Read status for notifications, visibility for individual people and app 3.0.8

Our last roundup is only two days old, and yet a lot has happened since. The most important addition is the read status: whoever sends an important notification can now see whether it has arrived. Events and notifications can be limited to individual people, members can belong to several permission groups, and the event list comes in three views. App version 3.0.8 will be available in the App Store and on Google Play in the coming days. Here is everything at a glance.

Read status: see who has opened a notification

The rehearsal has moved, the meeting point on concert day has changed, the sheet music has to be returned by Friday: with notifications like these, choir leaders want to know whether everyone got the message. That is exactly what the read status shows. Each notification has a "Seen" button with a number, for example "Seen 12/40". On the web you find it at the top of the notification, in the app below the line with the author.

A click opens the "Seen by" list with two sections, "Not seen yet" and "Seen", with each person's voice part. The list only contains active members who can actually see the notification. If it is meant only for the sopranos, for example, only the sopranos are listed. That way you can tell at a glance whom you might want to message briefly before the next rehearsal.

How to switch on the read status

The read status is off at first. No choir gets it without deciding to. To switch it on, open the choir settings, choose "General" and turn on "Read status for notifications" in the "Notifications" card. Then save your changes. Anyone who may edit the choir's settings can do this.

Important: the read status only applies to notifications created after you switch it on. Older notifications do not get a "Seen" button, even though Chorilo already knew internally who had opened them. Your members could not know back then that anyone would see this, so it stays that way. If you switch the read status off, all lists disappear. If you switch it on again later, everything starts over with the new date as the cut-off.

Only people with the permission "See who opened notifications" can see the list. By default that is administrators only. This also applies to the author of a notification: writing it does not automatically show you the list. Under "Permissions" you can give the permission to other groups, such as the board or the choir director.

Data protection: what the read status shows and what it doesn't

We deliberately kept the read status lean. It only shows "seen" or "not seen yet", never the time. Nobody finds out whether someone opened a notification at two in the morning or five minutes after it was sent. The number of views stays hidden too. And "seen" means opened: whether someone read the notification to the end, Chorilo cannot know and does not claim to.

Your members can tell that the read status is active. Such notifications show a small info icon, on the web next to the date. Tapping it shows: "Authorized people in the choir can see whether you have opened this notification. The time is not shown."

Two special cases are covered as well. Children without their own login cannot open a notification themselves. If a linked parent opens it, it counts as seen for the child, and the list shows "via parent" next to the name. If a notification goes to several choirs, you only see members of the choirs in which you have the permission and the read status is switched on.

Events and notifications for individual people

Until now, the visibility of an event could be limited to permission groups, functions, voice parts and chat groups. Now there is also a "People" field: you pick individual members who should see the event or notification, for example a meeting with three soloists or a note just for the music librarians. All selections add up: anyone who belongs to one of the chosen groups or is selected as a person sees the entry. Notifications can now also be limited to voice parts, just like events, for example to the basses only.

So that you do not lock yourself out, Chorilo warns you when your selection would no longer include you. You can still save, but you know that you will not be able to open or edit the event or notification afterwards. The simplest fix is to select yourself as a person too.

Permissions: additional groups and phone numbers

A member still has one main group, but can now also belong to any number of custom permission groups. The bass singer who is also music librarian and auditor no longer needs a group put together just for her. The permissions of all groups add up: if a permission is allowed in one of the groups, it applies. The same goes for events, notifications and folders that are visible only to certain groups. You find the "Additional groups" field when editing a member.

Also new is the permission "View phone numbers". It shows phone and mobile numbers in the member list without giving access to all sensitive data such as address or bank details. Administrators and editors have it by default, members do not. The menu item in the settings is now simply called "Permissions".

The event list in three views

The event list now comes as "Compact", "Standard" and "Table". Compact leaves out the description and the voice bars so that more events fit on the screen. Standard looks as before. The table shows one row per event with date, event, place, the responses and your own reply, which you can give right there with an icon. If you belong to several choirs, the choir appears in its own column.

The detail view of an event can be switched too, between "Compact", "Extended" and "Everything". The two detailed views show an overview in tiles at the top and always list sheet music, open tasks and files below, in the app also the latest comments. Your choice only applies to the device you are using, so you can use the table on your computer and the compact view on your phone.

For your own website there is now a "Calendar subscription". You find the link in the choir's website settings. Anyone who subscribes to it in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook sees the same public events as on your website. Changes appear in the link within 15 minutes; when the calendar app picks them up is up to the app.

Members, contacts and custom fields

In the member list you can show up to two extra columns: phone, mobile, address, birthday, wedding anniversary, entry date or one of your own member fields. The choice applies to the whole choir. Anyone who may see sensitive member data can set up and see these columns.

From address book to member: a contact can now be taken over as a member into your own choir, the main choir or a sub-choir. The form for the new member opens prefilled, including custom fields with the same name. You decide whether the contact stays in the address book or is archived once the member has been created. Links to bookings, invoices and events stay with the contact.

If you work with sub-choirs or projects, you can now maintain custom fields for members, contacts, sheet music and events in one go. When creating, changing or deleting a field, you choose in which related choirs the same should happen. Choirs that already have a field with the same name are skipped when creating.

Association mailbox: templates

Many emails in a choir are alike: the reply to someone who wants to try a rehearsal, the confirmation of a resignation, the reminder about the membership fee. In the association mailbox you can now save the text of an email with "Save as template" and insert it again with one click when writing or replying. If the email already contains text, the template is added at the end. What used to be called "text snippets" is now called "templates", and editing and deleting them works reliably on the web again. In the app you can insert templates and save new ones as well.

App 3.0.8: playlist without internet and numbered jump areas

The playlist can now be saved completely on your device. Tapping "Save offline" downloads all recordings, after which the playlist plays without internet, for example in the car on the way to rehearsal or in a dead zone. If you remove a track or clear the playlist, the saved files are deleted too.

Jump areas in the sheet music can now carry a label, such as "Coda", "D.S." or "Verse 2", and a number for the order. While playing, the next number is clearly highlighted, the others fade back but stay tappable. That way you find your way through nested repeats even in a concert. When you reopen the piece, the order starts at one again.

The read status, the new event views, the selection of individual people and the templates in the association mailbox are part of the app from version 3.0.8. In the web version you can use everything right now.

Other improvements

Buying tickets now works in every language, and free orders no longer receive an invoice for 0 euros. On the subscription page, invoices whose direct debit is still running are shown as "pending" with a direct link to the PDF. Bank connections in the cash book stay active during short outages at the bank instead of switching to an error state, and they fetch the bookings of the last seven days again so that no late booking is missed. Search fields now have just one button to clear them, and the buttons at the bottom of side panels wrap neatly on narrow screens.

Many of these additions come from choirs' wishes, the read status in particular. If something is missing or could work better, write to us: via the AI chatbot, the feature request function or by email.