Release notes

2026.07

• Focused feature pages now use the same Customer Help brand lockup and segmented Product, Start setup, and Portal navigation pattern as the product and portal header. The compact language control keeps visitors on the equivalent English or Spanish feature page.
• Optional listing content and Reviews · Performance · History now appear as collapsed secondary sections below provider accounts and location readiness, keeping routine connection and matching work first while leaving those tools one expansion away.
• Focused feature pages now keep the product overview, capabilities, workflow, related questions, Help links, and setup action without the former Illustrative verification scenario or Availability and boundaries sections. Their matching HowTo structured information was also removed; detailed constraints and reproducible checks remain in the reviewed Help guides.
• Listings now groups provider setup, connected accounts, synchronization, and workspace tools into a clearer account-first page. Every currently supported provider can keep multiple independent account authorizations; Google is supported now, while Bing Places and Apple Business Connect remain planned. Add another account remains visible after the first connection, each row has account-scoped reconnect, automatic-publishing consent, and disconnect controls, and Disconnect all remains a separate provider-wide action. Overlapping Google grants keep independent credentials while the same returned profile is deduplicated; distinct profiles sharing a normalized address remain blocked for review.
• Connect Google, Add another account, and Reconnect now open Google’s account chooser without suggesting the Customer Help business-owner email, so an Administrator can authorize any Google account that manages the intended Business Profiles even when its domain differs from the Customer Help account.
• The public product homepage now identifies the application as Customer Help and clearly explains its purpose: authorized businesses use it to manage locations and connected Google Business Profile listings, add customizable website chat, coordinate conversations in a shared Inbox, and answer questions with an OpenAI-powered assistant grounded in approved business knowledge.
• The Google go-live data update now upgrades the original Listings schema in place by creating secure authorization-state storage and encrypted-credential fields before applying consent and provider-content retention rules. Deployments where the earlier update reported a missing authorization-state table can install the current release and rerun the still-pending update before exposing Connect Google.
• Google Connect now binds each 10-minute, one-time authorization to the same cookie-enabled browser, rechecks the initiating Administrator at callback, accepts only same-origin relative return paths, and rejects forwarded, replayed, cross-browser, expired, post-demotion, missing-scope, or broader-scope flows before saving Google credentials. The dedicated client requests only business.manage. Platform readiness now requires a canonical unpadded base64url credential-encryption key of 43–128 characters (32–96 decoded bytes), with disconnect-before-rotation and reconnect-after-rotation procedures.
• Google write safety and audit handling were tightened. Publish requests require explicit valid locations and fields; unselected optional payloads are ignored, and selected-language announcements and review replies never borrow a blank field from another version. A location patch, each photo, and each announcement are tracked as separate non-atomic operations, so partial delivery is marked Partly live and is not automatically replayed. A photo or announcement POST interrupted by a network failure, timeout, or Google 5xx is marked Delivery unknown, never auto-retried, and requires direct Google verification. Every live publish and review reply records a processing intent before contacting Google. If Google responds but the complete audit trail cannot be saved, the request fails visibly as Audit failed and tells the Administrator to verify Google. Review replies require the exact current tenant-owned account/location/review parent, and review sync marks locally published replies superseded after a direct Google edit or deletion. Cross-account duplicate-address mappings stay ambiguous and are excluded from review and Performance reads. Account-scoped Disconnect removes the selected grant’s mapped content, Disconnect all removes even orphaned business-wide cached rows, and malformed or pre-migration provider timestamps are physically purged instead of surviving the retention ceiling.
• Google publishing now enforces provider boundaries without silent truncation: profile descriptions stop for review above 750 characters, a Local Post title plus its blank separator and body must fit within 1,500 characters, the selected announcement language must contain copy when another translation is authored, and every authored review-reply translation must fit within 4,096 UTF-8 bytes. Review replies reflect Google’s APPROVED, PENDING, and REJECTED moderation states, and Sync reviews reconciles later changes. A fully successful review or Performance sync removes in-scope rows Google no longer returns, while a failed or partially paginated request preserves the earlier cache. Expired Google account labels are hidden at 29 days and physically cleared by the daily cleanup; authorization status remains visible. Provider-account updates reject identifiers owned by another Customer Help business.
• Google Business Profile is ready for a controlled rollout after written policy approval and production setup. A fail-closed platform switch blocks Google calls while preserving local optional-content drafts and the available disconnect actions. OAuth connection and Sync locations perform read-only discovery, deduplicate one profile reached through multiple accounts, match only a unique normalized address—including explicit US, Mexico, and Canada suffixes—and stop writes when Google no longer returns a mapping. Each account needs versioned Administrator consent before future address, primary-phone, weekly-hours, or holiday-hours saves publish automatically. Address writes preserve the Google profile’s current country; phone writes preserve Google-only additional numbers; incomplete provider data stops for review. The shared limiter coordinates 300 requests per service per minute, 10 edits per profile per minute, and 10,000 Business Information location patches per Pacific quota day. An account row’s Disconnect action revokes one grant and clears its mapped provider content while keeping other accounts connected; Disconnect all accounts revokes every Google grant for the Customer Help business and purges its cached provider content. Another business using the same Google grant may need to reconnect. Reviews and Performance are user-initiated and require verified profiles. Performance requests the newest 30 daily dates; fetched Google reviews and metrics stop displaying at 29 days and are removed by the next daily cleanup within Google’s 30-day maximum. Reviews remain individual rows, Performance displays raw daily values with a newest-2,000-row warning, and Customer Help does not poll a pending Local Post’s later moderation state. Optional content rejects more than 20 photo URLs, non-HTTPS or malformed public URLs, and announcement links longer than 500 characters without silently truncating them. The dashboard visibly limits its inbox to the newest 20 synced reviews and its history to the newest 12 updates. Overnight holiday hours use the following date and stop for review when Google’s next-day limit is not met.
