Every release, written down in public
What went into each version of AlumDeck, in plain language, including the fixes that are not interesting enough for a launch announcement. If you are deciding whether to trust software with your alumni records, this page is worth more than a feature list.
AlumDeck is at version 1.0. There is one entry on this page, and inventing a longer history to look established would be the wrong way to start.
1.0 - August 2026
The first public release. Everything below is in the one licence; there is no higher tier holding pieces back.
The web installer
A six-step wizard that gets AlumDeck onto ordinary shared hosting without a terminal. It takes the licence key, runs a full server check, tests the database connection and proves the database user can create tables, collects the site name and the first admin account, shows you a review screen, then installs.
Nothing is written to disk or to your database until the checks pass. Failures are listed on screen with the requirement next to them, so you can forward the line to your host. When the install finishes, the installer routes return a 404 permanently and cannot be used again.
The module set
- Member registration with admin verification, so a human approves every account before it appears
- Alumni directory with search by name, batch year, city, country, profession and employer
- Member profiles, with the member deciding what is public
- Batch and class years across the whole site
- News and blog, with categories and cover images
- Events with RSVP and capacity limits
- Photo galleries and albums organised by era
- Notable alumni and an institution timeline for your history
- Committee and office bearer pages
- Donations and giving pages with campaign tracking
- Mentoring, with capacity limits so volunteers do not get buried
- A job board for alumni-to-alumni hiring
- Contact forms, newsletters and email campaigns
- Cookie consent and maintenance mode
The admin panel
A Filament administration area that controls the site as well as the data. Logo, colours, navigation menus, footer widgets and homepage blocks are all settings rather than template edits. Every module has an on and off switch, and switching one off hides it from the public site and the admin menu without deleting its content.
Per-page SEO fields are on the pages that need them, so titles and descriptions are yours rather than generated. Member verification, event attendance and donation records are all exportable.
Platform
PHP 8.2 or newer, MySQL or MariaDB, Laravel with a Filament admin. Full source code, not encoded and not obfuscated. No licence server has to answer for your site to load a page.
What a version number tells you before you upgrade
Three kinds of release, and the number tells you which one you are looking at.
Security releases
Applied as soon as they exist, described here plainly once they are out. If a release fixes something that could expose member data, that is stated in the entry rather than filed under general improvements.
Feature releases
New modules, new admin settings and improvements to existing screens. These are the entries with a list of additions and the odd behaviour change flagged at the top.
Fix releases
Small corrections and compatibility work, including keeping up with new PHP and MySQL versions as hosts roll them out. Dull, frequent and worth reading before you upgrade.
How this page will grow
Each release adds an entry above this one, newest first. Entries link out to the pages that explain the change.
New modules and settings
When a release adds something, the entry says what it does and the documentation section for it is updated in the same week.
Goes to the documentation
Upgrade notes
If a release needs a step beyond replacing the files, it is written into the entry and into the installation guide rather than assumed.
Goes to the install guide
Licence and support changes
Any change to what a licence covers is recorded here as well as on the licence page, with the date it took effect.
Goes to the licence terms
Anything that needs a reply
If a release affects your installation and you are not sure what to do about it, ask before you upgrade rather than after.
Goes to contact
What updates mean for a site you already run
Do I have to install every update?
No. AlumDeck runs on your server and nothing forces a version on you. You choose when to apply an update, or whether to apply it at all.
Security releases are the exception we would argue about. Self-hosting means patching is your job, and that is the honest cost of owning the thing.
What happens when my update year ends?
Your site carries on exactly as installed, forever. There is no kill switch, no countdown in the admin panel and no feature that quietly stops working.
What stops is access to new versions and to support. Renewing buys another year of both. If you are happy with the version you have, you do not have to renew at all.
Will an update overwrite my branding or my content?
No. Your logo, colours, menus, homepage blocks and every record in the database live in your database and your uploads folder. An update replaces application files.
If you have edited the application's own template files, keep a note of what you changed, because those files are the ones an update replaces.
How will I know a release exists?
This page is the record, and it is a plain page you can check or watch. Licence holders inside their update year are emailed when a release is out, and security releases get their own email rather than being folded into a newsletter.
Version 1.0 is small on purpose. The price is too.
One licence, $49 once per installation, unlimited members, and a year of updates and support while you settle in.
Checkout is not open yet. Email hello@alumdeck.com and we will tell you the day it is.