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Epicenter Release 5.6

Release date: February 4, 2026

Overview​

This release implements fixes for user-reported bugs, adds requested features to improve the app across the board, and includes API/platform improvements for increased performance and stability.

Epicenter Administration Fixes and Improvements​

User Management​

  • Spreadsheet upload workflow: Resolved a bug where clicking Add Users to Workshop appeared to fail but silently succeeded. The UI now correctly reflects the success state after adding users.
  • Fixed Use New button in spreadsheet import: The Use New button now works correctly when importing a file with existing usernames and updated details during the spreadsheet upload process.
  • Enforced ambiguous handle settings: Fixed a bug where the account setting that allows administrators and end users to share handles was not being enforced correctly in the case of email invitation.
  • Fixed user display name calculation: Corrected the callsite for recalculateDisplayName to ensure proper display name generation.

Workshop Management​

  • Support for large workshops: Added support for groups with over 1,000 members to the multiplayer assignments page. Previously, the Dashboard only supported displaying 1,000 users.
  • Comprehensive project/workshop listings: Fixed a paging issue that prevented the complete list of projects/workshops for users from being retrieved from the APIs. The Dashboard now fetches full group membership records.
  • Fixed impersonation: Resolved v2 impersonation not working for some groups due to account capitalization issues.

File Management​

  • Delete confirmation modals: When deleting one or more files in the file manager, the Dashboard now prompts for confirmation before deletion, preventing accidental deletions.

Integration​

  • Fixed Reset Proxy button: Fixed an integration regression whereby the Reset Proxy button stopped working.

UI/UX Improvements​

  • Updated terminology: Renamed 'group' to 'workshop' on the invite page to maintain consistent terminology throughout the Dashboard.
  • Visual improvements: Various visual tuning improvements to add-user required fields and other UI elements.

Epicenter Administration New Features​

Documentation Access​

  • Epicenter documentation link: Added a link to the new and improved Epicenter documentation in the header, making it easier for users to access help resources.

Account Security​

  • API secret management: Added UI to set an API secret per account. Requested by Sim Institute, this is helpful for orgs working with proxies in their apps, including Forio. Only account owners can set the shared secret.

Project Configuration​

  • Project layout setting: Added a control for structure.layout in Project General Settings > Advanced Settings. A RATIONAL layout separates source files from build files for users leveraging Epicenter pipelines and introduces a logs directory.
  • Optional passwords for end users: Added a project preference to make passwords optional for new end users. This feature depends on Epicenter 5.6 and allows administrators to upload users without passwords, which is useful when whitelisting users for later SSO. The default setting requires passwords to prevent confusion.

Platform/API Improvements​

  • Internal optimizations to paged API calls
  • Internal improvements to database stability and performance
  • Vault calls now support inc() operation
  • Updated API encyclopedia to use AsciiDoctor 3.0

Platform/API Improvements (experimental)​

This release includes a few experimental features, not yet documented:

  • New API to search users by partial group name within account
  • Internal optimization of multi-factor authentication

Contact Forio for more information.

Platform/API Bug Fixes​

  • Invalidate admin/user session when password is changed

Platform/API Deprecations​

  • Entirely removed the Python 2.0 engine, following the end of the deprecation process.
  • NodeJS capability is deprecated. Use the "proxy" feature instead. New simulations will not run old-style Node.js code unless an internal version flag ("phylogeny") is set.
  • Removed the archaic Google Chart API used with multi-factor authentication.