Release Date:
Summary
Stack-597 continued improvements to the portal search infrastructure and enhanced task management in the Curator dashboard, this release delivers tangible improvements for researchers, data curators, and portal users across the Synapse ecosystem.
The most visible changes arrive in the Synapse web interface, where entity pages have been redesigned with a cleaner title bar, updated typography, and a more intuitive action menu that replaces icon-only controls with clearly labeled buttons. In Curator, task cards now surface richer context including instructions and status directly in the dashboard view.
No breaking changes or required user actions in this release. All changes are additive or visual improvements.
Affected Users & Systems
|
Who / What |
Impact |
|---|---|
|
All Synapse users |
Refreshed entity page design — cleaner title bar, updated icons, labeled action buttons |
|
Data curators & project managers (Curator) |
Task cards now show project name, task ID, expandable instructions, and color-coded status and due date indicators |
|
AD Knowledge Portal users & other portal communities |
Search index reliability further improved — Explore pages now build and refresh more consistently |
|
Platform & infrastructure |
Deployment blocker and security dependency updates resolved — no user-facing impact |
Deprecated or Breaking Changes
There are no deprecated or breaking changes in this release. No user action is required.
New Features
New Refreshed Entity Page Design
Synapse entity pages — the pages for projects, files, folders, datasets, and tables — have a refreshed look and feel. The title bar has been updated with a new icon treatment, improved typography, and a cleaner layout that better highlights the entity name and version information. The favorites indicator has also been updated for better visual consistency.
The action menu has been redesigned to replace small, icon-only controls with clearly labeled outline buttons, making it easier to identify and access common actions such as sharing, downloading, and editing — especially for users who are less familiar with the interface. This is the first in a series of entity page improvements planned over upcoming releases.
Who benefits: All Synapse users who browse or manage projects, files, and datasets on the platform.
New Richer Task Cards in the Curator Dashboard
Task cards in the Curator dashboard have been significantly enhanced to give curators and project managers a clearer picture of their work at a glance. Each task card now displays the project name and task ID inline. A new editable field has been added for users with edit access: a Task Status indicator (Not Started, In Progress, or Complete)
Who benefits: Data curators, project coordinators, and anyone managing data submission workflows through the Curator tool.
Fixes & Improvements
Portal Search Index Stability Further Improved
Building on the indexing reliability fix delivered in stack-596, this release resolves a related issue that was causing search indexes on several Sage portals — most notably the AD Knowledge Portal — to fail to build correctly at the time of deployment. Explore pages on these portals were temporarily unavailable or showing incomplete results as a result.
The root cause was a capacity configuration issue in the underlying cloud infrastructure that has now been corrected. Portal search indexes are now building reliably on deployment, ensuring that researchers can access up-to-date Explore views across all Synapse-hosted portals.
Who benefits: All users of Synapse-hosted research portals, particularly the AD Knowledge Portal and any community whose portal search was impacted.
Security Dependency Updates
Routine security updates were applied to internal platform libraries used by the Synapse Migration Utility. These updates address known vulnerabilities in third-party dependencies and are part of ongoing security maintenance practices. There is no change to user-facing functionality.
Production Deployment Infrastructure Fix
A configuration issue that blocked the initial stack-597 deployment to production was identified and resolved. The issue was specific to how AWS OpenSearch Serverless permissions were provisioned in the production environment and did not affect the development environment or any user-facing services during normal operation. No user impact occurred.