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What's New

This page tracks notable changes to Jethro.

2.40.0 — SMS Modernisation (unreleased)​

This release modernises Jethro's SMS subsystem with per-person and system-wide message history, customisable SMS senders, SMS preview, token expansion and URL shortening, SMS scheduling (with cancel), opt-out, full 5CentSMS v5 API support, and support for https://www.cellcast.com/au.

New Message History ("Messages" tab)​

Every person now has a Messages tab showing all SMSes sent to them via Jethro, personally or in bulk.

At upgrade time, Jethro automatically migrates most 'SMS Sent' notes — historically the only way to record an SMS send — to the 'Messages' tab.

"SMS Sent" migration details

Historically, the only way to keep a record of a SMS was to create a Note (default subject 'SMS Sent'). Many churches find the Notes tab has becomes cluttered with 'SMS Sent' notes, obscuring the actual pastoral notes. Now we have a proper place for SMS records, we can clear up the fake notes, with one-off cleanup performed on upgrade.

Specifically, only pure send-records are converted to Messages (and deleted from Notes) — SMS Sent notes that were never edited, assigned, or had their status changed. Any SMS Sent note that someone did interact with (edited, assigned, followed up on) remains in Notes, but with a link to a new corresponding entry in Messages, so you can still navigate from a pastoral interaction back to the original SMS.

The importer infers when a set of 'SMS Sent' notes was created all at once, from a bulk SMS send, and marks those SMSes as bulk, appearing as a ingle entry in Persons → Messages.

The "SMS Sent" migration is done via upgrades/2026-upgrade-to-2.40-sms.sql file that must be sourced at upgrade time.

New Persons → Messages page​

In addition to the per-person 'Messages' tab, a new Persons → Messages SMS Overview page is added, showing a system-wide view of sent messages.

The SMS Overview lets you bulk-cancel a recently sent or scheduled send. Filter is realtime filtering, and an optional 'Cost' column.

The upgrade also migrates legacy JSONL log files (SMS_SEND_LOGFILE) into sms + smsdelivery. Because log entries lack per-recipient detail, these deliveries are recorded with personid=NULL — they appear in Persons → Messages but not on individual person Messages tabs. After migration, the log file is no longer written to (see Legacy Log File Removed).

New SMS Administration Page​

Persons → Messages now provides a Send History table listing every send with sender, recipients (with per-recipient delivery badges), body, and date — filterable by sender name, recipient name, body text, and date range. Scheduled sends have a Cancel link. The page also includes the status panel showing provider configuration, balance, sender IDs, and registered numbers.

5CentSMS v5 Support​

Jethro now supports the 5CentSMS v5 JSON API natively. Key capabilities unlocked with v5:

  • Per-message delivery status polling (Queued → Sent → Delivered/Failed)
  • Deferred (scheduled) sends with cancellation
  • Sender ID and sender number registration
  • Balance checks

Existing 5CentSMS users on v4 should upgrade. See Upgrading 5CentSMS from v4 to v5 for step-by-step instructions. The v4 provider remains available as a fallback but is deprecated and excluded from new-install auto-detection.

New Permission: PERM_VIEWSMS​

A new PERM_VIEWSMS permission (bitmask 524288) controls access to the Persons → Messages page and to the full send history. Without it, users with PERM_SENDSMS can still send SMS and see delivery status — but only for messages they personally sent.

The upgrade grants PERM_VIEWSMS to:

  • New staff members — included in DEFAULT_PERMISSIONS (unless your defaults are customised)
  • Existing staff who already hold PERM_SENDSMS

If you prefer to keep SMS history restricted, adjust staff permissions or DEFAULT_PERMISSIONS after upgrading.

Legacy Log File Removed​

The SMS_SEND_LOGFILE setting and its associated logToFile() function have been removed. After upgrading, Jethro no longer writes a JSON log file (sms.log) for sent messages — all send history is now stored in the sms and smsdelivery database tables and visible on the Person → Messages tab and Persons → Messages page.

If you need the legacy log format (e.g. for external tooling), you can generate it on demand:

HTTP_HOST=yourdomain.example.org php ./scripts/sms.php export-smslog > sms.log

The setting is automatically deleted from the database during the upgrade.

Version 2.39 (unreleased)​

Service Planning​

  • Editable service dates. Dates in the service schedule are now editable inline, and you can drag rows to reorder them. (#1409) — (video)

  • Service highlighting. The dashboard now highlights all services in the coming week, not just Sunday — helpful for churches with midweek meetings. (commit 769866c)

Rosters​

  • Advance notice for roster reminders. roster_reminder.php now supports a START_DATE_OFFSET setting, so people like service leaders who need more than a week's notice can be reminded further in advance. (#1411)

  • Date tokens in reminders. Notification text can now include {roster_date}, {roster_date_short}, and {roster_day_of_week} tokens that expand to the actual roster date — useful in SMSes where brevity matters. (#1412)

  • Cancel button no longer double-confirms. The Cancel button on the Edit Roster Assignments page no longer asks for confirmation twice. (#1426) — (video)

  • See and delete past planned absences. A long-standing issue (#1359) that prevented viewing or removing planned absences that had already passed has been fixed. (commit a5844f5)

People & Families​

  • Tab memory on Person view. When you refresh the Person page, Jethro now returns you to the tab you were viewing (Notes, Groups, etc.) instead of resetting to Basic Details. Tab URLs can also be bookmarked. (#1462) — (video)

  • Enhanced group picker. Fixed some jankiness in the group selection drop-downs, which since 2.38 let you search by name and expand or collapse group categories. See (#1424) — (video)

CSV Import​

  • Import by Person ID. CSV imports can now match on Person ID — useful when migrating from another system where name-based matching would pick up archived duplicates. (#1432)

System Configuration​

  • Sticky sidebar navigation. A sidebar on the System Configuration page lets you jump between settings sections, with scroll-spy highlighting so you always know where you are. (#1461) — (video)

Email​

  • Absolute URLs in emails. Links in outgoing emails now use absolute URLs so recipients can follow them regardless of their email client. Fixes #1429.

General Bug Fixes​

  • Reports no longer silently return wrong results. If a saved report references a group, custom field option, or other entity that has since been deleted, Jethro now shows a warning rather than silently returning incomplete or incorrect results. Fixes #1413.

  • Scripts halt on invalid reports. mailchimp_sync.php and email_report.php now fail with a clear error if their configured report is invalid, rather than syncing or emailing the wrong data. Fixes #1423.

  • Deleting the last roster assignee now works. A bug that prevented removing the last person from a roster role (when the role had no volunteer group) has been fixed. Fixes #1434.

  • Saving incomplete notes no longer crashes. A bug that could cause a crash when saving notes with only partially-filled fields has been fixed. Fixes #1446.