since reinstated our licensing and migrated these scheduled reports.

8/19/2024: Added UNAFFILIATED BRANCH OPTIONS

Two branches were added as options under member profiles to account for Mountaineers that reside outside of our branches in Washington or Out-of-State.

8/16/2024: CREATED REPORT TO CHECK FOR STEWARDSHIP REQUIREMENTS FROM HALF DAY EVENTS

New monthly process implemented that reports members without a stewardship badge that have completed multiple stewardship half-day events to member services for review.

8/9/2024: changed feedback summary chart colors

Chart colors within our feedback summaries were changed to match our branding guidelines, removing colors that can be perceived as negative.

8/8/2024: ALLOW donor badges to be set to private

Our staff team can now honor donor's request to set a donor badge to private and still incorporate that donor into our internal automated reporting and analytics.

8/6/2024: created volunteer reminder email

A new automated email was created to remind course graduates ways they can volunteer and use their skills to help instruct.

8/1/2024: Added Blog/TRIP REPORT Author Comment Notifications

New notifications were added that will alert blog and trip report authors when a comment or comment reply has been made to their blog/trip. This should help facilitate discussions between the author and readers.

7/12/2024: Fixed easyform email results to include all fields

A fix was put in place to ensure that the data collected in checkboxes and multiselect fields of forms was present in the email notifications.

7/9/2024: Port guest cart items to cart once logged in

Items that are added to the cart when the user is not signed in are now ported over and saved to the member's cart for current or future purchase. 

previous Updates

For previous updates, please visit our individual Tech Update blogs Located on our TECHNOLOGY PAGE.

Have an idea on how we could use technology to enhance the member or volunteer experience? Please share it at  feedback.mountaineers.org. There, you can add a new idea, comment on an existing idea, up-vote improvement suggestions, or subscribe to receive updates on specific projects. This helps us prioritize future improvements for you!