What's New in Kohost

This release is focused on stability and reliability.

• Fixed a false SOS where an alarm panel that briefly reported no areas could set off alarm automations such as "Fire Alarm" when nothing was in alarm.
• Raising an SOS that is already active no longer repeats the lockdown or sends everyone a second round of emails and texts.
• Fixed @mentions on a ticket sometimes suggesting people from the wrong campus.
• In Concierge settings, an issue routed to your Kohost Facilities Concierge now shows their name instead of "Unknown user", and administrators can choose them as the assignee when editing an issue's routing.
• When a ticket is assigned to a vendor, the requester is now included in the email's reply-to if they are an administrator or manager.
• The input, mode and playlist pickers on TV, lock, thermostat and PA controls now look and work the same on every device, browser and operating system.
• Buttons now show a clear outline when you move to them with the keyboard and respond when pressed. Hover effects no longer stick after tapping on a phone or tablet, and sliding and zooming animations turn off when your device is set to reduce motion.

Tickets can now be printed from the browser as a clean black-and-white page.

Added support for 2N integration.

This release is focused on addressing miscellaneous regressions and stability.

• The Security tile on the home screen now pulses red while an alarm is going off, just like the Emergency tile during an active SOS.
• Alarm codes now appear as soon as an alarm is assigned to a space. Codes added or removed at the alarm panel show up in Kohost right away.
• Fixed a regression where scrolling the home page would make the page jump.
• Fixed a regression where changing pages would sometimes start you in a scrolled position instead of at the top.
• Changing a ticket's issue type is also correctly reflected in OneBill.
• Approval emails and notifications to the requesting KFC agent now link to the ticket in Concierge instead of a broken page.
• Edits and attachments on ticket costs and vendor invoices no longer get lost when two people change them at once.
• New, renamed and deleted vendors now update right away in OneBill's vendor lists, including on service contracts and bills.
• Fixed an error where some users were unable to edit their own notification/preference settings in Concierge.
• Fixed a caching issue that required a refresh in the admin Server Fleet page.
• API key and permissions modifications for upcoming billing automations.

Added support for Unifi Access integration.

Add vendor paid status and transaction notes in OneBill.

Changing your do-not-exceed amount now updates the approval status of open tickets right away, and fixed a bug where some tickets could show "Approval denied" when nobody had denied them.

Avatars for people and organizations with long names now show at most three initials instead of spilling out of the circle.

Pages now respond the moment you tap a link: a thin bar at the top of the screen shows the next page is loading, and the page opens right away instead of waiting on its data.

View SIS sync status on the SIS tab, plus stability improvements to roster syncing.

Added support for ISONAS Pure Access integration.

• Service contracts in OneBill. KFC now adds support for recurring charges and service contracts.

• One view for editing costs. A new powerful, unified view for transactions and cost edit/entry in all areas of OneBill.

• Server details. Click a server in Server Fleet to see how it's running, with telemetry if available.

Fixed Sign in with Google/Microsoft failing for some existing accounts and showing a "page does not exist" screen. In addition, sign-in problems now bring you back to the login page with an explanation instead.

• Student information systems (SIS) now inside Kohost. Campuses connected to Veracross or Infinite Campus get their full roster of staff, students, parents, guardians, and emergency contacts pulled into Kohost for use in SOS and Announcements.

• A new "SIS" tab on the Users page. Search by name, email, or phone, and filter by role.

• View by household. See the roster as families. Each household opens into its members, and searching for one person brings up their whole household.

• Staff and faculty included. Teachers, aides, and other staff appear with a Staff / Faculty badge.

• Preview announcement messages. Preview messages as either email or SMS to see how messages land in users' inboxes.

• OPT-outs honored A parent or guardian who replies STOP to a text or clicks unsubscribe in an email is left out of future announcements and SOS incident notifications on that channel. Replying START brings texts back. Receipts now show "opted out" beside delivered and failed, so a count that looks short has an explanation.

• Smaller fixes.

  • Scrolling on a phone no longer changes a light's level or a thermostat's setpoint. A finger that lands on a slider now scrolls the page. Sliding sideways and tapping work as before.
  • Signing in from an old bookmark or outdated link now takes you to your home page instead of a "page not found" screen.
  • Low-battery tickets no longer open and close repeatedly when a reading hovers around the low mark. A ticket stays open until the battery reads 80% or higher, which normally means it has been replaced.
  • Adding or removing a collaborator on a ticket no longer removes other people, such as Kohost staff, who weren't shown in the collaborator list.

• New KFC Stage: Awaiting scheduling

• Dates on KFC blocking items. Tickets waiting on a vendor now carry the date you expect to hear back. Awaiting Vendor Quote and Awaiting Scheduling views sort into Overdue, Today, and Upcoming so late items surface first.

