On April 20, 2026, the Specify team hosted a live webinar introducing the Specify 7.12 release. For those who could not attend, the full recording and slides are included below, along with key highlights from the session.
New Branding and Accessibility Improvements
- Introduction of the SCC’s new logo and refreshed color palette, now fully integrated into the platform.
- Updated landing page and UI enhancements.
- Full compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA contrast standards, improving accessibility for all users.
GeoSpecify Enhancements
- New geology default picklists and a mineral taxon tree available for immediate use.
- Expanded support for geology collections through components, relative and absolute age fields, geologic context, and new tectonic unit tree.
Biology Collection Improvements
- Updated form definitions and expanded picklists for collecting events, identifiers, preparation types, and components.
- Components now support catalog number inheritance preferences and discipline‑specific metadata.
- Expanded default taxonomy options, with new ingestion pipelines capable of handling million‑node trees.
Guided Setup
- A fully redesigned guided setup tool in Specify 7, eliminating the need for the old Specify 6 wizard.
- Users can configure storage, geography, and taxon trees, upload defaults, and create administrative users directly in the browser.
- Default trees can now be added to existing databases with background processing and notifications.
System Configuration in the UI
- Administrators can now manage institutional hierarchy, collections, divisions, and disciplines directly through the interface.
- Options to switch between embedded and shared collecting events.
- Support for adding copyright and terms-of-use fields for data export.
Additional Enhancements
- Ability to assign preparation identifiers, including barcodes, and use them in loans.
- A visual field format editor, complementing the existing visual editors for forms and record formatters.
- A powerful dynamic image viewer that allows deep zooming and side‑by‑side viewing of attachments and record data.
We hope the recording and slides help you explore everything included in 7.12, and we look forward to hearing your feedback as you begin using these new features.