Customer Contacts as Participants

Highlights

Project Managers can now assign Salesforce Contacts directly as Participants on a Phase and as Contributors on Project Tasks, without requiring a Resource record. Contact Contributors appear in the Gantt, Kanban, and Task Table with an aqua avatar and do not generate Bookings or Timesheet entries.

What Changed

Adding a Participant to a Phase previously required a Resource record, making it unsuitable for external stakeholders who are not billable team members. Project Managers can now add a Contact from the Account linked to the Project as a Participant directly, using a new Contact tab in the Add Participant modal. Contact Participants can be assigned to Project Tasks as Contributors, appear in the Gantt, Kanban, and Task Table with an aqua avatar to distinguish them from internal contributors, and do not create Bookings or Timesheet structures.

A Contact can be added as an unassigned placeholder first and assigned later. Reassigning or changing the Contact on a Participant automatically updates all related Task Contributor records - no manual updates per task are needed.

Also included: a fix for an issue where deleting an Account in Salesforce could remove the Contact reference from linked Resource records, causing an exception in Precursive Plan when attempting to edit, repeat, or reassign a Booking on that Resource.

How It Works

To add a Contact Participant to a Phase:

1. Open a Phase and click Add Participant.
2. Select the [Account Name] Contact tab.
3. Search for and select a Contact from the Account linked to the Project.
4. Assign a Contact Role and click Save.

To add a Contact Contributor to a Project Task:

1. Open the Manage Task Contributors modal on a Project Task.
2. In the Contact Contributors section, select a Contact Participant from the Phase.
3. Save.

To update or assign a Contact on an existing placeholder:

1. Open the Participant record on the Phase and click Edit.
2. Assign or change the Contact and save. All Task Contributor records for that Participant update automatically.

The Project must have an Account assigned for the Contact tab to be active. A maximum of 5 active Contributors per Project Task applies across Resource and Contact Contributors combined. Contact Participants are not available in Magic Assign or Task Planner. A Contact can hold multiple Roles on the same Phase, but each Contact - Role combination must be unique.

Enablement Guidance

Before Contact Participants can be used, at least one Role with Role Type = Contact must exist. Role Type is a new field on the Role object.

To create a Contact Role:

1. Go to Precursive HQ > Roles (or navigate to the All Roles list view in Salesforce)
2. Create a new Role and set Role Type to Contact
3. Save

Two new Role list views are available: All Contact Roles and All Resource Roles.

This release includes a post-install script that backfills Participant Type = Resource for existing Participant records and Role Type = Resource for existing Role records where these fields are currently null. No manual data migration is required.

On upgrade, it is recommended to review the Role page layout and confirm the Costs & Rates and Project Access Level sections are hidden when Role Type = Contact. This layout update is applied automatically on new instances - if you have a customised Role page layout, verify these sections are correctly hidden for Contact-type Roles after upgrading.

Action required - Experience Cloud customers only: If you share Precursive with external users through Experience Cloud, please add read access to the following Participant fields in the permission set(s) assigned to your external users:

• field Participant Classification (preempt__Participant__c.preempt__participantClassification__c)
• field Participant Type (preempt__Participant__c.preempt__participantType__c)
• Apex Class (TaskCtrlLightning)

Without access to these fields, the Gantt and Kanban components will not load for external users after the upgrade. 

Custom Domains in Experience Cloud

Highlights

The Precursive HQ Sharing configuration now supports custom domain URLs, removing the previous restriction that prevented organisations using branded domains from configuring External Sharing correctly.

What Changed

The Site URL field in Precursive HQ Sharing settings previously validated URLs against the default Salesforce Experience Cloud domain format. Organisations using a custom domain were blocked from saving the correct URL, preventing External Sharing from being configured correctly. The validation now accepts both standard Salesforce Experience Cloud URLs and custom domain URLs.

How It Works

Enter the custom domain URL directly in the Site URL field in Precursive HQ > Sharing. Both standard and custom domain URLs are now accepted.

Enablement Guidance

If your organisation uses a custom domain for its Experience Cloud site and was previously unable to save it in Precursive HQ Sharing settings, update the Site URL field now.

