Ernest Release Notes

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Biweekly Platform Digest ​

Period: March 30, 2026 – April 13, 2026

Highlights ​

  • A Cost Code system is now available across the platform. Teams can assign codes — organized under CSI divisions — to project phases, change orders, and buyout items, with cost codes surfacing in the finance dashboard, budget tables, and subcontractor schedules of values.
  • Quote Leveling is now available to Office and Cross Projects users, not just Growth. Teams can compare subcontractor bids, manage quote packages, send follow-up emails, and review qualified values all in one place.
  • Pay applications and owner invoices now lock all billing fields once marked as Billed, preventing changes to approved figures after submission. GCs can unlock by reverting to Not Billed, and every status change is recorded with a timestamp and the user who made it.
  • Email now automatically routes through Gmail for any organization with a Gmail integration enabled — covering RFIs, bid proposals, schedule emails, and inbox compose — so all outbound communication benefits from the connected account.

Ernest API (5 releases) ​

Areas Affected: Subcontracts, Bidding, Projects, Quote Leveling, Billing & Invoices, Materials, Change Orders, GC Logs, Finance Dashboard, Shackleton, Inbox, Email, Billing, Finance, Office, Quotes, Notifications, Budget, Buyout

Release on March 31, 2026 ​

  • An "Other Attachments" field has been added to subcontractor invoice details, covering both standard invoices and retainage invoices. Subcontractors can now upload supporting documents (PNG, JPEG, DOC, DOCX, XLSX, PDF — up to 80MB each) when submitting their invoices. These attachments are visible on the invoice and in the Pay Application. (Ticket)
  • Quote Leveling is now available in both the Office app and the Cross Projects app. Users can compare and evaluate subcontractor bids, manage quote packages, send follow-up emails, and review qualified values — all within the same experience previously available only in the Growth app. Navigation from activity feeds and quote submission notifications also correctly directs users to the appropriate pages. (Ticket)

Release on April 3, 2026 ​

  • Visual improvements to the Quote Leveling page: input fields for Notes and Exclusions now display consistent borders and default sizing, matching the rest of the table layout for a cleaner, more uniform appearance. (Ticket)
  • Retainage invoices are now available in the Office app. The Billing, Invoices, and Payments sections have been redesigned, and retainage amounts are now correctly included when syncing invoices and payments to QuickBooks Online. (Ticket)
  • Subcontract numbers are now generated automatically using a sequential numbering system. Users no longer need to enter a number manually when creating a subcontract. The change order number is also now visible in the side panel header for quick reference. (Ticket)
  • Fixed a bug where vendor contacts on commodity material requests were not displaying correctly, which could cause a crash when attempting to send a quote email through the Save & Create Quote flow. (Ticket)
  • Internal cleanup to the quote data structure for both Growth and Office quotes. All quote workflows — including creating, editing, viewing, the quote portal, and budget sheet quote selection — continue to work as expected. (Ticket)
  • GC Logs on iOS now support offline mode. Users can create and manage GC Log entries without an internet connection, and changes will sync automatically once connectivity is restored. (Ticket)
  • Subcontractor invoices now include dedicated upload fields for a Notarized Pay Application and a Lien Waiver Packet. Both documents must be uploaded before a payment can be marked as released, ensuring compliance requirements are met per invoice. (Ticket)
  • Fixed a display issue where the Bid Package and Office Quote Packages tables were not rendering correctly in the Firefox browser. Both tables now display as intended across all supported browsers. (Ticket)
  • Change orders now have a Draft status, allowing teams to save and refine a change order before it moves into the formal review and approval workflow. (Ticket)
  • Fixed an error that was preventing the Finance Dashboard from loading for some users when subcontract phase data contained incomplete records. The dashboard now loads reliably in these cases. (Ticket)
  • Shackleton now automatically flags two new accountability gaps: GC Log entries that have been stuck in Pending status for more than 48 hours, and Action Items marked In Progress with no updates for more than 48 hours. Flags resolve automatically once the item is updated or approved. (Ticket)

Release on April 7, 2026 ​

  • Email sending now automatically routes through Gmail for any organization that has Gmail integration enabled, and falls back to standard email delivery for organizations that do not. Previously, only Ernest's own organization could send via Gmail. With this change, any org with an active Gmail connection will benefit from Gmail-based sending across all email workflows — including RFIs, bid proposals, schedule emails, and inbox compose. The Inbox and Gmail contacts autocomplete are also now shown or hidden based on whether the org has Gmail configured, rather than being tied to org type. (Ticket)
  • When a pay application or owner invoice is marked as Billed, all percentage complete and dollar amount fields for that billing period become read-only. This prevents changes to approved figures after the invoice has been submitted. General Contractors can unlock these fields by reverting the invoice status back to 'Not Billed'. Every status change is recorded with a timestamp and the user who made it, providing a full audit trail. (Ticket)
  • Proactive Shackleton has been introduced with a series of design and display refinements, including fixes to layout and visual styling based on design review feedback. (Ticket)

