August 2026 – What’s new and what’s coming next
🆕This month
Since our last update, we've continued our focus on data capture improvements to increase the usability of contact data across sheepCRM.
🚀Whats coming next
We're also in a position to share more about some of the larger features and improvements we're working on next, including Custom Fields, Event Improvements and Invoicing, Membership Workflow and DMCCA changes. We'll continue to provide more visibility into our upcoming priorities and product roadmap over the coming months. More info below.
💻Developer API updates
We have launched a specific developer API update article so customers using our API for data extraction and custom integration can keep up to date with any relevant changes as well.
🆕 This month
🚀 Fieldset improvements (Production release)
Fieldsets are what control your segment 'Export to Excel (XLSX)' templates and control the fields available in any given segment export. We have refined fieldset configuration and settings as part of the form questions in Segments work, making the user experience of setting up and managing your own custom fieldsets (exports) much easier. We have also published a new article to help you get started.
🚀 Use form response questions and inline-event questions in Segments, Segment exports and the Contact Directory – (Beta release)
ℹ️Please note: This is being rolled out to our Beta CRM first and is available to users with a sheepFlow professional license initially. The feature needs to be turned on at a flock level so please get in contact with us if you would like to start using this today or would like to have an account review.
Ability to filter and segment contacts using form response questions from both segments and the contact directory.
Form response question data can also be included alongside other contact data in contact segment exports using a custom fieldsets and exporting to Excel (XLSX).
📖 Using form questions in segments
📖 How can I use inline event questions in segments?
✨ Other improvements in August
Bulk SMS messages are now processed asynchronously in batches. You'll receive a notification when sending starts, which will update once the process has completed.
White-label sheepApp improvements – further improvements to support customers using their own domains with sheepApp.
Linked memberships – sheepApp will now only display linked members where their membership is active.
Improved sheepApp loading states – we've improved the experience while pages are loading, alongside a clearer fallback when a page fails to load. Users facing any errors can also submit an error report to help us debug any issues.
👀 What's coming next
The improvements above are part of a wider programme of work across sheepCRM. We're currently finalising our roadmap for the next six months and will share more details in September. In the meantime, several areas of work are already underway and being planned.
🚀Custom Fields - Extensions upgraded
Upgrading Extensions and evolving them into Custom Fields, providing a much more structured way to store your own data against contacts.
Rather than the existing key/value approach, Custom Fields will support defined field types, dates, multi-choice, yes/no etc making custom contact data much more useful throughout sheepCRM – particularly for segmentation.
We're also planning first-class integration with Forms. Just as a form question can currently update a core contact field, you'll be able to connect form questions directly to your own Custom Fields.
Together, these changes will make it much easier to collect → store → update → segment → export on custom contact data and the information that's important to your organisation and pave the way for future sheepApp data collection entry points.
🚀Event improvements
We have a dedicated sheepEvents improvement sprint being planned, including a significant upgrade to event invoicing.
We're planning to bring event invoicing in line with the functionality already available for membership invoices, with additional improvements specific to events, including:
support for multiple invoices where a buyer makes multiple purchases for one event
automated actions for unpaid orders and order creation
manual and automatic pushing of event invoices to Xero
reporting on unpaid event invoices
improvements to ticket statuses
event terms and conditions
attendee information and question request emails
add event to calendar
🚀Membership workflows and DMCCA
We've also started work on a larger initiative to modernise the membership experience in sheepApp and our membership workflows. Our existing membership workflows have evolved over a number of years, and we're now bringing together what we've learned from customers during that time to rethink and improve the front-end membership journey and workflows that surround it.
Preparing for upcoming UK subscription rules
The UK Government has recently indicated (August 10th) that the new subscription contract requirements under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) are expected to come into effect from January 2027, source: TLT – DMCC Act subscription contracts regime brought forward (rather than the previous expected launch of Spring 2027.
The changes will affect many organisations offering consumer memberships (B2C) and auto-renewing subscriptions, introducing requirements around areas such as renewal reminders, cancellation, cooling-off periods and information provided when someone signs up.