1. Go to Precursive HQ > Sharing
2. Enter your custom domain URL in the Site URL field
3. Save

No other configuration is required. Organisations already using a standard Salesforce Experience Cloud URL are unaffected.

Latest Health Rating in Customer Workspace

Highlights

The Latest Health Rating field on Project and Phase records now returns only Health Ratings that have been shared with the customer, ensuring the status visible in the Customer Workspace accurately reflects the most recent update the customer has actually seen.

What Changed

The Latest Health Rating field on Project and Phase records previously returned the most recent Health Rating regardless of whether it had been shared with the customer. Customer Workspace users could see a Health Rating that had never been shared with them. The field now returns only Health Ratings where Shared with Customer is true, so the status visible in the Customer Workspace reflects only the most recent update that was explicitly shared. If no Health Rating has been shared, the field returns blank.

How It Works

No interaction change is required. The Latest Health Rating field on Project and Phase records automatically filters to Health Ratings marked as Shared with Customer. Internal Health Ratings that have not been shared remain visible internally but do not appear in the Customer Workspace.

Enablement Guidance

No manual steps necessary. Review your existing Health Rating records to confirm that the correct ones have Shared with Customer set, particularly if you use the Latest Health Rating field in reports or dashboard components visible to customers.

Task Template Builder (BETA)

Highlights

Admins can now create and edit Task Templates directly within Precursive using a grid and Gantt view, with live validation before templates go live on Projects - no CSV export or Excel required. Learn more about Task Template Builder.

What Changed

Previously, editing Task Templates required exporting a CSV, making changes in Excel, re-uploading, and validating. The process was error-prone, particularly for templates with cross-template Parent References and Predecessor Dependencies, and gave no way to visualise how a template would behave on a real Project.

The Task Template Builder introduces a full in-app editor with a grid view for inline field editing, a Gantt view for visualising and managing task sequences and dependencies, a Validate function for dry-run simulation, and a Version History panel for saving and restoring snapshots. The existing CSV workflow is unchanged and remains available at any time.

How It Works

The Task Template Builder is accessed from the Open in Builder button on a Task Template record page.

1. In the grid view, add, reorder, or delete task rows. Edit fields inline - Duration, Stage, Role, Planned Hours, Predecessor Dependencies, Parent Reference, and others. Dropdown pickers validate reference field entries. Use the Fill Handle to copy a cell value across multiple rows.
2. Switch to the Gantt tab to visualise the task timeline. Drag task bars to adjust dates or drag between tasks to create dependencies. Changes sync back to the grid.
3. Use Related Templates to load other Task Templates into context, enabling cross-template Parent Reference and Predecessor Dependency lookups. Related template tasks appear in the Gantt as read-only.
4. Click Validate to run a dry-run simulation of the template. Any errors are surfaced with a description of the failure. Validation triggers an auto-save of unsaved changes before running.
5. Save at any time. Each save creates a Version History entry with a timestamp and optional description. Prior versions can be restored from the Version History panel - restoring creates a new unsaved state that must be saved to persist.

Enablement Guidance

No data migration is required. All existing Task Templates are accessible in the Builder immediately after the layout update. The existing CSV upload and download workflow remains fully available alongside the Builder.

Gantt and Kanban Reliability Improvements

Highlights

The Gantt and Kanban save and refresh pipeline has been rebuilt to eliminate race conditions, duplicate task cards, and inconsistent UI state when making multiple changes in quick succession.

What Changed

Making multiple changes in quick succession on the Gantt or Kanban - such as moving tasks rapidly between lists, editing dependencies, or working while backend cascade updates were running - could result in the view showing outdated or inconsistent data. Saves could overlap, causing task flickering, duplicate task cards, and edits appearing not to save.

The save and refresh mechanism has been rebuilt so that operations are queued and applied in sequence, backend cascade changes such as dependency recalculations are captured and applied cleanly to the view, and refresh triggered by other users or system events no longer interrupts a save in progress. Also resolved: quickly moving a task between Kanban lists no longer produces duplicate task cards.

How It Works

The improvements are transparent during normal use. Saves on the Gantt and Kanban are now processed in order - if multiple changes are made quickly, they complete sequentially rather than racing. After all queued saves complete, the view syncs with the final backend state, including any cascading changes. No change to how tasks are edited or moved.

