Planning Release Notes - March 2026

Overview:

This document provides details of changes that will be deployed to your IEG4 Planning Software shortly. This covers changes we have made to the UK Planning Portal integration software, UK and Ireland Planning Citizen Portal, and changes specific to just the Ireland Planning Citizen Portal. The deployment of the Ireland changes will take place tomorrow, 5^th March 2026, while the changes to the UK software will be deployed a little later, on 10^th March 2026.

UK Planning Software only:

Planning Portal 1App Connector:

New application version delay

Every 15 minutes, the OneApp Connector checks for any applications awaiting processing. When a new application is downloaded, it is immediately sent to APAS, and a notification is issued to alert the user that a new submission has arrived.

The user must then check the application to confirm key information, update the Planning Portal reference with the authority’s own reference, and clear the item from their notification tab.

When a new version of an application is received via the National Planning Portal, the same approach is used. However, an issue had been occurring if the application had not yet been checked and transferred to the planning system. Under the revised approach, a new 1APP version will not be pushed to the planning system until the previous version has been checked and transferred, meaning the Planning Portal reference has been replaced with the council’s internal reference. If the earlier version remains unchecked, a scheduled task will check pending applications four times per day (04:00, 08:00, 12:00 and 16:00) to determine whether the previous version has been validated and is ready for the new version to be transferred.

Furthermore, we have updated the behaviour of the synchronisation process that occurs when new application versions are created in the National Planning Portal (NPP).

We have introduced an enhancement to prevent data inconsistencies when a user has the original APAS application open. If an officer is viewing the details of the first version of an application in APAS, the OneApp Connector will delay inserting the updated version information until the user closes exits the planning application. This ensures that if the user saves changes while the window is still open, no newly synchronised data is overwritten. This improvement increases data integrity and prevents accidental loss of updated information during the application review process.

UK and Ireland Planning Citizen Portal:

Improvements to the online display of the planning application boundary:

A new configuration toggle has been introduced to allow users to open the online application boundary in full‑screen mode, rather than within the limited ‘Map’ section of the Citizen Portal application details. When the DISPLAY_MAP_URL setting is enabled, the system replaces the embedded boundary view with an “Open map” button, which launches the boundary directly in the Authority’s online GIS tool.

The example screenshot below (taken from the Ireland Citizen Portal) illustrates how the interface appears when this option is set to true.

This will provide an improved user experience when viewing the application boundary within the Planning Citizen Portal.

Sign in – Toggle password visibility

When users sign into their account within the Citizen Portal, the system now enables the user password to be visible by clicking the ‘eye’ icon seen below:

Ireland Planning Citizen Portal only:

Compliance Applications

'My applications' menu option

This version of the Planning Citizen Portal resolves an issue whereby when a user logs into their Account and selects the ‘My Applications’ option, only their Compliance Cases are now listed.

Furthermore, any compliance application in draft form does now not appear in any public online searches. Applications must be validated in the core planning system (Registered Date must be populated etc.) for compliance applications to be available for public searching in the Citizen Portal.

Dependencies:

• Validator and OneApp Connector: v3.13
• Identity 2.85: translation for the “Open map button”