• Awaiting quote - When recording a cost that is awaiting a quote or estimate, enter the date it is expected. Organization users now see that a quote is awaited, and the date, on the ticket without any amounts.

• Awaiting scheduling - Record work that cannot be booked yet, with the date you expect scheduling to become possible.

• New ticket stages for KFC. Every Facilities ticket now carries a Stage, worked out from the ticket itself: Awaiting Client Approval, Awaiting Client Response, Awaiting Vendor Quote, Vendor Scheduled, Confirm Vendor Costs, or Ready to Resolve. Turn on Show stages in the Facilities queue to see open tickets counted by Stage, plus an Action needed bucket for anything with no Stage that is waiting on you. Click a count to work that list. Vendor work is split into overdue, today, and upcoming.

• Record an outcome on scheduled work. Once a work item's day arrives, mark it Completed or Not completed from the ticket. Work that did not go ahead needs a short note on what stopped work, and you can book the return trip from the same dialog. Overdue work stays flagged until someone records the outcome.

• Record costs in a "quote requested" phase. The cost form starts with a choice: Awaiting quote or Priced. Awaiting quote lets you name the work and the vendor and come back for the figures later. The ticket shows Awaiting Vendor Quote until a price is entered. You can still resolve the ticket with a quote outstanding; it just won't close until the cost is priced or voided. The confirm step now shows the ticket total and do-not-exceed before you save.

• Improved ticket summary header. The top of each ticket now gathers its work items, costs, and wait in one place.

• Waiting on a person. From the reply box, note who the ticket is waiting on: a named person on the ticket, or Anyone who replies. The ticket shows the wait, and it clears on its own when that person replies, or for Anyone, when anyone outside the Facilities team replies. The wait is private to the Facilities team; nobody is notified. To change who a ticket is waiting on, clear the current wait first.

• OneBill

  • New Transactions view lists every line billed through OneBill for a period, with revenue, vendor cost, profit, and margin for the period at the top. Opens on this month so far.
  • Costs awaiting a vendor quote appear under Unreconciled once the ticket is resolved, and can be priced right there or followed back to their ticket. The do-not-exceed still applies: if the new figure takes the ticket over it, the price goes for approval, though the ticket stays resolved.
  • A search box under Ready to bill and under Unreconciled narrows the list by amount, vendor, ticket number, invoice number, or a word from the description.
  • Changing a price on a resolved ticket no longer reopens it unless the new amount is over the do-not-exceed. Under it, the price saves in place and is posted to the ticket so the customer sees it. Over it, the ticket goes for approval and reopens. A confirmation dialog will show which happens before saving.

The person who raised a ticket can now be assigned to it. Previously the assignee picker hid the requester, so staff could not take ownership of tickets they opened themselves.

Ticket assignment changes.

• The KFC workspace now shows only tickets where KFC agents are the assignee or a collaborator.
• Reassigning a ticket keeps the previous assignee on it as a collaborator.

Meet the Kohost release bot. Whenever a new version of Kohost goes live, it now announces what changed right here in Slack. Ta-da 🎉

Contact cards in tickets. Click any name in a ticket, whether an @mention, a message author, the requester, the assignee, or a vendor on a cost or work item, and a card opens with their photo, phone, and email, plus Call and Email buttons.

A clearer way to set permissions. The user permissions and policy editors are now a grid organized by property + building with easily scannable and clickable chips.

Settings, easier to find. SOS, Concierge, and Resources now have their own entries in Settings. The SOS Library has moved from Organization Settings to its own SOS Settings page.

Smaller fixes.

• Announcement audiences now count organization-wide users correctly in the picker and preview.
• The back arrow takes you to the page you actually came from (sometimes it wouldn't).
• Battery replacement tickets now include the new percentage when auto-closing.

Clearer cost approvals on tickets. Each cost card now separates the current price from its approval history, and tickets that need no approval say why. Editing a price that is still covered by an existing approval no longer asks you to approve it again.

New supported integrations. Wisenet Wave video and OneRoster rostering.

Ticket stats you can trust. Resolved work is counted by the date it was solved and new work by the date it was opened, so the two views line up. Look back up to three years.

Void a cost. Costs recorded by mistake can be voided, which also clears any approval they were holding up. Approvers automatically join the ticket as collaborators while their decision is pending.

P.A. in Announcements and SOS. Any P.A. system with output groups or playlists can now carry an announcement or emergency message.

See who you will reach. The Announcements and SOS audience picker shows reach per channel, such as "7 of 8 people", flags anyone missing a phone number or email, and stops a send that would reach nobody.