We've previously reviewed requirements based on information available to date. Including planning the changes needed across sheepCRM and sheepApp to help customers manage their memberships in line with the new rules. This work is being considered alongside our wider membership workflow improvements, and we'll provide further updates and guidance as the implementation details and our plans develop.
Please note: Secondary legislation, commencement orders and full guidance still need to be published by the government before the regime can come into effect.
Continued improvements across sheepCRM
Alongside these larger initiatives, we'll continue running focused improvement and product consolidation work across areas including sheepTeams, sheepApp, Forms and Flow. These sprints are focused on improving existing functionality, addressing known customer pain points and making the experience more consistent across different parts of sheepCRM.
June 12th 2026 Update
ℹ️Over the last few weeks, we've gradually released several improvements and usability enhancements across sheepFlow and sheepApp. See below a shortlist of the ones to be aware of.
🔜 We're also continuing to invest heavily in data capture improvements and application management, bridging form data and upgrading extensions (custom contact data) to allow for better data collection, reporting and exporting. More information on these will be coming in early July.
sheepFlow and sheepApp
Improved Flow Board Filtering
For organisations managing large numbers of applications, Flow Boards could become difficult to navigate when columns contain hundreds of records.
To help, we've added new date filters directly within Flow Boards.
Applied After (Teams)
Applied Before (Teams)
Started After (Forms)
Submitted After (Forms)
These filters make it easier to focus on recent activity and manage high-volume processes.
New Preview Mode for Inactive Forms
We recently prevented inactive forms from being submitted to stop outdated forms being accessed through old links. To make form setup and testing easier, inactive forms can now be opened in a new Preview Mode directly from the form management area. Once a form is live, this automatically switches to the existing View Live Form option.
Clearer Registration and Application Journeys
We've improved the experience for first-time users completing forms through sheepApp. Previously, some users believed they needed to activate their account before continuing with an application. The registration flow now makes it much clearer that applicants can continue immediately after registering, helping to reduce unnecessary drop-off.
Form Exports Now Include Comments and Feedback
Form exports now include any comments and feedback stored against submissions.
These are added as extra columns within the XLSX export, helping support data archiving and compliance requirements.
Improved sheepApp Error Handling
We've improved error handling for certain sheepApp page-loading issues.
Users will now see a more informative error page, along with suggested actions they can take before contacting support.
SheepCRM
Sector Field Available on Person Records
The Sector field, previously only available on Organisation contacts, is now also available on Person contacts.
Clearer permission handling for staff and editor users
Other Improvements and Fixes
This release also includes a range of smaller bug fixes, performance improvements, and quality-of-life enhancements across the platform.
Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We're looking forward to sharing more of our upcoming data capture improvements soon.
March 13th 2026 Update
ℹ️ A couple of important updates have gone out this week for anyone with Team Leaders using Events or if you're using our Discourse Single Sign On integration. Please see details of each below.
Events landing page
Team Leaders - You can now add an event from the landing page. No need to duplicate existing events and CRM admins no longer need to set up base events for their teams. If team leaders are leaders of multiple teams, they can select which team the event is for in the popup before the event is created.
Discourse Single Sign-On Integration
Users of our Discourse integration now have settings to control the access level that contacts need when accessing your Discourse.
Active members only
Members only (including lapsed members) allows all members to access Discourse, including lapsed members.
Contacts only allows anyone with a contact record to access Discourse.
Open to all (no contact record needed) allows anyone with a sheepApp account to access Discourse, even those not in your flock.
Additional changes/notes
There were a couple of snags and bugs fixed, if any of them were affecting you, support will be in touch with an update if not already.
February 20th 2026 Update
🚀 sheepApp & settings improvements release
We’ve released a range of new features and improvements across sheepApp and settings, designed to give you greater control over your flock and enhance the overall sheepApp experience for your members and users. Please see a summary of the features below with links to help articles for more information.
🔨Custom sheepApp Menu Navigation
We’re pleased to introduce our sheepApp Menu Navigation builder that lets you set up and manage your own custom sheepApp navigation. Set links to internal pages, external custom links, whether users need to be a member or logged in to see them, how they’re ordered, whether they should open in a new tab etc all from an easy-to-use user interface.
