It's been a couple of months since our August release, and the CPL Learning team has been focused on building and improving the platform.
These release notes bring together the most important updates across the platform, along with an early look at what's coming next.
Here's a roundup of the most important updates👇
Additional information
GDPR — time to check your settings
As we mentioned in our August release notes, this feature will automatically anonymise user profiles that have been inactive for a configurable period of time, helping your organisation stay compliant with GDPR requirements.
The full release is getting closer, and there's one thing we'd like you to do before it arrives: check your settings - it's a quick task, and it means you decide how long inactive profiles are kept before they're anonymised, rather than using the default setting.
What you need to do
In the Admin Tool, click Details, then open Permissions and configure a new setting that determines how long inactive user profiles are retained before being automatically anonymised.
You'll find a dropdown with the following options: 52, 104, 156, 208, 260, 312, 364 weeks.
If you don't configure this setting, a default of 156 weeks (3 years) will be applied automatically.
What happens next
Once customers have had time to configure their settings, we'll release the full process in the coming weeks.
This includes:
A migration process for users who became inactive before this feature was released.
A background process that will automatically anonymise profiles going forward, based on the configured inactivity period.
Warning: As part of the migration, user profiles that have been inactive for longer than your configured period will be permanently deleted. We recommend reviewing and updating your settings before the full release.
What's new
Duplicate Employee Detection — now live
Good news: Duplicate Employee Detection is now live!
We first mentioned it in our August 2026 release notes, and it's now available to use.
When you import employees, the system now automatically detects potential duplicate users based on a match of surname, date of birth and email address.
Instead of silently overwriting an existing user or creating a new one, it flags them as exceptions so you can decide what to do. For each one, you can update the existing user, create a new user, or confirm it as a duplicate. This applies to both manual and automated imports and is only visible to admins with import permissions.
What's new since our announcement: Opt out of duplicate detection
We’ve added something extra since the announcement: Duplicate detection is on by default, but we know it won't suit every organisation. If that's the case, you can now opt out of the new functionality and return to the previous import process.
In the Admin Tool, click Details, then open General, where you will find the setting.
A few things to keep in mind:
If you've opted out, imports run as they did before. No duplicate check takes place and no exceptions are flagged.
If you haven't opted out, the duplicate check runs on every import, as described above.
Opting out takes effect going forward. Any exceptions that were already raised before you opted out won't disappear automatically and will still need to be resolved.
Rolling appraisals — reviews that follow each employee's own journey
Until now, an appraisal could only run on fixed dates, which meant everyone on the team was reviewed in the same window.
You can now set up a rolling appraisal, where the next appraisal is scheduled automatically for each employee, based on when they completed their last one.
Reviews are spread across the year and reflect each person's own journey, reducing the need for manual reallocation each cycle.
You can set up rolling appraisals in the new version of CPL Learning by clicking Management, then Content, then Appraisals.
Set up a rolling schedule
When you choose Rolling as the schedule type, you set:
Repeat every: a whole number, followed by days, weeks or months
Start date (optional): if you leave it blank, the appraisal starts now. The start date only marks the starting point for the rolling schedule. It doesn't send the appraisal to anyone, so you still allocate it in the same way as before.
A rolling appraisal never has an end date, so the field isn't shown.
Note: Renewal dates are calculated using calendar months, so 6 months after 15 August is 15 February. If the date doesn't exist in the target month, the last day of that month is used instead.
Manage a rolling appraisal once it's created
When you open an appraisal that has already been created, you'll find the following:
Edit appraisal: you can switch between Fixed Dates and Rolling at any time (click the appraisal, then click Options, then click Edit template).
Here's what happens when you do:
From Fixed Dates to Rolling: the end date is cleared, and any upcoming allocations tied to the fixed dates are removed.
From Rolling to Fixed Dates: the rolling settings (Repeat every and Start date) are removed, along with any existing assignment schedules. You'll be asked to confirm before this happens, and you can cancel if you change your mind.
Changing the interval: if you change Repeat every on an appraisal that's already running, the next scheduled dates are recalculated from the date each employee completed the appraisal.