Deeper ticket stats. New Open Time KPI, a resolution-time distribution chart, and period-over-period comparisons.

Faster cost entry. Recording a cost starts with the amount, then lets you choose markup or a sell price.

Announcements. Send a one-time message from a property to everyone, specific people, roles, departments, or your external groups such as students and parents, by text, email, or P.A. Save a setup as a preset and review past sends under History.

SOS updates and all-clear. Every emergency is now a full incident record. While it is active you can send updates and an all-clear to staff and emergency contacts by text and email, see who received each one, and review or export the incident afterwards under Reports.

Department notifications fixed. Notifications addressed to a department now reach every member.

Find any ticket by number. Ticket-number search works the same everywhere and matches as you type.

Vendors get the address. Vendor assignment emails now include the property's street address.

Change a ticket's issue type. Administrators and managers can reassign the issue after a ticket is created.

Resource Library. An organization-wide library of files and links, organized into your own categories, searchable from the Resources page, with a property filter and shareable links.

New supported integration. Apex American Audio.

Costs and approvals on tickets. Record a vendor estimate or actual cost, apply markup, and see the customer price. Costs over your do-not-exceed limit go to an approver, who is notified and can approve or deny with a comment.

Schedule the work. Book, reschedule, or cancel a vendor or staff visit right on the ticket. Visits appear in a Work section above the conversation.

Reports. Administrators get a Reports tile with ticket volume, response and resolution times, trends, a heatmap, and CSV export.

Billing in one place. Organizations now have a billing address, billing contacts, currency, and an Invoices section in Settings with PDF download.

Introducing Kohost Facilities Concierge. Organizations can enroll in Kohost's managed facilities program. Your team submits tickets as usual; Kohost facilities agents pick them up, schedule the vendors, record the costs, and you receive one consolidated bill.

Longer-lived setup links. Account setup emails now work for 24 hours instead of 15 minutes.

Security hardening. Tightened access checks.

Rich text in tickets. Ticket messages support bold, italic, underline, lists, and @mentions, and the formatting carries through to notification emails.

File attachemnts. Add several attachments to one message, including PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, text, and CSV files. Emails list every attachment as a direct download.

A better photo uploader. Drag and drop, crop with zoom and rotate, and real upload progress.

Choose how you are notified. Organizations set default ticket notification preferences and each person can override them per event, grouped into "Directly involved" and "Observing".

Push and text notifications. Ticket notifications can now arrive as browser push messages with quick actions (View, On it, Reply, Resolve) or by SMS. Automations can send push notifications too.

Solved tickets close themselves. After a grace period you set in Concierge settings (7 days by default), solved tickets close. Closed is final, and a closed ticket offers "Start a new request".

Deleting a user works everywhere. Removing a user now removes them from every property in the organization, and deleted users can no longer sign in.

Copy routing between issues. Mirror one issue's department and routing onto others, with a preview of what each target gains and loses.

Merge issues. Select several issues, pick the one to keep, and their tickets and automations move to it.

Your own SOS types. Replace the fixed emergency list with types you define: create, edit, drag to reorder, and choose which ones each property offers. Standard types are now Active Threat, Medical, Fire, Weather, and Suspicious Person.

Faster emergency response. Automations triggered by the same event now run at the same time, so a slow lockdown never delays a notification.

Critical priority. A new top priority for tickets, usable as an issue default, filterable, and shown with a red badge in the list.

Sort the ticket list your way. Sort by Priority, Created, or Latest Reply across the whole organization, and share the view by URL.

Every ticket has a link. Tickets have their own address, so deep links, refresh, and back and forward all work as expected.

Policy changes apply immediately. Editing a policy takes effect for everyone right away, even if they are already signed in.

New supported integration. Linortek.

Sortable Users page. Click a column header to sort by name, role, or properties.

Deny policies and defaults. Policies can now block access as well as grant it, be marked as defaults that are pre-selected for new users, and grant specific features such as SOS, Concierge, and Resources per user.

One Users page for the whole organization. See every user and vendor across all your properties, then pick a property to drill in. Policies get the same organization-wide view.

Vendor pages. Vendors have their own record pages with notes and per-property access.

Better address picker. Property locations use up-to-date Google Maps search and map pins.

New supported integration. ONVIF cameras.

Unread tickets stand out. Tickets with messages you have not read show a dot and bold text, the preview names the author, and an Unread filter shows only those.

Door stations show a picture right away. The last snapshot appears while the live stream connects, instead of a black screen.

Camera snapshot in door alerts. Door-station notifications from automations can attach a live snapshot taken at the moment of the event.

New properties start from a template. Administrators can copy Concierge departments and issues from an existing property when creating a new one.

