With 4.6 stable out the door, work began in earnest on the next release at last month’s Colorado sprint. Both the core team and key community contributors arrived at the sprint with specific projects they wanted to work on for 4.7. Great progress was made at the sprint and several of these projects are set to become elements of the 4.7 release.
Having the 4.6 release out was a key factor in allowing folks at the sprint to focus on innovative improvements to the platform. With that in mind, we’re setting target dates for 4.7 stable to be released prior to the UK sprint in mid October. Here’s the target timeline:
- Feature freeze - Late June
- Alpha release - Early August
- Beta release - Early September
- Stable release - Early October
These are rough dates and subject to change. However, if you’re planning on funding or contributing code for a new feature for 4.7, take particular note of the Feature Freeze date (late June). If you want to get a feature in to 4.7 you should contact us in good time before Feature Freeze. Any significant projects that come in after that time are likely to be pushed to the next release.
LTS Note: once 4.7 is released, 4.6 will become the new LTS.
Major features currently in progress or expected for 4.7 follow. Some items are pending finalization of funding, others are pending code contributions from the community.
Form Builder - First phase implementation of a new forms framework which will be designed to allow for easy customization of core forms.
Administrator Status Page - Provide CiviCRM site administrators with a single place to check for configuration problems including cron status, file permissions, MySQL permissions, invalid or sub-optimal PHP settings, etc. These statuses can also be queried via API to allow for automated status checks.
Administer Settings improvements - Provides a unified and searchable administrative interface for all configurable settings. Makes it easier for extensions to add settings to this interface.
Installer improvements - Streamlined install process for WordPress sites. Initialize newly installed sites with localization settings (language, currency, etc.) based on the users locale.
Payment processing improvements (code contributions by Fuzion, Semper IT, Freeform) - Refactor payment processor and contribution code to better support token-based recurring payments as well as non-credit card payment methods (ACH/EFT …).
Webform CiviCase integration enhancements (sponsored by Compucorp Ltd.) - Add case roles to a case in webforms and allow users to specify a case when creating an activity.
Access Control by Financial Type (pending code contribution from JMA Consulting) - Allow site administrators to limit access to sensitive categories of contribution data using access control by financial type.
CiviMail Inline (pending code contribution from Veda Consulting) - Improves usability when composing and editing mailings based on templates by allowing the designer to create editable and non-editable regions.
Offline recurring payments (pending code contribution from Veda Consulting and API from JMA Consulting) - Manage recurring contributions that are initiated outside of CiviCRM. Ensures that these Direct Debit or Standing Order payments are allocated to the correct contacts, and that the recurring details are fully accessible to CRM administrators.
Dedupe improvements (pending code contribution from Veda Consulting) - Optimize dedupe identification and merging for organizations with large numbers of duplicates. Includes providing additional data on the Find and Merge Duplicates listing, as well as batch actions.
Navigation / Menu Improvements (pending collaboration with Compucorp Ltd.) - Modernize the main navigation menu, provide vertical side-bar display options, include icons, and make it easier to customize menu style and placement.
Order, Payment, and Payable (aka Refund) APIs (pending code contribution from JMA Consulting) - Provide higher level application programming interfaces for extension and core code developers that better encapsulate business logic associated with accounting and management of objects purchased in CiviCRM like memberships and participation records.
There are an additional 300+ open issues in the issue queue currently assigned to 4.7. However, it is unlikely that the core team will be able to address all (or even most) of these issues in this release cycle. We will continue to prioritize issues for this release as per our usual policy (read more here). If you’re organization is interested in ensuring that a particular issue in the 4.7 queue is prioritized, consider bringing resources to the table via our new paid issue queue.
