October 2026 Releases
Refund Grace Period Update for Sections with a Start Date
For Sections with a fixed start date, the GRACE_PERIOD_BEFORE_SECTION_STARTDATE parameter now works the way its name says. To get a grace drop and an automatic refund, a Learner must drop at least the set number of days before the Section starts. Before this update, most drops made more than about a day before the start date counted as grace drops, even when the parameter was set to 0.
Here’s how it works:
A drop made at least N days before the Section start date is classified as Dropped Grace. When refunds are on, it’s refunded automatically based on your REFUND_FEE and REFUND_PERCENTAGE parameters.
A drop made fewer than N days before the start date, or on or after the start date, is classified as Dropped and is not refunded.
Days are counted as calendar days from the date the drop is processed to the Section start date. For drop requests, this is the date the request is approved.
Example: the value is 14 and the Section starts on October 30. A drop processed on October 16 or earlier is Dropped Grace. A drop processed on October 17 or later is Dropped.
Admins stay in control:
Set the value to 1 to give a grace drop for any drop before the Section start date.
Set the value to 0 (or leave it blank) for no grace refunds on Sections with a fixed start date. If yours is 0 or blank and you want Learners who drop early to keep getting refunds, update it under Administration > Parameters.
Sections without a start date haven’t changed. They still use GRACE_PERIOD_AFTER_ENROLL_STARTDATE.
Section cancellations haven’t changed. Canceling a Section still fully refunds every active enrollment, whatever the grace period settings are.
Read more: Parameters - Genius CE & Enterprise
Enrollment Forms
Your programs often need more than just a name and payment - waivers, emergency contacts, dietary needs, license numbers, and more. Enrollment Forms makes it possible to collect exactly what you need, right at the moment of enrollment.
Here's how it works:
Attach a custom form to any section - questions appear as a required step before the payment page, so nothing gets missed.
Build forms with a range of field types: text, multiple choice, file uploads, and conditional logic that adjusts based on learner responses.
Waivers and consent can be gated before payment, ensuring nothing moves forward without the required acknowledgment.
When a learner has filled out a shared form before, their responses are pre-filled - reducing friction for returning learners.
If multiple sections in a cart share the same form, learners only see it once.
Admins stay in control:
Set a form at the course level and let sections inherit it or override it at the section level for more specific needs.
Form responses are stored per learner and per enrollment and appear exactly where your staff expects to find them: on the roster and in reports.
When a section is duplicated, the attached form carries over automatically.
New Enrollment Approval Screen
Reviewing a submission for a course that uses an enrollment form currently means two stops: read the learner's form responses and documents on the Enrollment Approval Review screen, then head to a separate report to approve or deny the request.
We're bringing both into one place, so you can review everything and make the call without leaving the screen.
Here's how it works:
Every submission moves through four clear states: needs review, waiting on learner, approved, denied. So you always know where things stand at a glance.
From a single submission, accept files, approve or deny the enrollment, or request new documents along with a message that goes straight to the learner — all without switching to a separate report.
Open a submission to see the learner's form answers and every uploaded document together, with a running count of how many files you've accepted.
If an approved request couldn't be turned into an enrollment, the Approved tab flags it with a warning so you can jump straight to the ones that need attention.
Denied an enrollment that needs a second look? A new "Return to Waiting Review" option sends it back for reconsideration; no refund-and-recharge cycle required.
Admins stay in control:
Access is granular: give a role view-only visibility, or full manage-and-approve rights, depending on what they need.
Instructors can be granted permission to approve enrollments for their own sections directly.
Files are still reviewed and approved before the enrollment request itself, keeping the review sequence you already know.
Only the latest submitted file for each document type is shown, so repeated resubmissions don't clutter the review screen.
Section Edit Page Refresh
Now live for an initial group of customers, with a wider rollout to follow.
Building and updating Sections just got a lot easier. The Section page has been reorganized into clear, logical groups, and you can now make changes right where you view a Section — no more bouncing out to a separate, older form to get things done.
Here's the new experience:
Edit a Section directly from its Information page, and add a new one straight from the Sections list with the new Add Section button.
Fields are grouped in the order you actually build a Section — basic details, schedule and people, capacity and enrollment, pricing, integrations, and custom fields — and each group can be expanded or collapsed.
Add and remove meeting times in one place. Room choices only show what is free at that time, and your organization’s time zone is filled in for you.
Pick an LMS and see only the fields that apply to it.
Nothing slips through the cracks:
A running count shows how many required fields are still missing, so you know exactly what is left before you can save.
If an instructor is already booked at that time, you’ll see exactly which Sections clash so you can fix it right away.
Leaving the page with unsaved changes asks first, so work in progress is never lost by accident.