• Visible English and Spanish links on product marketing pages now preserve the current equivalent route instead of returning visitors to a language homepage. The portal also loads the interface catalogs required by the active language on demand, and the system-administrator Public information editor loads only when it is opened; failed catalog or editor downloads can be retried without making them part of every initial portal load.
• Customer Help now publishes bilingual About, contact and support, privacy, terms, security, and plans and pricing pages with a visible site footer. Verified system administrators can update both languages together from Public information; saving publishes immediately, records an audit event, and updates the page’s reviewed and sitemap publication dates. The pages use restrained, evidence-backed product claims and do not invent support channels, legal entities, certifications, or service guarantees.
• Negotiable HTML now declares Vary: Accept even on ordinary browser requests, every API response receives a restrictive Content Signal and noindex, Help HTML identifies its content language, and product, tenant, and Help sitemaps use reviewed or publication dates for lastmod instead of request or deployment time.
• The public product homepage now keeps its reviewed server-rendered content on the initial render path and loads the full portal application only for setup, sign-in, account callbacks, or a returning signed-in session. Its homepage styles are generated, minified, and included with the document, and notification messages now use valid status or alert semantics without nested live regions. If account setup assets cannot load, the page preserves the sign-in or recovery link and offers a reload action.
• The anonymous homepage no longer discovers the shared Microsoft Clarity helper through a nested module request. Its lightweight enhancer queues the same fixed anonymous analytics context directly, while setup, sign-in, callbacks, and returning sessions retain the full account-aware analytics behavior. Every Clarity-enabled product and Help surface now accepts tags and events through an immediate command queue, then starts the external recorder after first paint during browser idle time with a 2.5-second maximum idle wait. On mobile, the homepage reserves measured space and postpones rendering of Listings and later offscreen sections; the hero, feature rail, and first product overview remain on the initial rendering path.
• Public pages now advertise reviewed Help and LLM resources through response Link headers, publish explicit search/grounding and no-training Content Signals, and support Cloudflare-negotiated Markdown on eligible pages. Private, non-indexable, infrastructure, and error responses use a restrictive policy, while unsupported API, OAuth, MCP, Agent Skills, WebMCP, and DNS-AID discovery remains unavailable instead of being represented by misleading metadata.
• Public product, brand, and location entity information now uses consistent names and stable identifiers before and after page interaction. Official brand profile URLs can identify the Organization, while location review links remain customer actions. Public location information includes approved contact details, weekly hours, the next valid 30-day holiday exception, directions, and review actions while omitting coordinates, Google Place IDs, and unsupported service areas.
• Every Help article now shows its reviewing team, calendar review date, and verified release in English and Spanish. The same provenance appears in each article’s Markdown and structured information, and a new evidence-methodology guide provides reproducible workflow examples without presenting them as customer results.
• Eight focused product overviews now explain business listings management, multi-location data, website Chat, AI customer support, AI Training, location pages, custom domains, and current integrations in English and Spanish. Each page has one canonical address per language and descriptive links to the relevant product and Help guidance.
• Public brand and location pages now show their approved details on the initial page load and use one consistent address per language for search and sharing. Primary-language URLs stay unprefixed, non-primary Spanish and English use /es and /en, and older ?lang= or section links continue to open the matching page.
• Once a primary custom domain is Active, it becomes the main public address for its eligible brand and location pages. Removed pages now show a genuine not-found result and leave the sitemap within five minutes; new page-size limits help protect fast, stable loading.
• Chat Widgets can now prompt inactive visitors after a configurable interval and close unanswered sessions after a separate grace period. The durable deadline survives reloads and sleeping connections, while AI thinking and streaming no longer flash a reconnect warning during brief socket recovery.
• Signup and Help journeys now emit fixed Microsoft Clarity events for funnel and search-outcome measurement without adding search terms, form values, URLs, or arbitrary properties to those events. Existing documented account, business, and brand context tags remain available to authorized Clarity users.
• Microsoft Clarity recordings now include the current product surface, language, authentication and access context, applicable business and brand identifiers, page context, and the normalized account email for signed-in users. The embedded Chat panel remains excluded, and the privacy reference explains tag visibility and retention.
• Public product and Help pages now authorize their configured Microsoft Clarity and Cloudflare Web Analytics resources through Content Security Policy. The product page allows only its hashed bootstrap inline; Help pages also allow the generated inline runtime required for Help navigation, search, and display.
• Help search now shows each article once. The Chat widget installation guide lists the required Content Security Policy and allowed connections, and support instructions lead to the support link or email shown in Help or to a checklist of safe details to prepare.
• AI source names are optional during creation. Brand appearance and public-link fields list their exact limits, and AI Training explains what to do when an answer appears to use content from the wrong brand.
• Help pages load faster on repeat visits, and saved Help links continue to work.
• The searchable Help center is available in English and Spanish.
• Global, page-level, and field-level Help links open the relevant article in a new tab so the current form remains open.
• Question-mark Help buttons stay aligned with their settings across portal pages, editor tabs, repeated schedules, and smaller screens.
• Browser Chat notifications include a permission check, a test notification, and an off control for each browser. Inbox also identifies the current owner and shows how long a conversation has been waiting or active.
• A one-time anti-spam check protects each new visitor conversation. The visitor form also provides clearer instructions for messages, attachments, and transcript email.
• Help includes guides for every portal area, account and business setup, Chat, AI Training, Listings, custom domains, billing, languages, roles, time zones, and troubleshooting.