Help article - Custom sheepApp menu navigation
💳 Apple Pay & Google Pay (via Stripe)
We now support Apple and Google Pay when using the Stripe integration to take payments in sheepApp. This is completely optional and needs to be turned on via the integration settings. It works for all Stripe payments in the sheepApp once activated.
Help Article - Apple & Google Pay via Stripe
🎗️ sheepTeams settings improvements
We’ve released a number of global sheepTeams settings to improve clarity and alignment with other modules. Admins can now control these settings themselves.
Help Article - Settings: Teams Settings
🎛️ sheepApp available options
Improved global sheepApp settings, making it clearer which sheepApp features are enabled. You can now control these settings yourself.
Help Article - Settings: sheepApp
🔗 Quick sheepApp content links
You can now quickly copy links to any sheepApp content page directly from the page config itself. This is a small but very handy feature that allows you to easily share or open these pages. The copy sheepApp link will show on, index pages, documents, pages, news and courses.
Please note: sheepApp content pages are usually cached so changes might not always show instantly in the sheepApp and there can be a small delay in previewing updates.
February 5th 2026 Update
🐑 What’s coming next in sheepCRM
Soon, we’ll be rolling out a set of improvements across sheepApp and settings focused on giving administrators more control and making configuration clearer and self-serviceable. Below is a quick preview of what’s coming up.
sheepApp & settings updates
🔨Custom sheepApp Menu Navigation
We’re introducing a new Menu Navigation builder that lets administrators set up and manage their own sheepApp navigation when required. Set links to internal pages, external custom links, whether users need to be a member or logged in to see them, how they’re ordered, whether they should open in a new tab etc all from an easy-to-use user interface.
🔗Quick sheepApp content links
You’ll be able to copy links to your sheepApp content with one click directly from their settings page. No more generating your own URLs to share or view these pages. Works for index pages, pages, news, documents, and courses.
💳 Apple Pay & Google Pay (via Stripe)
We’re adding optional support for Apple and Google Pay if you are using the Stripe integration to improve the payment experience across modules in the sheepApp.
🎗️ sheepTeams settings improvements
We’ve made updates to sheepTeams settings to improve clarity and alignment with other modules. Admins will be able to control the modules settings themselves.
🎛️sheepApp available options
Improved settings make it clearer which sheepApp options are enabled and how they’re exposed to users. Turn things on or off as you need.
From the development team
Over the last quarter, the team has been focused on strengthening core settings, permissions, and internal tooling — laying the groundwork for more flexible configuration and faster future releases. We've also reviewed a number of areas where we've found obstacles hindering common tasks, and made over 100 small improvements to keep you on track.
We've been doing lots of work behind the scenes to make sheepCRM more resilient as the number of daily users continues to increase, while making sure the experience for your members isn't negatively impacted.
Additional changes/notes
Teams whose joining policy is set to controlled without an application form set will now default to no application, previously this would fallback to our legacy teams application form. This means applications will go straight through as applied.
In the rare case you wish to keep a contact record but remove all email addresses attached, a new delete emails link will ensure that any fields previously calculated from the email address will also be cleared (e.g. domains).
What’s next
We’ll share full details and guides once these updates go live.
September 16th 2025 Update
ℹ️Important information regarding sheepReports
As a result of some recent infrastructure improvements, there have been a few important changes to how sheepReports work.
What does this mean for you?
Requesting a report for the first time, you will see a loading spinner that will eventually update with the requested report. When you, or a colleague, return to the same report, it will load the previously saved report for speed.
If you need to generate a fresh report with the latest data, you can use the 'Refresh Report' action button at the bottom of the report itself. This will request a new update and pull in the latest data. You can check when the data was saved/updated by checking the Last Updated: date underneath the report title.
Exporting the report now works the same way as exporting from a segment; it will generate a notification that creates the export in the background. Refreshing and opening the notification will inform you if it is ready to download.
July 31st 2025 Update
🚀 This last month has seen several improvements launched for sheepEvents some of which have been based on our users' feedback, as well as polishing some of the edges and laying the groundwork for some better workflow management when it comes to events with questions.
We have also been making changes elsewhere in the system with some general housekeeping, updates and bug fixes for Alpine and the sheepApp.
