Specify 7.11.2 Release Announcement

[Grant]

Specify 7.11.2 Release Announcement

Photo courtesy of Lucas DeCicco (2025). KUBI Ornithology Collection. University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.

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7.11.2.1 (1 October 2025)

• Fixed an issue when querying picklists with the type “Field From Table”

7.11.2 (27 September 2025)

Specify 7.11.2 is a massive release with numerous capability additions and engineering fixes. It also includes substantial updates to Specify’s software infrastructure. Specify Cloud users will be updated automatically on Sunday, September 28th.

We would like to convey our heartfelt thanks to a wonderful member and open source contributor to Specify – @markp to acknowledge his intellectual and coding contributions to this release. Mark has enabled several desired capabilities, including the ability to customize subview borders, a new “ends with” operator, TIFF thumbnail support, the preservation of WorkBench export column order during exports, and support for more than 10 records when disambiguating in the WorkBench.

We are also delighted to announce that this is the first release with code contributions from Gitesh Sagvekar (@giteshvs) our new developer on the Specify team.

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[!abstract] Important Notes
Going forward, we plan to concentrate our support and focus testing on MariaDB 11.8 LTS starting in 7.11.2.

[!note] Self-Hosted Users

• How to Update Specify 7
• Specify 7 Installation Instructions
• Self-Hosting Specify 7

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Backend Modernization and Reorganization

To enhance the long-term stability and scalability of Specify 7, we’ve completed a significant reorganization of our backend application structure. This multi-month effort involved restructuring our Django apps into a more logical and modular architecture.

Previously, our backend code was organized in a way that made dependencies between different parts of the system complex. This initiative modularized the codebase by moving applications into a unified backend directory, clarifying their roles, and simplifying their interactions.

Key Motivations:

• Improved Maintainability: A cleaner, more organized structure makes it easier for developers to locate code, understand its purpose, and safely make changes.
• Enhanced Scalability: By decoupling components, we’ve made it easier to scale different parts of the application independently.
• Simplified Development: The new structure streamlines the development process for both new and existing features, reducing the chances of inadvertently introducing bugs.

This was a foundation code improvement project, while not introducing new features on its own, was important for the future of the Specify codebase. The improvements will allow us to integrate future capabilities more efficiently and robustly. The effort touched dozens of components and represents a major investment in the quality and sustainability of the Specify platform.

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Attachments in the WorkBench

Users can now upload and view images of the source material directly alongside the data entry grid. This integration is designed to improve data entry accuracy and provide a more intuitive and cohesive user experience for cataloging new records.

You can now initiate a WorkBench data set directly from a batch of images. This workflow allows you to upload multiple attachment files (e.g., JPGs, TIFFs) at once, and Specify 7 will automatically create a new WorkBench data set with one row for each image. This is ideal for digitizing new acquisitions where the image is the starting point for data entry.

New Attachment Viewing Panel

A new “Attachments” panel can be toggled open within the WorkBench interface. When active, this displays a thumbnail of the image associated with the currently selected row in your data set. As you navigate from one row to another, the image in the panel automatically updates, keeping your visual reference perfectly in sync with the record you are working on.

Attachment Window (with Detach Mode)

For more detailed examination, clicking any thumbnail in the attachments panel opens the image in a larger “Attachment Window.” This viewer includes zoom controls for inspecting fine details. You can even “detach” this window, which pops it out of the main browser tab into its own separate window. This allows you to position the image anywhere on your screen (even on a second monitor) creating a side-by-side setup for transcription.

WorkBench Attachments

This guide covers adding attachments to new records via the WorkBench. If you’re looking to upload attachments to existing records rather than creating new ones, use the Batch Attachment Uploader instead. The WorkBench Attachments feature in Specify 7 allows you to view images alongside data entry, making it easier to transcribe information from specimen labels, herbarium sheets, and other visual sources. This functionality brings the popular Image Window feature from Specify 6 i…

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See the bigger picture with ‘Linked Records’

In complex relational databases, understanding the connections between records is crucial for maintaining data integrity. It is not always easy for users to know the full impact of editing or deleting a record. For instance, changing a single Locality could affect dozens of Collecting Events and hundreds of Collection Objects, but discovering those connections required running manual queries or navigating through multiple forms. This ambiguity could lead to hesitation when cleaning data or, worse, result in unintended consequences and orphaned records.

To address this, we’ve introduced the Linked Records feature. Our primary motivation was to empower users to manage their data with confidence and clarity. This tool reveals records directly associated with the one you are viewing.

This provides two major benefits:

1. Safety and Confidence: Before making a change, you can now quickly assess its “downstream” impact, preventing accidental data loss and ensuring the integrity of your collection’s data.
2. Enhanced Navigation and Discovery: The feature offers an intuitive way to explore the relationships within your database, making it easier than ever to see how specimens, events, agents, and localities are interconnected.

Linked Records Button

The Linked Records button in Specify helps you quickly see all records associated with the specific record you are currently viewing. This is especially useful for understanding relationships in your collection and for exploring how data is connected throughout your database. What does “Linked Records” do? When you are viewing any record (such as a specimen, event, collection object, etc.), you will see a :queries_:Linked Records button in the bottom left of the record. Clicking this…

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Built-in Backup Tool

With the new backup utility, authorized users can create a complete backup of their database with a single click. This initiates a background process on the server, allowing users to continue their work without interruption. The system handles the entire process of creating and compressing the database snapshot.

Once a backup is complete, the user who initiated the process receives a notification directly within the Specify 7 interface. This provides a direct download link to the backup file.