Release on April 8, 2026 ​

  • Added behind-the-scenes monitoring to track legacy identifier usage across mobile clients, supporting a planned transition to streamline how project data is handled as all iOS users move to the latest app version. (Ticket)
  • Team members now receive email notifications when project quote items are updated, ensuring stakeholders are promptly informed of any changes to quote details. (Ticket)
  • Email notification templates have been updated to match a refreshed design, providing a cleaner and more consistent appearance across all notification emails. (Ticket)

Release on April 10, 2026 ​

  • Email notifications for comments on Action Items, Submittals, RFIs, and Change Orders now display the name and number of the item being discussed. Previously, these emails lacked this context, making it harder to know which item required attention without opening the app. (Ticket)
  • Subcontractors can no longer submit invoices for billing months that pre-date the earliest month the GC has billed the owner. The system now enforces this relationship automatically, preventing out-of-sequence billing entries in the Subcontract Portal. (Ticket)
  • A Cost Code system has been introduced across the platform. Companies can now assign cost codes — organized under existing CSI divisions — to project phases, change orders, and buyout items. Cost codes appear in the finance dashboard, budget tables, and subcontractor schedule of values. The initial library of codes is based on Procore's standard set, pre-mapped to Ernest's CSI divisions, and will support custom codes per organization in the future. (Ticket)

Ernest iOS App (1 release) ​

Areas Affected: Task Management, Shackleton AI, Daily Logs

Release on April 8, 2026 ​

  • iOS users can now @mention other team members when writing comments on tasks. Typing "@" brings up a list of people to tag, helping ensure the right people are notified and looped into task discussions. (Ticket)
  • The Shackleton AI chat on iOS now supports media attachments. Users can upload photos, PDFs, and other files directly in the chat — for example, to ask questions about a document or share visual context when creating an RFI. (Ticket)
  • GC Logs on iOS now support offline mode. Field users can view and fill out GC Logs without an internet connection, with changes syncing automatically once connectivity is restored. (Ticket)

Ernest MCP Server (2 releases) ​

Areas Affected: AI Assistant, Plans, RFIs, Email, Bidding, Procurement

Release on April 7, 2026 ​

  • The Ernest AI assistant can now retrieve attention items as part of its project context. This means the assistant is aware of outstanding items that need action — and can also update RFIs and add comments — giving it a more complete picture of project status to better support users. (Ticket)
  • Email notifications are now sent through a unified routing system, improving consistency and reliability of email delivery across the platform.
  • Internal code quality improvements with no impact on user-facing functionality.
  • Infrastructure update to how credentials are managed internally. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Improvements to the production build process. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal maintenance merge. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal tooling configured for automated release notes. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal configuration fix. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal code quality improvements with no impact on user-facing functionality.
  • Internal code quality improvements with no impact on user-facing functionality.
  • Improved how the AI assistant identifies the correct bid and project when handling requests, reducing the chance of context mix-ups. (PR)
  • Users on the Growth plan can now search for documents within the Plans folder, making it easier to locate relevant project files.
  • Internal refinement to document search scope. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal improvement to how project context is resolved. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal update to the document search service. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal maintenance merge. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal maintenance merge. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal configuration adjustment. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal configuration fix. No change to user-facing functionality.
  • Internal maintenance merge. No change to user-facing functionality.

Release on April 9, 2026 ​

  • Quotes can now be leveled using a scope sheet, allowing teams to compare subcontractor or vendor bids against a consistent set of line items for more accurate and structured bid analysis.
  • Merged the scope sheet quote leveling feature into the main codebase.

Ernest NLS API (1 release) ​

Areas Affected: Attention Items, Natural Language Search, Infrastructure

Release on April 8, 2026 ​

  • Attention item labels have been corrected and standardized so that the names users see throughout the platform are clearer and more consistent. (Ticket)
  • Resolved an issue with natural language search functionality in the quality assurance environment to ensure accurate behavior before production release.
  • Fixed a cross-origin access issue in the testing environment that was preventing certain features from loading correctly.
  • Updated how cross-origin access rules are configured to make the setup more flexible and maintainable.
  • Internal maintenance: merged quality assurance fixes for natural language search.
  • Improved how application credentials are managed internally to enhance security and maintainability.
  • Updated the internal development service URL to keep developer tooling pointed at the correct environment.
  • Optimized the production build process for improved performance and reliability.
  • Reduced noise in internal diagnostic logs to make system monitoring cleaner and easier to use.
  • Internal maintenance: merged credentials and configuration refactor.
  • Set up automated release notes generation to streamline future release communication.
  • Corrected a rule in the release automation to ensure internal maintenance changes are handled properly.
  • Applied review feedback to improve code quality — no user-facing changes.
  • Applied review feedback to improve code quality — no user-facing changes.
  • Natural language search now incorporates bid information, allowing search results to be better matched to the context of a specific bid. (PR)
  • Restricted certain internal maintenance operations to the staging environment to protect the production release process.
  • Expanded the context available to natural language search so it can return more accurate and relevant results based on the user's current situation. (PR)
  • Internal maintenance: merged release notes automation configuration.

Ernest Platform Release Notes