Highlights and Improvements
sheepEvents
Ability to turn off Enforce email address for attendees. Disabling this will allow the collection of attendee names with an optional email address. However, it will turn off contact creation and you won’t be able to use attendee questions, if applicable.
New bulk actions on an event order and attendee views
Bulk email buyers and bulk email attendees (where there is a valid GDPR consent and attendees are contacts)
Print the attendee list for offline use and print the order view as well.
Copy buyer emails to the clipboard
Improved attendee view
Shows all possible attendees
Better UI layout and the ability to collapse and expand orders to show all attendees or not
Ability for admins to easily update unallocated attendee slots to a contact or guest attendee.
Order last updated column has been added under the Orders tab
sheepApp Event categories will now only show categories that have available events, no more old categories or empty categories.
sheepEvents Pro + sheepFlow
Ability to easily create a flowboard for managing inline event question submissions. This is done per event via the events main action menu. Requires sheepFlow module.
Inline Event questions now have statuses that are unique in comparison to standard form submissions, for better handling of automatic communications when forms are being used outside of events.
Ability to easily change the status of an attendee's questions per order or in bulk via a flowboard.
📖 For more details and on these changes, you can refer to our events help article here
June 25th 2025 Update
🚀 This week we have introduced a new user login portal and user account dashboard. See below for some of the highlighted improvements and reminders.
You do not need to do anything differently as a result of these changes.
Highlights and Improvements
User Log-in Portal
Improved two-step authentication (now referred to as multi-factor authentication)
A more personalised user log-in experience
Ability to choose a session duration and the ability to remember your device
Enhanced security features
User Account Dashboard
A user account dashboard that provides an overview of your logged-in user account with quick links to the sheepCRM applications you have available or within your licensed modules.
Learn more about these updates here:
We have also launched a new article with security guidance regarding your systems security practices.
Reminders
Here are some key steps to help strengthen your organisation’s security:
Use strong, unique passwords and update them regularly
Instruct your team to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) - (requires mobile phone to receive the codes)
Ensure your user / staff leaving process includes removal of user permissions or deleted user accounts
Avoid user accounts being shared by multiple people.
Have clear policies and user steps for accessing and logging out of systems
Be alert to phishing emails and suspicious login attempts
Learn more about our security practices here:
May 22nd 2025 Update
🚀 These last couple of weeks we have been refining some existing features and implementing several fixes across the product. See below some of the highlighted improvements we have made.
New and Improvements
Contacts
Tasks and Notes have seen their respective UI's updated to follow the rest of the contact side panel for a more consistent experience.
Messages now default to show all messages with icons added to indicate which are drafts, failed or are waiting in the queue to be sent.
Reservations will now show you the start/end date and the location from the collapsed view.
Adding new contacts will now do an exact match lookup based on email addresses prior to saving the new contact. If it matches a contact already in the system you will get a warning that the contact already exists.
Giving
Appeals now have an option to disable one-off donations when regular donations are turned on so that you can have dedicated appeals for regular giving.
Settings
Template validation is now possible when editing or creating templates, just hit the validate button and check whether or not your templates contain anything that may break the template and stop it from sending. This will flag common issues such as bad mail merge fields.
April 30th 2025 Update
🚀 This month, we've been working hard to enhance the Alpine experience by refining several key areas and implementing important fixes and improvements across our modules. Below are some highlights of the latest improvements:
UX Enhancements
Alpine General Updates:
Browser Tab Titles: We’ve added descriptive titles to browser tabs to make navigation easier, especially when working across multiple tabs.
Contacts - Messages:
Message Sorting: Sort messages by most recent/least recent or by subject.
Message Filtering: Filter messages by status, including Sent, Draft, Problem, or All.
Contacts - Notes:
Linked notes: We’ve added the ability to easily view and click through to linked contacts if a note is linked, as well as making it more obvious that the note is linked with some additional styling.
Sorting Options: You can now sort notes by title in both ascending and descending order.
Sorting Icons: Sorting options are now represented with clear icons for easier navigation.
Truncated Titles: Long titles can now be truncated, with the full title added to the body text. The shortened version will then appear in the main title.