September 2026 Releases
Instructor Schedule Conflict Override
Scheduling the same instructor across concurrent sections shouldn't require a workaround, but until now conflict detection has been an unconditional wall - and the only way around it was inventing placeholder "TBD" instructors just to get meeting times configured. Now admins with the right permission can acknowledge a conflict and move on.
Here's how it works:
Save a Section as you normally would, conflict detection still runs on every save, exactly as before
If an instructor you've assigned is already teaching another Section at an overlapping day and time, you'll see the conflict spelled out — which instructor, which section, which day, and the exact overlap — before anything is committed
Acknowledge the conflict and save, and the Section goes through as scheduled
Your acknowledgment is tied to the specific conflict you were shown, so if the schedule changes underneath you, you'll be asked to confirm again rather than approving something you never saw
No more building fake instructor accounts to work around a schedule you already intended
Admins stay in control:
Overriding is permission-gated — users without it get the same hard block they see today. Only the ADMIN role starts with the permission; every other role stays blocked until you grant it
Every override is written to an audit record, so there's a clear answer to "who approved this, and when"
If the permission check can't be completed for any reason, the Section is blocked rather than allowed through
Available for Registration Column in Bulk Section Import
Bulk-importing Sections — historical terms, or terms that shouldn't be open yet — always made every Section available for registration by default, with no way to change that through the file itself. That meant a manual fix after every load just to close off Sections that weren't ready. Now you can set availability right in the import, so your Sections land exactly the way you need them the first time.
Here's how it works:
Add an optional "AvailableForRegistration" column to your Sections import file, using Yes/No
Leave the column out, or leave a cell blank, and nothing changes: new Sections still default to available, and existing Sections keep whatever value they already have
Set it to No when creating a Section to bring it in as unavailable from the start, no follow-up cleanup required
Re-import an existing Section using its Genius Section ID with the column set to update its availability at any time
The sample CSV template now includes the new column, so you have a ready reference for the accepted values
Admins stay in control:
Your Sections list filter reflects whatever the import applied, so you can confirm a load at a glance
Historical or not-yet-open Sections show as unavailable straight from the file, with no follow-up pass through the Sections list
Learner Account Creation Process Streamlined
For many of our customers, the first-time buyers experience of getting from "add to cart" to "purchase complete" has required too many steps: create an account, leave the platform, dig out a password from email, log back in, re-add everything, and then pay.
Here's the new experience:
New Learners enter the minimum required info to create an account, no password needed upfront
The account is created instantly and they're taken straight to payment in the same session, with their cart intact
A set-your-password email is sent in the background for future logins, no interruption to the checkout flow
Returning Learners see a clear choice at checkout: log in or create a new account, with a smooth redirect back to their cart after signing in
If a Learner enters an email that already has an account, they're guided to log in or reset their password - no confusion, no dead ends
This is controlled by the LEARNER_ACCOUNT_CREATION_ENABLED parameter.
No one gets left in the dark:
Learners receive an on-screen confirmation with their order details after purchase. So even if an email address was mistyped, they have what they need
A welcome email and set-password link arrive in the Learner's inbox and Message Center, ready when they are
To learn more about creating your account at checkout, visit the knowledge base article: Creating Your Account at Checkout & Setting Your Password
August 2026 Releases
Section Cancellation
When a class can no longer run, admins now have a formal way to cancel a Section — no more manually dropping each Learner one by one or leaving anyone without answers.
Here's how it works:
Cancel a Section directly from the admin view with a single action
All active enrollments are automatically dropped and a full refund is issued to each Learner's original payment method
Any pending registration or drop requests are also canceled on the spot
A cancellation email goes out to all affected Learners, with the option to include a custom message or reason
The Section is immediately removed from the course catalog
Completed enrollments are left untouched
A new permission is added to the Role Based Access Permissions so that you can designate who has the ability to cancel
No one gets left in the dark:
Learners receive a clear notification the moment a section is canceled, including any message the admin chooses to include
Admins are presented with a confirmation step before the action is taken — a clear summary of what will happen so nothing comes as a surprise
Because cancellation is permanent, there's no reversing it once confirmed
To learn more about Section Cancellation, visit our new knowledge base articles:
June 2026 Releases
Price Options
A highly anticipated feature giving administrators the power to establish multiple pricing tiers for a single course. Learners can now choose the price point that fits their situation, with exciting plans on the horizon to automate these assignments based on learner attributes and membership affiliations.
Popular ways our clients are putting this to work:
Member vs. Non-Member Pricing — reward your organization's members with an exclusive discounted rate, while maintaining standard pricing for everyone else
Core Content vs. Content + Certification — offer the same foundational course to all learners while giving those who want more the option to add a certification, assessment, or other premium add-on
To learn more about Price Options, visit our new knowledge base article: Price Options (Managing Price Segments) - Genius CE & Enterprise
Note: Price Segments now use Segments. Build reusable groups of learners by affiliation, age, zip code or custom field, and limit a price to one group. Learners now only see only the prices they qualify for. Price Segments is available on request; contact your Customer Success representative. Segments aren't applied when staff enroll a learner. To learn more, visit Segments - Genius CE & Enterprise.
