Specify 7.11.1 Release Announcement
GBIF Citation: Bentley A, Osborn R (2025). Snow Entomological Museum Collection. University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute. Occurrence dataset Snow Entomological Museum Collection accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-07-24. Occurrence Detail 5139898369
Image Credit: Samanta Orellana, University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute
7.11.1 (8 August 2025)
Specify 7.11.1 includes user-facing improvements and important back end software updates, including:
- A Modernized Back End: We’ve updated Specify’s core technology stack to Python 3.11 and to the latest version of SQLAlchemy as part of an update to Ubuntu 24.04. This made Specify more secure and performant.
- Further independence from Specify 6: In a major, longed-for milestone, data entry and interaction dialogs now use user settings directly within Specify 7, removing the dependency on legacy Specify 6 XML configurations. This streamlines the user experience and simplifies database administration.
- Community-Driven Features: This release includes several SCC member requested features, including new date and precision fields for Accessions, support for catalog number ranges in Bulk Carry Forward, and new protective warning dialog to prevent accidental disruptions during Batch Edits.
Added
- Adds new date and precision fields to the Accession form, including
DateAccessioned,DateAcknowledged,DateReceived,Date1, andDate2, along with corresponding precision fields (#6645 - Requested by Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona, Ohio State University, Natural History Museum of Denmark, and Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) - Adds support for specifying a catalog number range during Bulk Carry Forward in Collection Objects (#6710 - Requested by KU Entomology and Louisiana State Arthropod Museum)
- Adds a warning dialog before committing changes through Batch Edit to inform users about possible disruptions to other Specify users (#6599)
Changed
- Changes data entry and interaction dialogs to use user settings instead of the legacy XML configuration, and removes the “Copy Specify 6 settings” option (#6587)
- Changes confusing heading text in Batch Edit results to improve clarity for related record matches (#6573)
- Disallows editing coordinate fields in Batch Edit to prevent data inconsistencies. A warning dialog is shown when restricted fields are included in a query (#6657)
- Moves the “Show author in the tree” option to User Preferences for better individual control (#6842)
- Upgrades Python to 3.11 and SQLAlchemy to 1.4.54 as part of the Ubuntu 24.04 update (#6667)
Fixed
- Fixes an issue where GeoMap displayed duplicate markers when multiple collection objects shared the same locality (#6900 - Reported by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Natural Resources Canada)
- Fixes an issue where loans were not automatically closed after all preparations were returned (#6442 - Reported by The University of Kansas)
- Fixes an issue where query results returned 1 for
DayandMonthfields when the original date only included a year (#6475 - Reported by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria) - Fixes an issue where new Determinations and Collectors were not automatically marked as current or primary on Collection Objects and Collecting Events (#6581 - Reported by Ohio State University Mollusks)
- Fixes an issue where some Django migrations, including those for business rules, were not run by the Makefile (#6720 - Reported by University of Florida)
- Fixes an issue where newly created records had an incorrect timestampCreated value set to midnight instead of the actual creation time (#6734 - Reported by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria)
- Fixes an issue where null version fields caused crashes by requiring all version fields to default to 0 (#6384 - Reported by Gothenburg Museum of Natural History)
- Fixes an issue where picklists from non-hierarchical tables failed to load (#5044 - Reported by University of Michigan)
- Fixes an issue where attachment URLs broke by defaulting to the database name instead of the collection name in single-collection databases (#7097 - Reported by California Academy of Sciences)
- Fixes an issue where the catalog number field in the preparations dialog stayed red even after entering a valid number (#6487)
- Fixes an issue where users could enter a negative preparation count and incorrectly see a loan-related error message (#6462)
- Fixes an issue where numeric values exceeding the maximum limit were rounded instead of showing an error message (#6454)
- Fixes an issue where required fields in Schema Config, such as Agent Type, appeared editable but were still enforced by the database (#6558)
- Fixes an issue where the same preparation could be added multiple times to a gift, exceeding the available quantity (#6482)
- Fixes an issue where editing preparation counts in a disposal interaction caused an error (#6479)
- Fixes an issue where entering an invalid catalog number during loan or gift creation prevented users from selecting a record set (#6466)
- Fixes an issue where links to specific tables in the Data Model page did not scroll to the correct section (#6461)
- Fixes a spelling and description error in the Paleo Context table in Schema Config (#6460)
- Fixes an issue where records opened from table formatters or aggregations were editable instead of read-only (#6483)
- Fixes an issue where importing a query with geology fields into a non-geo collection caused an error (#6455)
- Fixes an issue where tree rank titles were blank when the rank name was present but the title field was null (#6616)
- Fixes an issue where Geologic Time Period records had start and end periods in the wrong order, causing inconsistencies in Chronostratigraphy data (#6434)
- Fixes an issue where some queries failed to open due to incorrect relationship handling in the form (#4966)
The full changelog is available on GitHub.
For source code go to the GitHub Specify 7 repository
For more information about Specify 7, or about this release, see Specify 7 | Specify Collections Consortium, or email support@specifysoftware.org.
Queries in the navigation menu and then click 
Data Entry menu! The tables list defined in 6 will no longer be used.