For migrating V5 Users only:
Updated Guides: We’ve refreshed the sheepSpaces article and Alpine Migration guide to include important updates for users transitioning from legacy sheepSpaces.
We hope these updates improve your experience with Alpine! Stay tuned for more improvements coming soon.
Latest Update - 4th April 2025
sheepEvents
Event promotion on social media - you can now get a specific link to make posting your events into social media easier - read more here
Reminder: E-tickets is now available on request (see the update below from 28th March).
sheepCRM
Deleting the contents of a segment - This new action available on the segment actions button allows you to delete the contents of that segment in bulk/full.
⚠️ This action must be used with care to ensure you do not lose access to important data! (there is a warning in the system too!)
Remember GDPR? - Many customers are now close to their data retention periods set (normally 7 years) so we have released this feature to support with that, but this also provides customers with the tool to manage things like their contact numbers in line with your licence limits.
Please see this article for full info.
28th March 2025
sheepCRM Alpine
Invoices - We have released a number of field editing features to invoices generated automatically, these are;
ID - so you can edit the invoice number if required.
Invoice date - so you can change the automatic date generated.
Purchase order number - so you can set one when requested.
Xero Ref - this will be auto-populated when using automated invoice creation into Xero but can be added if not.
Extended Fields - a beta feature so is currently only available on request, this new item allows custom data fields on a contact which are available to segments. Its release now is related to a new AI driven data loader which is in development. More info to come in future on this.
Please note: The release of the user articles covering these changes will follow in the next two weeks, these new features enable a number of new tasks to be done by customers so we are creating a number of use cases to share.
sheepEvents
E-Tickets is here 🚀 - Customers with the sheepEvents module and box office pack can now request activation of this new set of features under beta conditions. This will become active for all of those customers as part of a formal release with some other general improvements to the box office and event management tools to come soon.
Please send us a request to activate e-tickets ahead of its auto release.
🚀 Coming soon!
The first significant new feature for 2025 will be the addition of electronic tickets to the sheepEvents module for customers using the box office tools.
We will provide full details in further communications, but this new feature will provide tickets to your event ticket purchasers which can be scanned on entry for attendance tracking amongst other things this feature will provide, stay tuned!
March 1st 2025
V5 (blue) Users - sheepCRM version 5 access has been withdrawn 👋 - anyone accessing using old stored links and bookmarks will be automatically redirected to sheepCRM Alpine.
🚀 Coming soon!
The first significant new feature for 2025 will be the addition of electronic tickets to the sheepEvents module for customers using the box office tools.
We will provide full details in further communications, but this new feature will provide tickets to your event ticket purchasers which can be scanned on entry for attendance tracking amongst other things this feature will provide, stay tuned!
February 24th 2025
V5 (blue) Users - Reminder ⏰ - Further to previous messages, just a brief reminder that if you are still using version 5 (blue) it will no longer be available in just under a week from now, access is being removed on 1st March 2025.
sheepCRM Alpine - Tasks has been updated and improved! 🚀
There is a new tasks side panel you can open when you are viewing your tasks from the task notification icon, from here you can view all your tasks and all other tasks so that you can manage them as required.
⚠️ The V5 Migration guide is now available.
The migration guide for v5 users has been published today as promised.
We may make updates to this document between now and the last day of access but will announce that if we do.
To view the guide, please search for 'guide' or 'migration' in the articles.
Please do let us know if you have any questions or assistance required following this guide and moving to sheepCRM Alpine.
sheepCRM v5 Retirement Announcement
⚠️ IMPORTANT NOTICE ONLY FOR v5 (blue) USERS.
sheepCRM v5 (blue) will no longer be accessible from 1st March 2025.
Further to previous communications it has become time to set a retirement date for this version, and therefore its also time for anyone still using parts of v5 to switch to sheepCRM Alpine.
We will be publishing a guide for users on or before the 30th of January 2025 and will alert all users when this is available.
The guidance is for all users, but if you are the system administrator or training and support contact for your team, please use the guide to update any of your internal resources as required.
Happy New Year 2025
Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a successful 2025.
Our end of year product change "freeze" ends later this week, we will be communicating as normal to share planned and released changes to sheepCRM in due course.
For previous announcements and updates, please see the Announcement Archive