7.10.0 Release Notes – Validaide Help Center

In Release 7.10.0 we introduce the following enhancements to the Validaide application:

Lane Assessment Immutability (Lane Versioning)
Customs Clearance in LRAs
Lane Sharing with Parties outside of Validaide
Custom Lane Rejection Reasons
Manufacturer Force Approval on Lanes
No notification or Emails for Inactive Lane
Active Lane Count in Excel/CSV Exports
UX / UI Improvements
Bug Fixes

1. Lane Assessment Immutability (Lane Versioning)

With this release, Validaide introduces a significant improvement to how lane risk assessments are managed throughout the approval lifecycle. This means that once a lane has been submitted for review, its assessment results are locked and stable. They will not shift due to background system jobs or user edits, making the lanes more trustworthy, reproducible, and audit-ready for all parties involved.

Assessment locked at review - When a lane is submitted for review, the lane risk assessment result and all underlying inputs are captured as a snapshot. Reviewers and approvers always see the exact version that was submitted.

Assessment inputs become read-only - Once a lane is under Review, all fields that feed into the pharma score calculation become read-only. The only exception is General Information, User Roles, Lane Performance and Classification, which remain editable to allow operational updates without restarting the workflow.
Minor lane versioning on lanes under Review (applicable to Lane Performance only)- Once Lane Performance information is updated, the change is applied as a minor version increment. The lane keeps its overall approval status - no full workflow restart is required.

Impact preview before confirming changes - When a user edits Lane Performance on a lane under Review, they see a side-by-side comparison of the current assessment results versus what the new values would produce and can confirm or discard the change.

2. Customs Clearance in LRAs

Validaide now supports customs clearance assessment throughout the entire lane workflow. Companies can declare customs activities at locations, configure customs handling on lanes, and include customs risk directly in lane risk assessments. Customs-related information is also available across reports and exports, providing greater visibility into customs operations and risk.

Declare customs activity at locations - Location owners can answer a new configuration question: "Does customs clearance, transit discharge, or inspection occur at this location?" This controls whether the customs capability questionnaire is shown. If the answer is No, the customs module stays hidden and no data is collected.

Customs capability questionnaire - For locations where customs apply, a new set of questions is available in the capability questionnaire. The questions are dependency-driven: they adapt based on whether customs is handled internally or externally, showing only what is relevant and pre-filling answers where possible.

Configure customs clearance locations on lanes - When configuring a lane, users can now specify which location handles customs export and which handles customs import. These are selected from the lane’s existing origin and destination structure.

Customs risk included in lane risk assessment - The lane risk assessment algorithm now incorporates customs clearance readiness as a factor. If no customs configuration is set, no customs risk is calculated, and the section remains hidden. When configured, the readiness score is included in the overall lane risk assessment under the Duration & Complexity.

Improved visibility into customs changes - When customs capability information changes, affected lanes are marked as outdated. Users will receive a notification where they can review exactly which customs locations or questionnaire responses have changed and understand the potential impact on the lane risk assessment.

Data extracts:

The Lane PDF and Lane JSON now include the customs risk score and related data.
The Lane CSV is extended with the customer Origin and Destination locations plus the customs Export and Import locations.
The customs questions and answers are included in the Location Capabilities PDF, JSON and the Network Capabilities spreadsheet.

3. Lane Sharing with Parties outside of Validaide

Freight Forwarders can now share lanes directly from Validaide with parties who do not have an active Validaide account. This streamlines collaboration and creates a trackable, controlled sharing workflow.

For lanes of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers with an active Validaide account, Freight Forwarders can continue to download lane PDFs as before. For lanes of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers without access to Validaide, lane PDFs can only be shared via email using the new sharing functionality.

A Share icon is now visible on the Lane Overview page for all users who can currently download a lane. Clicking it opens a pop-up where the Freight Forwarder selects which details to include and enters the recipient email addresses.

Recipients receive a secure email - The specified recipients receive a formatted email from Validaide containing the lane PDF. Only the named recipients can access the content. The user who triggered the share is automatically copied on the email.

4. Custom Lane Rejection Reasons

Premium Tenant Administrators can now configure their own lane rejection reasons. When configured, users must select a reason every time they reject a lane - creating a consistent, auditable record of why lanes are being rejected.

Tenant Administrators now have a new "Lane Rejection Reasons" section in the Administration menu under the Settings - Workflow tab. They can create and delete rejection categories and descriptions to match their internal processes.

When rejecting a lane, users must select a rejection category and description.

If the appropriate reason is unavailable, they can choose "Other" and provide a mandatory free-text explanation.

The rejection category, reason, and any comment entered during rejection are now included in the Version Control section of the Lane Characterization PDF. This information is visible to all parties who have access to the PDF, providing full transparency into the rejection history.