Doorbell triggers. Automations can fire when a door-station button is pressed, so a doorbell can send a notification or run any other action.

New supported integration. Resideo (Honeywell).

Dealer portal on kohost.io. Integrators can register as a Kohost dealer, accept the Dealer Agreement, and register projects.

Digital Watchdog live video. Digital Watchdog Spectrum cameras now stream live in the app.

Sign-in links that survive email scanners. Magic links open an interstitial page first, so corporate email scanners no longer use up your one-time link before you do.

New supported integration. Reolink NVR cameras.

New supported integrations. Cool Automation and Orchid Fusion.

Alarm user codes. Create, edit, and delete codes for each alarm panel and link them to users, protected by a master-code prompt. Codes are revoked automatically when a user is removed. Arm and disarm individual areas.

Faster lists. Ticket filtering and sorting, thermostat cards, and automation actions all respond noticeably faster.

New supported integrations. Singlewire and ZKTeco.

Kohost Academy. A Resources tile with searchable help articles and interactive demos, filtered to what your role can do.

New sign-in. Sign in with a magic link, a passkey, Google, or Microsoft, then choose which organization to enter. Microsoft sign-in works from any tenant.

Camera previews. Cameras show a still preview that becomes live video when you open it.

New supported integration. Modbus.

Cameras on Safari. Live streams play natively on Safari and iPhone.

Recurring and scheduled tickets. Create a ticket for a future date or set it to repeat daily, weekly, or on chosen weekdays. An Upcoming Tickets section at the bottom of the list shows what is coming.

Smarter automation schedules. Schedules can run on chosen days, run once, or run relative to sunrise and sunset.

P.A. to several zones at once. Pick multiple output groups for an announcement, with search and select all.

Automations protected from deletions. A device used as an automation trigger cannot be deleted, and deleted devices are removed from automation actions.

New supported integration. EarBridge.

New supported integrations. Mobile Mule and oBIX.

Small improvements. Thermostats show the current temperature to a tenth of a degree, and uploaded logos keep their transparency.

Automations cannot loop. Automations that would trigger each other forever are rejected when you save them.

Settings for every Administrator. The Settings tile is now visible to all Administrators.

Clean removal. Removing a user or their property access also removes them from issue auto-assign and notification lists.

New supported integration. PDK access control.

Administrators manage devices. Administrators can now manage discovered devices, spaces, and rooms without Kohost's help.

Property Management. One Settings page for your property: an Overview with health and quick actions, unassigned Devices with bulk move and auto-match to spaces, Systems with an integration picker, and Spaces with bulk add.

New supported integration. Avigilon Alta access control.

Internal notes. Staff can post messages on a ticket that the requester never sees, shown in amber with a lock icon.

Better ticket emails. Emails say why you are receiving them (assigned, observer, collaborator), show one clear location line, inline images, and who is assigned.

Attach a photo when you open a ticket.

One ticket per outage. When an integration goes offline, all of its devices show offline and a single system ticket is raised.

Cameras show when they are offline. The fullscreen button is always available on touch devices.

Automations improvements. Alarm-area triggers, device search by type, and "last run" only updates when actions actually ran.

Thermostat failures open a ticket. A failing thermostat automatically opens a ticket and closes it when the device recovers, without duplicates.

Departments. Create, rename, and delete departments, and place a user in more than one.

Low battery alerts for alarm zones. Zones below 35% battery raise an alert.

Refreshed Space and Device Management. Cleaner layouts, plus camera fullscreen and scrolling fixes.

Your building opens its own tickets. Tickets are raised automatically from device and system status. One system outage creates one ticket instead of one per device.

TV controls match the TV. Media controls show only the commands each device supports, such as power, volume, brightness, and contrast.

User Policies redesign. The permissions matrix follows your space hierarchy, with dedicated pages for creating and editing policies.

Trigger automations from outside systems. Any automation can be run by webhook, so other tools and devices can start it.

Alarm chime toggle.

The new Kohost app. A redesigned home screen, a Smart Building page for each system type (lights, climate, doors, shades, cameras, media, P.A., security, irrigation), and new Users and User Policies pages.

Automations. Create scheduled or event-triggered automations that control devices across your building.

Live emergency status. The Emergency tile shows when an SOS is active. Only Managers and above can cancel one.

A new look. Refreshed colors across the app.

Sign in with Google or Microsoft. Phone-number verification is no longer required at login.

"SOS" is now "Emergency" on the home screen.

Space Management. Buildings expand to show their spaces, with a new dialog for adding spaces. A new Settings hub holds Device Management and Space Management.

Ticket list remembers your place. Returning to the list brings you back where you left off.