We're excited to announce the release of CCA Portal 2.0! This major update brings a comprehensive refresh to Portal's front-end software libraries, delivering substantial improvements to both the user experience and overall website functionality.

This push has been years in the making and represents a huge team effort amidst substantial organizational changes and shifting institutional priorities.

We're confident that Portal users, namely the CCA Community, will benefit greatly from these upgrades.

Portal 2.0 comes with a comprehensive update of every library, tool, and framework on Portal. Many of these improvements are not visually apparent to users, but rest assured that the new Portal is more performant, scalable, and organized than ever before.

Here’s some changes that you will notice:

Search Index Update

The search experience across Portal has been updated on both the front and back end.

Under the hood, we’ve made major changes to how page content, search terms, and other relevancy scores are calculated to improve the overall quality of search result lists. Over the coming months we’ll continue assessing and fine-tuning the search algorithm.

Search User Interface update

• Consistent interface across various search indexes with improved filters and sorting options while maintaining the unique character of each search context
• Enhanced usability with a focus on reducing clicks, improving legibility across devices types, and foregrounding accessibility of the UI

Note: Some search indexes have changed more significantly than others as we've prioritized platform scalability and creating the best overall user experience.

Gallery and Profile Editors

Your profile editor experience has been updated:

• Updated interface with improved functionality, less clutter, and parity with other parts of the site
• New Drag & Drop Functionality — Reorder with ease
  • Achievements, social media links, and gallery images can now be rearranged using drag and drop
  • Accordion-style listings: Collapse items while reordering

New Avatar Editor

• Cropping tool that works on both desktop and mobile devices
• Circular crop preview so you can see how your profile image will appear
• Mobile-friendly design for editing on mobile

Pages on Portal have received design updates aimed at:

• Updating the visual experience to modernize the application
• Reducing clutter to help you focus on content
• Fixing several responsive design issues for tablet and mobile size
• Improving accessibility

Shop Favorites Feature

As part of upgrading the shop directory with better filters and a more intuitive design, we've retired the "favorites" feature for the Portal Shops catalog. Usage data showed this feature was underutilized. The shop directory's improved search and filtering capabilities should make it easier to find the shops and services you're looking for.

Profile Timezone

We are sunsetting the ability to designate one’s timezone in their profile. Originally conceived of and deployed during remote instruction/operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the timezone feature is no longer as widely used, updated, and referenced at this point in time.

Graduating Student Showcase Gallery

First developed as a virtual stand-in for end-of-year exhibitions during the pandemic, we’re sunsetting the graduation showcase gallery feature to focus our efforts on more widely-utilized features, particularly considering our return to hosting in-person, on-campus events to celebrate culminating work of our graduates.

As with any update, you might encounter something unexpected or have questions about the new features. Our support team is ready to help.

Submit a Help Desk ticket for technical issues or to share your feedback. We'd love to hear what you think about the changes!

Thank you for being part of the CCA Community. We hope you enjoy exploring Portal 2.0!

Anticipated Release: 10-01-2025

Version: 2.0