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System Updates

Update 1528 21 October 2026

New Features, Improvements and a New Chapter Hello everyone, This is my first System Update since becoming Managing Director of HOPS, having taken over from Danny at the end of September. For those who don't already know me, I'm Alex Seal. I've been involved in heritage railways since I was sixteen, spent twenty years as a Network Rail signaller and subsequently worked in heritage railway management. I've also been a HOPS user and volunteer for around fifteen years, so while my role is new, HOPS and the world it serves certainly aren't new to me. What began as a solution to a rostering problem has grown, under Danny's leadership, into a platform supporting heritage organisations across the UK, Australia, South Africa and beyond. That's a remarkable achievement, and I'd like to thank him for everything he's built and for his support during the handover. I'm enormously excited about what comes next. There's already a great deal of functionality in HOPS that we could be making better use of, and plenty of good ideas waiting to be developed. I want us to deliver more, communicate better and, above all, help the organisations using HOPS make the most of their limited time and resources. With that in mind, here's a look at some of the improvements we've delivered recently. IN THIS UPDATE - New HOPS Service Status page - Raildays: digital membership cards and improved ID cards - Membership Management - Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) - Department Staff Lists: emergency contacts - Asset Management improvements - User account permissions - Clearer expiry notification emails - Did you know? Managing your locations --- NEW HOPS SERVICE STATUS PAGE I'm sorry for the disruption to HOPS services on 20 October. We know how much organisations rely on HOPS, often at short notice and on operating days, and we're reviewing what happened so we can reduce the chance of it happening again. One immediate change is a new public Service Status page, making it easier to check the availability of HOPS services and stay informed during any disruption. UK: https://status.hops.org.uk Australia: https://status.hops.org.au The dashboard uses information from our monitoring systems to show the current status of HOPS services automatically. We'll also use it to publish updates during incidents, giving you a single place to find out what's happening and when services have been restored. Links have been added to the HOPS homepage and Helpdesk, but please bookmark the appropriate address so you can reach it directly if HOPS itself is unavailable. --- RAILDAYS - DIGITAL MEMBERSHIP CARDS AND IMPROVED ID CARDS Raildays now supports digital membership cards alongside existing HOPS ID Cards, all accessible through the newly renamed My Cards section of the Raildays app. Digital membership cards show the issuing organisation, membership type, membership dates and a QR code for verification. When the North Norfolk Railway asked for HOPS User Numbers to be shown on digital ID cards, we took the opportunity to review the overall card layout. As well as adding User Numbers, we've improved the presentation of photographs, Authority to Work information and expiry dates. The result is clearer, easier-to-use digital cards, and the addition of membership cards makes Raildays useful to members as well as staff. --- MEMBERSHIP MANAGEMENT - MORE THAN JUST A DATABASE It's encouraging to see more clients adopting HOPS Membership as their central source of membership information, and this is an area we're keen to keep developing. Many heritage organisations have traditionally kept membership records in spreadsheets, often maintained by one or two dedicated volunteers. That can work, but it brings risks: information goes out of date, several versions of the same records circulate, access is hard to control, and the organisation becomes dependent on one person. HOPS Membership holds records centrally, with access controlled through permissions. It supports online renewals, reducing work for membership teams while making renewal easier for members, and we can produce physical membership cards as well as the new digital cards in Raildays. We've also fixed an issue with the Mark as Lost and Re-issue function. Replacement membership cards now keep their membership details and expiry dates and can be processed correctly. If your organisation still manages memberships through spreadsheets or another system, we'd be happy to talk through your requirements, how we could transfer your existing records and how HOPS Membership could reduce your administrative workload. --- MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION (MFA) Security remains a priority, especially as more organisations rely on HOPS to manage sensitive information. The Current User Accounts report now includes an MFA Enabled column, so administrators can see which users have enrolled in Multi-Factor Authentication. The column is also included in the CSV export, making it easy to review MFA adoption across your organisation. We're also considering whether MFA should become mandatory for further permissions, notably those involving sensitive personal information such as medical records or customer details. We'll publish details well in advance of introducing any new requirements. In the meantime, you can already require MFA for any group of users by assigning Permission 545 - REQUIRE Multifactor Authentication (MFA) to the relevant permission groups. We recommend doing this for anyone with access to sensitive information or important administrative functions. More information about MFA is available at: https://www.hops.org.uk/help/mfa --- DEPARTMENT STAFF LISTS - EMERGENCY CONTACTS At the