Memberships (formerly Subscriptions)
Memberships — a ground-up rebuild and rebrand of Subscriptions that goes far beyond a simple name change.
What admins can now do:
Build and manage memberships from the ground up: set your pricing, choose how memberships expire (whether that's a rolling duration or a fixed end date), and add a description that speaks to your audience
Curate the course experience by adding specific courses directly to each membership
What learners can now expect:
Full visibility into membership-gated courses right from the catalog — no more hitting a wall or discovering content only after purchasing
A clearer, more transparent picture of exactly what a membership costs and what courses it unlocks
To learn more about Memberships, visit our new knowledge base articles:
Quantity Registration
Quantity Registration — ever wished your learners could gift a course seat to a colleague, spouse, or teammate and cover the cost themselves? That capability is coming soon.
The Enroll a Friend flow empowers learners to:
Purchase and secure a seat in a course section on someone else's behalf — no extra steps, no back-and-forth
Keep a running history of every friend or colleague they've enrolled and paid for, all in one place
On the receiving end, the friend gets an instant notification letting them know they've been enrolled. New to the platform? No problem — they'll be prompted to create an account and hit the ground running, including filling out all the mandatory profile fields in your custom registration form.
To learn more about Quantity Registration, visit our new knowledge base articles:
March 2026 Releases
New Default Filters
Based on your feedback, admin users will now see only Active Courses, Sections, and Learners by default. Previously, both active and archived items were shown automatically. While filters were available, they reset on each visit—requiring admins to repeatedly reapply them. Since archived items are used less frequently, this created unnecessary clutter and slowed down everyday tasks.
Bulk Certificate Downloads for Completed Enrollments
Admins can now download certificates in bulk from Enrollments. Previously, certificates had to be accessed individually. This update streamlines the process by allowing multiple certificates to be downloaded at once—saving time and reducing repetitive steps. Thank you to our clients for submitting this feedback!
To download certificates in bulk, admins will need the ability to access bulk actions under the enrollments tab. Once in bulk enrollments, filter the data to match the enrollments you need for your certificates. From there you can select multiple enrollments and download all available certificates as a single PDF.
Only completed enrollments with configured certificates will be included and incomplete or enrollments with no certificates will be skipped. A summary message will show how many certificates were downloaded, unavailable, or failed. Keep in mind:
If no selected enrollments are eligible, no file will be generated
A maximum selection limit applies to ensure performance
February 2026 Releases
New Delivery Option: Send Reports via HTTP
We've added a new way to deliver your outbound reports! In addition to Email and SFTP, you can now send reports directly to an external system using an HTTP endpoint. This enables you to now deliver reports in different ways to other software platforms, internal systems, and custom applications that accept web requests.
When selecting the new HTTP delivery type, you'll configure:
Endpoint URL – The secure web address where the report should be sent.
Maximum File Size (MB) – Set a size limit for the delivery (default is 10MB, maximum is 100MB).
This helps ensure your receiving system can handle the file size appropriately.
Based on the timeframe that is selected, we will send your report to a secure web address (URL) you provide, package the file securely within the request, and deliver it directly to your receiving system.
January 2026 Releases
New Account Registration Process
Genius is currently testing a new account registration enhancing upon your current tools. This new experience includes custom fields, display logic, and affiliation mapping capabilities. This allows for you to collect even more data, ensure all the correct questions are required, and place individuals in the correct affiliation based upon a response to a question, instead of displaying the affiliation selector. We are currently looking for Beta users, so please reach out to your Client Success Manager or Implementation Manager if you are interested.
Canvas Integration Updates
Genius now complies with the requirements of an update to the Canvas API that requires additional headers. This is live in all client sandboxes and production environments.
Improved Login Experience for Clients Using SSO only
Genius allows for clients to configure their site to only use your SSO instead of displaying the Public Welcome page. If you require all learners, admins, and instructors to sign in via SAML or Azure you can use two new parameters: DEFAULT_PAGE and CUSTOM_LEARNER_LOGIN_URL. By configuring both of these you can send learners through a journey that only displays your SSO and logout pages through the user journey. Please note your Public Welcome page will still be visible to individuals that have the link or may have saved this in their browser or email.
New Read/Write APIs for Financial Data
Genius has added additional API endpoints to allow you to create, update, and get Financial Data for your learners, affiliations, and guardians. We are currently looking for clients to help test the above information. If you are interested please reach out!