Changelog

Validating workflow trigger data

The data you pass into your Knock workflows is essential to ensure your notifications have the right content and context. Previously, if you omitted a value or passed through the wrong type of data into your workflow triggers, you could lead to malformed or incorrect notifications. Given how critical this data is, we're rolling out the ability to validate the incoming data for your workflow trigger by providing a JSON schema that describes the expected data.

When provided, if the data does not match the schema the workflow trigger API will return a 422 Unprocessable Entity response with a list of errors. This ensures that your workflows are not run should incorrect data be provided.

You can configure a validation schema for your workflow trigger under the "Trigger step" in the workflow builder. It's also possible to supply the workflow trigger schema via our management API and CLI via the trigger_data_json_schema field.

Trigger data validation is available today to all Knock customers. Read our documentation to learn more about how this feature works.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We added support for MessageMedia as a new SMS provider
• 👀 We added support for event idempotency through source events (docs)
• 👀 We now expose url and any message interaction data to Segment and Heap for link click and interacted events respectively
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where saving and committing a partial would not update the underlying schema
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where some JSON editors would not scroll correctly

Reuse content across templates with Partials

Today we’re releasing support for Partials, a new way to author pieces of content for reuse across templates. Partials are independently updated, versioned, and archived, and can be managed programmatically with the Knock CLI and management API.

Partials are now available to all customers. Read our documentation to learn more about how this feature works.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We've made some UI and UX improvements to the workflow list and show pages in the dashboard
• 👀 We've improved the pagination of the workflow list in the dashboard. Paginating will now update the URL, so that refreshing the page or going back will take you to the correct page
• 👀 We added a keyboard shortcut to save translations (cmd + enter)
• 👀 We added new autocomplete suggestions for liquid tags in the template editor. Now when you type {% you'll see suggestions for common tags like assign, if, for, etc
• 🐛 We fixed a performance issue when typing in the create workflow modal
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where the billing page could be cut off at certain screen sizes

Trigger workflows only once per recipient

Today we’re releasing support for configuring workflow trigger frequency. You can now set a workflow to only trigger once per recipient (user, object or tenant) and never again. When enabled, if a workflow is run more than once for the same recipient, we will not execute the workflow.

Workflow trigger frequency is now available to all customers. Read our documentation to learn more about how this setting works.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We added support for a timezone in the date filter in the template editor
• 👀 We improved the scroll behavior around the dashboard, so returning to pages will restore your previous scroll position
• 👀 We disabled the per-word highlighting in commit diffs to improve readability
• 🐛 We loosened the required Expo and React Native versions for our React Native SDKs
• 🐛 We improved the consistency of the timezone and date filters in the template editor between editing and previewing templates

Commit and promote from a workflow

We've introduced a new way to commit and promote a workflow simultaneously right from the workflows page in your development environment. This feature streamlines the process of committing your changes and promoting them to the next environment without having to jump to the commits page. You can access this feature from any workflow page in the Knock dashboard.

Fixes

• 🐛 We fixed an issue where an event sent from Segment could still trigger an archived workflow
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where newlines in the code editor weren't working
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where send windows weren't working for a webhook channel step

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We added the ability for you to specify a response key in your fetch steps, which controls where the response gets placed in your workflow run data
• 👀 You can now see any subscriptions you have under a tenant via the dashboard
• 👀 We updated the Workflow creation modal to include category selection and improved the manage modal experience
• 👀 We moved the security settings into its own tab in the settings section of the dashboard
• 👀 We added the ability to filter analytics by bounced messages in the dashboard
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where our custom webhook channel would send an empty body on GET requests
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where E.164 phone numbers were not always being validated correctly, causing issues when saving Twilio provider configuration
• 🐛 We fixed an issue that caused schedules to not be created when an account timezone was not set
• 🐛 We fixed an issue that could cause invalid FCM project IDs because of extra whitespace
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with the schedules API that would not allow a null repeats value when scheduled_at was specified
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with our Sendgrid sender that would specify the wrong content type parameter for an attachment

In-app feed components for iOS and Android

Today we're releasing an update to our native mobile SDKs across iOS and Android to include pre-built components for powering out-of-the-box in-app feed experiences within your mobile applications. Previously, you had to build your own in-app feed experiences on top of our SDK. Now, with these new components, you can easily add an in-app feed to your app with just a few lines of code. Knock takes care of all of the heavy lifting for you, including fetching and displaying the feed items, handling pagination, real-time badge counts, filtering, and more.

Our in-app feed components are customizable and can be tailored to fit your app's design and user experience. If you need more flexibility you can bring your own UI components, and build on top of the view models provided.