Enablement Guidance

No manual steps necessary.

Live Updates for Gantt, Kanban, and Task Planner

Highlights

The Gantt, Kanban, and Task Planner views now use a lightweight polling mechanism instead of a Salesforce Change Data Capture (CDC) subscription, reducing CDC usage and bringing live updates to Customer Workspace and Partner Workspace for the first time.

What Changed

These views previously relied on a CDC subscription to receive live updates as records changed. CDC usage scaled with the number of record changes multiplied by the number of concurrently open boards, consuming a significant share of an org's CDC allocation. CDC also does not fire in Experience Cloud, so Community users never received live updates regardless of activity elsewhere.

The CDC subscription has been replaced with a fixed-interval polling mechanism. Polling pauses automatically during drag, resize, and save actions, stops after a period of inactivity, and resumes when the tab regains focus or a Salesforce modal closes. The board experience and existing save and drag-drop behaviour are otherwise unchanged. Community and Partner Workspace users now receive live-ish updates for the first time.

How It Works

No interaction change is required. Boards refresh automatically at a fixed interval, pause during active edits, and resume after inactivity or when returning to the tab.

Enablement Guidance

The standalone Workspace Performance Settings tab in Precursive HQ has been removed. The two related settings now live under General Settings, in a new Task UI performance settings section: Task UI Refresh Interval (default 5000ms) and Task UI Idle Timeout (default 300000ms).

If your org has customised these values previously, review them under General Settings after upgrade - existing orgs retain their stored values until updated, while new orgs receive the new defaults. Setting the refresh interval to a negative number disables polling entirely, requiring manual refresh only.

What Else Changed

• The Subtask tile on a Task record page no longer shows inactive Contributors in the contributor avatar list.
• Reassigning a Resource Request Contributor to an existing Phase Participant with a Project Access Level now correctly creates Contributor shares for that Participant.
• The Resource Type field can now be changed to Contact on Resources where a Human Resource record already exists for the linked Contact User.
• The Role lookup in the New Resource and New Rate Card Role modals now correctly filters out Contact-type Roles.

Data Model

New Fields:

Object	Field Label	API Name	Data Type	Description
Participant	Contact	contact__c	Lookup (Contact)	Direct lookup to a Salesforce Contact. Populated for Contact Participants. Mutually exclusive with the Resource lookup.
Participant	Participant Classification	participantClassification__c	Formula (Picklist)	Derives the classification of this Participant: Customer (no Resource assigned), Partner (Resource assigned with linked Contact), Internal (Resource assigned, no Contact link).
Participant	Participant Type	participantType__c	Picklist (Resource, Contact)	Indicates whether this Participant is Resource-based or Contact-based. Set automatically via the Add Participant modal.
Task Contributor	Contact	contact__c	Lookup (Contact)	Direct lookup to a Salesforce Contact. Populated when a Contact Participant is assigned as a Contributor to a Project Task.
Role	Role Type	roleType__c	Picklist (Contact, Resource)	Determines whether this Role is for internal team members (Resource) or external contacts (Contact). Null/empty is treated as Resource for backward compatibility.
Template	Related Templates	relatedTemplates__c	Long Text Area (32,768)	Stores related template configuration as a JSON blob used by the Task Template Builder to resolve Parent Reference and List Name lookups across templates. Managed by the Builder - do not edit manually.
Project	Latest Health Rating	latestSharedHealthRating__c	Lookup (Health Rating)	Returns the most recent Health Rating on this Project where Shared with Customer is true.
Phase	Latest Health Rating	latestSharedHealthRating__c	Lookup (Health Rating)	Returns the most recent Health Rating on this Phase where Shared with Customer is true.

Updated Fields:

Object	Field Label	API Name	Change
Project	Health Rating Icon	healthRatingIcon__c	Formula updated to return the shared Health Rating icon for Community users, and the existing (all) Health Rating icon for internal users.
Phase	Health Rating Icon	healthRatingIcon__c	Formula updated to return the shared Health Rating icon for Community users, and the existing (all) Health Rating icon for internal users.