5. Manufacturer Force Approval on Lanes

This feature allows Pharma Manufacturers to require their own approvers as part of the lane approval workflow, ensuring that shared lanes cannot reach “Approved” status based solely on Freight Forwarder approvals. A new External Lane Approval Requirement setting is available in Tenant Administration → Workflow tab (Workflow Assignment & Signature Controls).

Mandatory manufacturer approval - When enabled, all lanes must include the manufacturer's designated approver roles before the lane can be shared.

Enforced during lane sharing - If required approvers are missing, users are prompted to assign them before the lane can be shared.

Stronger governance and oversight - Ensures Pharma Manufacturers remain part of the approval process for lanes that impact their operations.
Applies to workflow restarts – Existing lanes in Approved, About to Expire, or Expired status are unaffected until the approval workflow is restarted.

6. No notification or Emails for Inactive Lane

Users will no longer receive any notifications or emails generated by lanes that have been set to Inactive. This includes weekly task reminder emails, assignment emails, lane workflow emails, lane sharing emails, and in-app notifications. If the lane is later reactivated, the standard notification schedule resumes automatically.

All in-app and email notifications are suppressed for inactive lanes.
Reactivating a lane restores notifications as normal.

7. Active Lane Count in Excel/CSV Exports

Suppliers download files and several other CSV/Excel exports now include a "Number of Active Lanes" column, positioned alongside the existing "Number of Lanes" field. This allows users to quickly distinguish active operational lanes from the total lane count without needing to cross-reference additional reports. The new column has been added to: SOP CSV, My Locations CSV, My Suppliers CSV, and related exports.

8. UX / UI Improvements

A set of usability improvements have been made across the platform, from list views to PDF exports and navigation.

Improved Active/Inactive Lane Visibility: The Lane Listing page now uses distinct color indicators for lane status. Active lanes are shown in green and inactive lanes in grey, making it easier to identify operational status immediately.

Increased number of entities shown per Listing Page: All listing pages across the Validaide, including Lane Listing, SOP Listing, My Locations, My Suppliers, and Packaging, now display 50 rows by default. This improves visibility of larger datasets and reduces the need to navigate between pages.

Lane Categorization Added to SOP and Route Evaluation PDFs: SOP and Route Evaluation PDFs now display each lane's categorization (Pre-carriage, On-carriage, Primary, or Back-up) on the Available Route Options page. This information was previously only available within the platform and is now included in exported documents for improved visibility and reporting.

Lane/SOP Owner Legal Name in Disclaimer Text: The disclaimer text shown in lanes, shared lanes, shared SOPs, and Lane Characterization PDFs now includes the legal name of the lane or SOP owner. This provides greater clarity when documents are shared across multiple organizations and clearly identifies the entity responsible for the content.
GxP Compliance Disclaimer Added to All PDFs: A GxP compliance note has been added to the footer of every PDF generated by Validaide: "Check if this is the latest version of the document before use." This supports regulated workflows where offline document versions can create ambiguity.

Incoterms Filter on the Lane Listing page: Users can now filter the lane list by Incoterms. The filter shows only Incoterms that are present in their own lanes and lanes shared with them.

"Email Domain Whitelist" is renamed to "Allowed Email Domains": The Tenant Administrator tab previously labelled "Email Domain Whitelist", now has been renamed to "Allowed Email Domains."

Modify Classification Button Moved to Classification Tab: In the Tenant Administrator menu the "Modify Classification" button was previously always visible in the Settings menu, regardless of which tab was open. It now appears only when the Classification tab is active, reducing visual noise and making the settings area easier to navigate.

Improved Password Settings Section: The Password Policy tab in Tenant Administration menu has been renamed to "Password Settings" and now includes a dedicated Password Requirements section to better structure the available configuration options. An updated description text makes the section's purpose clearer.

SOP Contact Count Visible on User Profile: The General tab of a user's profile in the Tenant Admin view under Users & Groups now shows how many SOP entries include that user as a Contact Person. Previously, only Role and Task counts were shown. The new field is labelled "Listed as Contact Person" and the count matches what is shown when a Tenant Admin replaces a contact on an SOP.

Brand refresh: The Validaide logo has been refreshed and updated across the platform, including the application interface, system-generated emails, PDF and CSV/Excel exports, and external status pages.

Bug Fixes:

When Lane Performance was added to a lane, the score displayed in the Overview tab was not reflected in the Version Control tab or the Lane PDF. Instead, the Lane Performance section appeared greyed out and was incorrectly scored as "Insufficient." This has been fixed, and Lane Performance scores are now displayed consistently across the Overview tab, Version Control tab, and exported PDFs.
In Shared SOPs, External Contributors were unable to edit the Processes and Contacts tabs while the SOP was In Progress and No Workflow status. This has been fixed, and External Contributors can now update these sections as intended.
In Shared Lanes, External Contributors were unable to modify or remove attached files while the lane was In Progress and No Workflow status. This has been fixed, and file management is now available to External Contributors as expected.