You can get started by reading the documentation on iOS and Android.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We gave the main dashboard sidebar UI an overhaul, updating the icons in the process
• 👀 We migrated the colors in the dashboard to our new design system, Telegraph
• 👀 We added new filters for the messages API for engagement status, inserted at ranges, and by a list of message ids
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where the code editor would fallback to a serif on certain browsers
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with the tenants API that could cause a 500 error when creating or listing tenants
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with the code editor where you could not scroll the content when using the popout editor

Automated push token deregistration

Today we're launching an enhancement to our push notification and device token management functionality. We will now auto revoke tokens that are expired from your user's channel data. Previously, you would need to listen to a message.bounced webhook and execute the token cleanup yourself when your push notifications failed to send.

Now, you can simply enable the option under your push channel settings to "Enable push token deregistration" and we'll automatically remove the expired token from your user's channel data when a push notification fails to send. This will help you keep your user's data clean and up to date without needing to write any additional code.

This feature is available today for all customers. To get started, check out the documentation for push notifications.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We added a new error page to better report any dashboard issues to our engineering team
• 👀 We made some light improvements to various empty states around the dashboard
• 👀 We added a missing filter for workflows to filter for all workflows that have a webhook step
• 👀 We now fall back to a recipient ID in the messages table when no email or name is provided on the recipient
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with single ticks in a Slack markdown template would cause a template rendering error

Actionable in-app notifications

Today we’re launching an enhancement to our in-app notifications to support more actionable types of messages, without needing to drop down into code. Previously, to add inline actions to your in-app notifications you needed to customize a feed cell component. With our new in-app actions you can now toggle between a standard, single-action, or multi-action notification template directly in our template editor.

By default, in-app actions will direct you to the action URL you set on the button on click, but you can also override this behavior by providing a new onNotificationButtonClick callback to handle the action in your app.

As part of this update, we also refreshed the in-app editor UI with a new look and feel to make it easier and faster to create and preview your in-app notifications.

You'll need to upgrade to the latest version of our SDKs across web and mobile to take advantage of the new actionable in-app templates. To get started, check out the documentation for in-app notifications.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We now show your account ID under the Settings page in the dashboard.
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with our conditions logic where contains and not_contains would not operate correctly when the argument was a list.
• 🐛 We fixed an issue with our chat and HTTP templates that meant we would double JSON encode values sent from trigger data leading to incorrect results in a rendered template.
• 🐛 We fixed a performance issue with our new code editor where large templates would feel laggy to edit.

Introducing the t tag: draft content in your default language and auto-generate translations

Today we’re introducing a new way to create and manage translations in Knock: the t tag.

With our user-friendly t tag, you can draft message templates in your default language (e.g. english), then wrap the content in a t tag to auto-generate a default language translation file for you behind the scenes.

You can then automate translations to other languages by using our API to fetch your translation files, send them to your translation provider (e.g. Transifex), and programmatically bring translations back into Knock.

Here’s why we shipped the t tag.

In our Translations 1.0 release we introduced the concept of Translations into Knock. Translations are JSON objects you use to define a set of translation keys (for example, “WelcomeMessage”) and the translations they map to in each locale you support (en: “Welcome to Knock”, es: “Bienvenidos a Knock”). You then use our t filter to reference that translated content in your message templates.

Our first approach to Translations works great for teams that already have translations for their messages. But, as we’ve grown and seen customers bring more of their organization into Knock, we heard feedback that we needed a way to make translations more accessible for non-technical users creating content in Knock—that’s where our new t tag comes in.

t tags are now generally available for all enterprise customers. To get started, check out the documentation for Translations.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 When a collection contains more than 10,000 records, we now correctly reflect that in the result count.
• 👀 We improved our recipient inline identify calls to accept a dictionary with just an id in it, rather than requiring an id and at least one property before it was identified.
• 👀 We rolled out our new code editor everywhere in the UI.
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where our pagination controls would show 0 instead of a result count.
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where our markdown validation was overly strict and did not allow for some valid HTML elements and attributes.

Introducing typeahead autocomplete and our formatting toolbar

Today we’re launching two enhancements to our template editing experience: typeahead autocomplete and a rich text formatting toolbar. These improvements make it easier to write markdown and liquid within our template editor.

First, autocomplete. Now all of the variables available in your workflow run scope, including trigger data, user properties, and more, are available to you in a typeahead autocomplete experience. We’ve also included all of Liquid’s available filters, so you can easily find the right tool to work with your template data.

Next, we added a new formatting toolbar to apply styling to your markdown templates using a familiar rich text editing interface. This means that whether or not you’re familiar with markdown, you’ll still be able to author rich text content within the Knock template editor.

Fixes and improvements

• 👀 We overhauled our preferences documentation and introduced a new preferences section into the documentation to better explain the different portions of preferences within Knock
• 🐛 We updated the version of the WhatsApp API from v14 to v19
• 🐛 We fixed an issue where app_name and app_url were not being exposed under the "Settings > Variables" section of the dashboard
• 🐛 We fixed the useAuthenticatedKnockClient hook in @knocklabs/react to prevent re-renders from occurring
• 🐛 We fixed a type error in our Go SDK where Messages would not work when a recipient was an object