Next scheduled: a new, sortable column shows when each employee's next appraisal is due. It shows a dash until the employee has completed the appraisal.
Stop renewals: if you don't want someone to be given the appraisal again automatically, you can stop renewals for that employee only. Everyone else stays on the rolling schedule, and you can put the employee back on it later.
Schedule badge: next to the appraisal title, a badge shows the current schedule (for example: Rolling · every 1 day).
Learning Journeys — clean up allocations that no longer match your rules
A Learning Journey can be allocated to people individually or automatically, through allocation rules.
When someone drops out of a rule (for example, because you remove the rule or their user group changes), they used to stay allocated to the journey as an individual allocation. Removing these allocations previously required manual intervention.
Now you can review and remove these allocations yourself in just a few clicks.
You can access this in both the new and legacy versions of CPL Learning by clicking Management, then Content, then Learning Journeys.
There are two ways to get to it:
Who can see this?
View allocation rules (then delete one allocation rule)
Both take you to the Clean up allocations screen, where the cleanup option is available.
A few things to keep in mind:
Check first, remove later: When you select Clean up allocations, the system compares the allocations against your current rules and shows you how many people are allocated outside of them. Nothing is removed at this point.
Keep who you want to keep: There may be people who should keep the journey even though they don't match a rule. You decide who to remove.
Take it away: You can download a CSV copy of this check to review outside the platform.
Then clean up: Once you're happy, run the cleanup. When it's done, you're left with the people who match your rules, plus anyone you chose to keep.
A record of what was removed is kept for audit purposes.
This gives you a quick way to keep your allocations tidy, without needing to contact us.
New Admin Tool — an update on our progress
The current Admin Tool has evolved over time without a clear structure, resulting in a long sidebar that can be difficult to navigate. The new experience replaces this with a modern, organised layout, grouped into logical sections and consistent with the rest of the new version of CPL Learning, making it easier to find and manage settings.
We've been working on this new Admin Tool experience for a while now, and you can explore it in the new version of CPL Learning by clicking Management, then Admin.
Here are the sections we've been working on recently:
Notes: you'll now find it in the Details tab
Roles
API Keys
Training Record
Training Records Import: you’ll now find it in the Training Record tab
We're continuing to roll this out gradually, and new sections will appear in the new Admin Tool as they become available.
Note: A banner will always be available to take you directly to the Legacy Admin Tool, so you can still access any functionality that hasn't yet been moved across.
New Admin Tool - other improvements
As we bring each tab into the new Admin Tool, we're also taking the opportunity to make small improvements to the experience along the way. Here are two examples of the improvements we've made so far:
Configure columns
On tabs with multiple columns, you can now choose which columns are visible in the table, making it easier to focus on the information that's most relevant to you.
Click Configure columns, select the columns you want, and save your selection. A few columns are always shown (for example, Site name on the Sites tab), and you can reset to the default columns at any time.
Edit from the row
On tabs where you can edit items, you now have two ways to open the edit side panel: click on the row, or use the pencil button (the Edit quick action).
Clicking on the row provides a quicker way to edit items, and the panel has the same fields and functionality as before.
Salesforce Reference Number — now in the new Admin Tool
You'll notice a new Salesforce Reference Number field in the new Admin Tool. We've added it to help us continue to deliver great service to you, and it's intended to be used by Access only.
You can find it in the Admin Tool by clicking the Details tab, then Company Info.
A few things to keep in mind:
The field is for Access use only, so there's no need for you to complete it.
The field is optional. You can leave it empty and save the form as normal.
It's a free text field, and the value you enter is saved and will still be there when you reload the page.
No format validation is applied, so any value you enter is accepted. This is intentional, as there's currently no fixed format for this reference number, and the format may still change in the future.
This is available in the new Admin Tool only.
How to access this update
This release represents a significant step forward for CPL Learning.
📩 Have questions about any of the features above, or interested in making changes or migrations to your platform? Reach out to your Account Manager or CSM/TSM.
More updates are planned as we continue to evolve the platform.