request of the Mid-Hants Railway, we've added two new tabs to Department Staff Lists to help departments manage emergency contact information. The Emergency Contacts tab lets authorised users view emergency contact details for staff in their department, including names, relationships, addresses and telephone numbers. The No Emergency Contacts tab lists staff who haven't provided any emergency contact details, so missing information can be followed up. Both tabs require Permission 141 for the relevant department, so department managers can see what they need without having access to emergency contact details for the whole organisation. As these tabs show personal details of people outside your organisation, we'd strongly suggest also requiring MFA (Permission 545) for anyone holding Permission 141. Now is a good time for departments to review their emergency contact information and chase up anyone who hasn't provided it. --- ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS We've made several improvements to Asset Management in response to feedback from clients in both the UK and Australia. ASSET NAMES Victorian Goldfields Railway, North Norfolk Railway, South Devon Railway, Daylesford Railway and Transport Heritage NSW all reported problems with the automatic conversion of Asset Names to title case, which we've now removed. HOPS used to change the capitalisation of Asset Names automatically, which caused problems with abbreviations and technical identifiers. For example, "GWR" became "Gwr" and "23AW" became "23Aw", sometimes simply by editing and saving an existing asset. Asset Names are now saved exactly as entered. Names that were altered in the past haven't been changed back automatically, but you can correct them manually where necessary. NEW FIELDS FOR CELLULAR DEVICES The Great Central Railway asked for a way to record details of connected equipment, so we've added two optional fields to the Asset Register: SIM Number (ICCID) and IMEI Number. These can be used for mobile phones, GPS trackers and other equipment with cellular connectivity. The fields can be enabled for individual Asset Types under Asset Management > AM System Settings > Asset Types > Edit, and shown on the Asset Register using the existing Show on Index option. SUPPORT FOR TIFF FILES At the request of Didcot Railway Centre, Asset Management now accepts TIFF image files (.tif and .tiff) in an asset's Files section. This is ideal for high-resolution scans of historic engineering drawings, plans and other archival documents. DUPLICATE DEFECT RECORDS The South Devon Railway and Dartmouth Steam Railway & River Boat Company both reported that clicking Save more than once could create duplicate defect records. We've fixed this, and the New Defect form now prevents repeated submissions while a record is being saved. If you've seen similar behaviour elsewhere in HOPS, please raise a support ticket so we can investigate. --- USER ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT - IMPROVED PERMISSIONS Previously, users with Permission 478 - ARCHIVE User Accounts also needed Permission 066 - ADD User Accounts before they could archive an account. Following a request from the Great Central Railway, these permissions now work independently. This means you can give staff responsibility for archiving accounts without also allowing them to create new ones. It's useful where one department handles onboarding new staff, and another manages accounts when people leave. It's a small change, but an important one in letting organisations control access according to individual responsibilities. --- CLEARER EXPIRY NOTIFICATION EMAILS Prompted by feedback from the West Somerset Railway, we've improved the wording of expiry notification emails covering Role Appointments, Competence Elements and Competence Element Awards. These emails could be confusing when there was nothing to report, with recipients simply seeing "(None)" beneath each category. They now explain their purpose more clearly and confirm when there are no expired or soon-to-expire records for the periods covered. --- DID YOU KNOW? MANAGING YOUR LOCATIONS HOPS administrators can view and edit their organisation's locations under: System > HOPS Config Details > Locations New locations need to be added by the HOPS team, but you can edit existing ones yourself, including their short names, addresses and where they appear in HOPS. We've also improved the way location mileages are displayed, using the conventional miles and chains format (for example, 5m 04c). Accurate location details matter most where they're used by other HOPS services, including Raildays. If you need additional locations added, please raise a support ticket, and we'll be happy to help. --- KEEP THE IDEAS COMING I hope this update shows just how many improvements start with suggestions from clients. Whether it's a new feature, a change to an existing process or a small but irritating problem, feedback from one organisation often leads to improvements that benefit many others. That's one of the real strengths of HOPS. We support a wide variety of organisations, each with different needs, resources and ways of working. Sharing that experience helps us develop solutions that are useful across the wider heritage sector, not just to the organisation that first asked for them. There's a lot of work ahead, and we won't be able to do everything at once. But I want us to keep listening, make sensible improvements and help you get more from the systems you already use. If there's something you'd like us to look at, or an area of HOPS you're not using yet but would like to explore, please raise a ticket through the HOPS Helpdesk, and we'll get back to you. https://www.hops.org.uk/helpdesk.php Thank you for your continued support. Alex Seal