Release notes outline upcoming customer-impacting changes that are expected to display in beta and/or production environments. Please note that features considered for future development are not included in the notes.
Visit the Parchment Collaborative Roadmap to explore upcoming work and share feedback. Your input helps guide future product development.
Unless otherwise stated, all features in this release are available in the Beta environment on 2026-05-18 and the Production environment on 2026-06-01.
New Features
Analytics
Lifecycle and Trend Analytics Visualizations- Admin, Issuer
Location to Enable Feature | N/A |
|---|
Permissions | Organizational Admin, Issuer |
Affects User Interface | Yes |
Affected Areas | Analytics |
Summary
In Analytics, lifecycle and trend-based analytics visualizations are available. This update includes:
- A Badge Lifecycle visualization showing progression from awarded to accepted, shared, and viewed
- A Performance Over Time chart tracking award, acceptance, sharing, and public view activity
- Dynamic trend grouping based on the selected date range
- Export and interactive visualization capabilities
- Contextual guidance to support lifecycle and trend interpretation
Organization Admins can:
- View badge progression across lifecycle stages
- Review conversion rates between awarded, accepted, shared, and viewed badges
- Analyze engagement trends over time
- Apply filters (date range, issuer, badge) to refine analysis
- Toggle event series on or off within the trend chart
- Use zoom, hover previews, and fullscreen mode for deeper insight
- Export charts and underlying data
For individual badges, users can:
- Access lifecycle and trend analytics within badge-level views
- Review post-issuance engagement activity
- Compare engagement across reporting periods
Change Benefit
- Improved lifecycle and trend visibility: Enables organizations to understand how badge engagement evolves across lifecycle stages and over time.
- Engagement drop-off insights: Helps identify where users disengage after badge issuance.
- Behavior and timing analysis: Reveals patterns in when and how recipients interact with badges.
- Stronger engagement strategy support: Improves communication timing and engagement planning based on observed trends.
- Shift from static to dynamic reporting: Moves analysis beyond static metrics to a more complete view of engagement movement and momentum.
- Foundation for future optimization: Supports future forecasting and engagement optimization capabilities.
Feature Workflow
Lifecycle visualization tracks badge engagement progression across four stages within the selected date range:
- Badges awarded
- Badges accepted
- Shared badge awards
- Viewed badge awards
Each stage includes total counts and conversion percentages relative to the previous stage, providing clear visibility into engagement flow and drop-off points.
Notes:
The lifecycle visualization represents the progression of badges awarded within the selected period.
For example:
- If a badge is awarded in January and shared in February, it is still included in the January cohort’s lifecycle progression.
Lifecycle stages reflect whether badges from the selected award cohort reach each engagement milestone over time.
Key behavior:
- Each badge is counted once per lifecycle stage
- Multiple shares or views do not increase stage counts
- Engagement actions can occur after the award date while still contributing to lifecycle progression
The Performance Over Time chart tracks:
- Award events
- Acceptance events
- Share events
- Public view events
Events are plotted based on when the interaction occurs, rather than when the badge was awarded.
The chart supports:
- Zooming
- Legend filtering
- Hover previews
- Fullscreen mode
- Export options
Dynamic time grouping automatically adjusts based on the selected date range:
- 1–90 days: Daily
- 91 days–2 years: Weekly
- Over 2 years: Monthly
Additional Details
Scoped Analytics
- Lifecycle and trend analytics are available at the organization, issuer, and badge levels
- Data is automatically filtered based on the selected access point
Conditional Visibility
- Lifecycle visualizations are hidden when no lifecycle data exists
- Performance trend charts collapse when there is insufficient activity for meaningful analysis
- Empty charts are not displayed
Learn More Guidance
Lifecycle and trend modules include contextual explanations for:
- Metric definitions
- Lifecycle and timeline logic
- Historical data considerations
- Interpretation guidance
Historical Data Limitations
- Badge awarding includes full historical coverage
- Some engagement metrics, including acceptance and public views, began tracking more recently
- Older date ranges may display lower or incomplete values for newer metrics
- Metrics affected by limited historical coverage are identified as “New data” within the product
Data Interpretation Notes
- Lifecycle and trend visualizations use different counting methodologies by design
- Lifecycle visualizations represent progression of badges awarded within the selected period
- Trend charts represent engagement activity occurring during the selected period
- Smaller datasets may result in limited or less stable trend visibility
User Interface
Multilingual Interface Support and User Language Preferences- All Users
Location to Enable Feature | N/A |
|---|
Permissions | Inherent to user role |
Affects User Interface | Yes |
Affected Areas | Organization Edit page, User Account Tray |
Summary
Parchment Digital Badges supports multiple interface languages, expanding accessibility for global organizations and users. Users also have the ability to override their organization’s default language preference through their personal profile settings.
Organizations can configure a default platform language, with current support for:
- Dutch
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- Hungarian
- English
What’s translated
- System-generated platform content is translated and displayed in the selected language, including:
- Navigation
- Menus
- Buttons and labels
- System messages
- Onboarding flows
- Notifications and error messages
- User-generated content is not translated and remains in the original language it was created in.
- Examples of content that is not translated include:
- Badge titles and descriptions
- Badge criteria
- Uploaded certificate content
- External taxonomy data and skill frameworks
Change Benefit
- Improved multilingual accessibility: Allows users to interact with the platform in their preferred language, creating a more familiar and accessible experience for multilingual organizations, learners, and issuers.
- Expanded global platform support: Supports international adoption and regional expansion by enabling organizations to configure a standardized default language experience for users.
- Increased ecosystem consistency: Aligns the Digital Badges experience more closely with the broader Canvas LMS ecosystem through multilingual interface support.
- Foundation for future localization: Introduces scalable internationalization infrastructure to support additional languages and broader localization capabilities in future releases.
Feature Workflow
In the Edit Organization page, organization admins can configure a default language for their organization.
When a default language is selected:
- All users within the organization see the platform in the configured language by default
- Newly invited and newly created users automatically inherit the organization language
- If no language is selected, English remains the default platform language
In an individual user’s Account page, users can override their organization’s default language setting.
When a personal language preference is selected:
- The chosen language is retained across sessions
- The preference applies only to the individual user
- Users can switch between any supported languages at any time
Updated Features
Badges
Enhanced Badge Awarding Experience Design and Usability- Admin, Issuer
Location to Enable Feature | N/A |
|---|
Permissions | Organization Admin, Issuer |
Affects User Interface | Yes |
Affected Areas | Badge Awarding |
Summary
The badge awarding experience is updated to improve usability and consistency across the platform:
- Improved visual hierarchy, spacing, and readability
- Reduced reliance on separate instructional side content
- Improved alignment with the Instructure and Parchment Digital Badges experience
- Addressed previously broken contextual help links within the awarding flow
Note: There are no workflow changes related to this update.
Change Benefit
- Improved usability and clarity in badge awarding: Enhances the manual badge awarding experience by reducing visual clutter and context switching, improving section grouping and workflow progression, and increasing readability for longer metadata forms.
- Better metadata and standards support: Strengthens support for Open Badges 3.0 metadata entry while aligning the experience more closely with broader Instructure design patterns.
- Improved guidance and reliability: Addresses previously broken contextual help links within the awarding workflow to ensure consistent access to in-product guidance.
Feature Workflow
In the Badge Awarding page, the following areas interfaces are updated:
- Recipient information
- Issue and expiration settings
- Narrative and evidence entry
- Open Badges 3.0 metadata fields