Permissions Management

By default, the backup feature is available only to users with Institution Admin privileges to ensure data security. A new user policy allows admins to grant backup permissions to any user, providing institutions with the flexibility to decide who can and should be able to perform this important task.

How to Create a Full Database Backup in Specify

Authorized users can create a full backup of their database directly from the Specify 7 interface. This provides a simple and secure way to download a complete snapshot of your data for archival purposes, migrations, or peace of mind. The backup process runs in the background, so you can continue your work without interruption. When it’s finished, you’ll receive a notification and a link to download the compressed backup file. Who can create a backup? By default, this feature is only availabl…

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Improved ‘Time’ Support

Time Zones

Specify 7 in Docker previously defaulted to the ‘America/Chicago’ time zone unless explicitly overridden by mounting a custom settings file. With this update, IT users now have the option to specify the appropriate time zone using its TZ identifier in the Docker compose file.

This change will be applied automatically for Specify Cloud users and provides an additional option to ensure that timestamps in the software reflect the local time of the Specify installation.

Notification Fetching

In some cases, users previously did not receive notifications until they refreshed the page. This issue arose because notifications were fetched based on the browser’s local time. If the configured time zone for the instance (usually ‘America/Chicago’) was ahead of the user’s computer time, notifications would not be fetched. Conversely, if it was behind, notifications would be retrieved as usual.

This update now uses server time to fetch notifications, ensuring that users impacted by this issue will receive alerts as soon as a notification arrives.

Timestamp Improvements

This update introduces proper support for querying timestamp fields, displaying the full date along with hours, minutes, and seconds in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss), making it possible to build powerful queries on these fields and bringing a major improvement to the Audit Log in particular.

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Added

• Support for Attachment data sets in the WorkBench (#6257)
• The 'Ends With" operator to the Query Builder (#7076)
• Support for viewing TIFF image thumbnails (#7121)
• A user preference for showing or hiding subview borders (#7041)
• A new database backup utility (#7300)
• Support for time in timestamp fields (TimestampCreated and TimestampModified) (#7317)
• New agent fields have been added to Loan and Gift (#7190)
• A “Linked Records” button to all data forms (#6328)
• A “Trim Zeros” option to Table Format fields (#7080)
• A support for using Batch Edit with Locality coordinate fields (#7379)

Time Zone Support

• Adds support for TIME_ZONE as .env variable, replacing America/Chicago as the system time zone (#6817)
• Notifications can now be fetched using the server time (#7122)

Changed

• Backend modernization and reorganization (#6618, #6626, #6704, #6706, #6709, #6729, #6735, #6743, #6758, #6765, #6770, #6778, #6794, #6826, #6834, #7302, #7345, #6577, #7109, #7343, #7347, #7353, #7358, #7335, #7368, #7370, #7360)
• Attachment thumbnails now use the original filename as alternate text (#7374)
• Release notes have been consolidated into a single document (#7384)
• Disambiguation in the WorkBench now supports more than 10 records at a time (#7397)

Fixed

• When exporting a data set from WorkBench, the visual order of columns will now be preserved (#7380)
• Restores the Loan Return button in the Query Builder when searching for Loan Preparations (#7314)
• Fixes an issue that prevents tree ranks without nodes from being deleted (#7284)
• Fixes an issue where isPrimary and isCurrent would not be set properly when cloning a record (#7289)
• Fixes an issue where old queries could not be used with Batch Edit (#7283)
• Fixes an issue that allows a taxon node from a tree linked to a different Collection Object Type to be added to a Determination (#7279)
• Fixes an issue preventing the Catalog Number field from displaying the format selector when accessing it via a related table (#6994)
• Fixes an issue where new Taxon trees used , as a separator instead of (#7285)
• Fixes an issue that did not prompt the user to save when toggling Distinct or Series in the Query Builder (#6605)
• Fixes an issue where a new record would not be created when independent relationship fields are cleared in Batch Edit (#7087)
• Fixes an issue causing “Deselect All” to remove even required Carry Forward fields (#7286)
• Fixes an issue with the position and appearance of the configure item and table list (#7062)
• Fixes an issue where white space was not preserved when modifying textBefore and textAfter for tree ranks (#7332)
• GeoMap no longer displays a description about GBIF and iDigBio when not relevant (#7070)
• Fixes an issue when the root node in the Tectonic Unit tree was not assigned a full name (#6553)

Dependency Updates

• Upgrades form-data from version 4.0.0 to 4.0.4 (#7297)
• Upgrades css-tools from 4.0.1 to 4.4.3 (#7091)
• Upgrades loader-utils to 2.0.3 (#7299)
• Upgrades underscore from 1.8.3 to 1.12.1 (#7298)
• Upgrades pyjwt from 2.3.0 to 2.4.0 (#7328)
• Upgrades babel-loader from 8.2.5 to 10.0.0
• Upgrades jest-silent-reporter to use braces (#7378)
• Upgrades Specify Web Portal dependencies (#90)
  • Upgrades python2 to python3
  • Upgrades ubuntu:18.04 to ubuntu:24.04
  • Upgrades solr from 7.6 to 9.6

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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.

Update Instructions

How to Update Specify 7

[!note] Before You Begin Consider that the Specify Collections Consortium (SCC) offers the Specify Cloud hosting service to members of the consortium. By choosing SCC’s Specify Cloud hosting, you get a fully managed Specify 7 environment with automatic updates, priority support, and low-latency servers in cloud regions around the world. Daily backups of your database and attachments ensure your data is always protected. If you’d like pricing details, please see our services prices or get in t…