What's New in Highlighter

Stay informed about the latest features, enhancements, and improvements to the Highlighter platform.

Taxon Group Import/Export Performance

Release Date: November 2025

Recent enhancements have significantly improved the speed and efficiency of taxon group imports and exports.

What Changed

The import and export processes have been optimized to use bulk database operations instead of processing records individually. This architectural improvement results in:

Faster Import Times: Large taxon groups import up to 10x faster
Reduced Server Load: More efficient use of database resources
Better Reliability: Improved error handling and transaction management
Enhanced Testing: Comprehensive round-trip validation ensures data integrity

Technical Details

The optimization includes:

Bulk Data Operations: CSV parsing and data collection happens outside database transactions for better performance
Efficient Database Queries: Records are created and updated in batches rather than one-by-one
Optimized Lookups: Entity attributes, object classes, and enums are fetched in bulk with indexed lookups
Transaction Optimization: Database locks are minimized while maintaining data consistency

What This Means for You

These improvements are transparent to users - you don't need to change how you work with taxon groups. You'll simply experience:

Faster imports when uploading large taxonomy files
Quicker exports when backing up or sharing taxonomies
More responsive workflow taxonomy management
Improved reliability for large-scale taxonomy operations

The same CSV format and workflow remain unchanged, ensuring backward compatibility with existing taxonomy files.

Enhanced Contributor Workflow Management

Release Date: November 19, 2025

We've significantly improved how contributors are assigned and work across different workflow steps, providing a more unified and reliable experience.

What's New

Workflow managers can now manage all types of workflow steps using a consistent interface:

Data source
Human assessment
Machine assessment
Filter

This consolidation makes it easier to manage the setup of workflows without having to learn multiple interfaces.

We've also enhanced the technical infrastructure for assigning contributors to workflow steps.

Getting Started

To take advantage of these improvements:

Review Your Workflows: Existing workflows continue to work without changes
Assign Contributors: Use the enhanced assignment interface for new or existing steps
Learn More: See our new Assigning Contributors to Workflow Steps documentation

Stay Updated

For ongoing updates and announcements:

Check this page regularly for new feature releases
Subscribe to Highlighter platform updates
Contact support for questions about new features