MHC NorthStar CCM 2026 Release Notes

Summary

Descriptions of the new features and fixes added to the MHC NorthStar CCM (formally EngageCX or Ecrion) being added between February 2026 and January 2027. New releases are added to NorthStar CCM every four weeks, starting with R2026.01.1.

New Features

Version R2026.03.1 (April 2026)

MHC NorthStar CCM R2026.02.1 includes enhancements to NorthStar Designer and the Forms Editor.

NorthStar Designer: Table Editing Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Merge table cells when editing templates.

You can now merge adjacent cells in templates, giving you more control over table layouts.

Why did we make this change?

The merge feature allows you create cleaner, more flexible table designs without workarounds.

NorthStar Designer: Paragraph Editing Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Adjust the spacing between lines of text.

You can now merge adjacent cells in templates, giving you more control over table layouts.

Why did we make this change?

Being able to configure line spacing makes it easier to meet visual and branding requirements for your templates, and provides additional options for readability or paragraph sizing.

NorthStar Designer: Accessibility Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Easily see which fonts can be embedded for greater accessibility.

When viewing the font dropdown menu in NorthStar Designer, embeddable fonts will be marked with a small icon (hovering over this icon will display the label "Embeddable Font").

Why did we make this change?

Font embedding is a requirement of many accessibility standards. Allowing you to view which fonts are embeddable within Designer helps you choose a font that will support your accessibility requirements and avoid building templates with unembeddable fonts.

NorthStar Designer: Admin AI Controls Enterprise Enterprise Plus

As an admin, enable or disable AI-assisted translations in NorthStar Designer.

From the AI tab of the Edit Environment section of NorthStar CCM, you can now enable or disable AI translations by selecting or clearing the corresponding checkbox.

Disabling AI-assisted translations will hide the "AI" button from the Language Properties panel, as well as the column of checkboxes that are used to select sentences for AI translation.

Why did we make this change?

Adding this control allows administrators to have finer control over the translation options available to template designers. For organizations that have preferred translation processes, disabling NorthStar CCM's native AI-translation streamlines the interface and helps ensure that translations are generated by the intended tools and processes.

Forms Editor: Images Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Add images to the body of your forms.

When designing a form, you can now add images. From the form editor, double-click or drag the Image icon onto your form body. This will add a placeholder image to your form, and open an editing panel on the left side of the window. Click "Browse" and select an image from your project's component library, or click "Upload File" to add a new image.

Once added, you can add alternate text to your image, adjust its size, or apply style elements to it; these options are all available in the editing panel.

Why did we make this change?

Adding images or icons to your form can allow you to build richer layouts and reinforce your brand.

Version R2026.02.1 (March 2026)

MHC NorthStar CCM R2026.02.1 includes several enhancements to NorthStar Designer, including AI support for text revision and translation. We've also provided a version of the Software Development Kit (SDK) with .NET 4.8 support for legacy or enterprise applications using that framework, and we've made some UX improvements to forms.

AI Assist Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Make your templates more effective with AI-assisted text refinements.

If you have enabled the MHC AI Studio, you'll find an "Open AI Writing Assistant" icon in Home tab of NorthStar Designer. Selecting this icon will open the AI writing assistant panel.

When you select text from your templates, the AI writing assistant panel will analyze the sentiment of your text. To refine your text, choose your desired sentiment (positive, neutral, negative), tone (professional, casual, informational), and length. Then click "Generate Draft" for a revised version of your selected text. If you approve of the revision, you can instantly update the original text by clicking "Update."

Why did we make this change?

This feature allows you to leverage AI with your own knowledge of your audience and preferences. You can quickly revise sections of text to ensure that your templates are consistent and meet your requirements for tone and sentiment.

AI Translation Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Use AI to translate your templates instantly.

If you have the MHC AI Studio enabled, when you click on the "Manage Languages" icon in the Home tab, you'll see an "AI" button on the Language Properties panel.

Clicking the AI button will immediately generate an AI-provided translation for each text string in your document. Note: This action will overwrite any existing translations.

If you approve of the translations, you can save them by clicking "OK," or you can manually revise any number of translations before saving. You can also click "Cancel" to discard all changes and revert to the prior state.

Why did we make this change?

This feature allows you to effortlessly translate your document into multiple languages, allowing you to efficiently reach and speak to a wider audience.

Table Formatting Enterprise Enterprise Plus

More easily format and edit multiple table cells or columns at once.

We've updated NorthStar Designer to allow the selection of multiple cells, rows, and columns within a table by clicking and dragging. Once selected, any formatting or styling selections will be applied to all selected cells.

Why did we make this change?

This improvement makes it easier to apply formatting changes to specific cells, rows, or columns in a table.

Forms Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Edit and rearrange forms more easily.

We've made two user experience (UX) improvements to forms:

• Clicking on a form from the project or workspace view will immediately open the form in editor mode. Previously, clicking on a form would open a "preview" page, requiring a second click to open the editor.
• Form components can now be rearranged by clicking, dragging, and dropping them. Components can be freely reordered within the page, moved to different pages, or moved in or out of a container field.

Why did we make these changes?

Both of these enhancements allow you to edit and customize a form with fewer clicks and greater ease. Making incremental changes like this allow us to continuously improve the user experience based on the customer usage and feedback.

Software Development Kit (SDK) .NET 4.8 Support Essentials Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Integrate your legacy and enterprise applications with our .NET 4.8 compatible Software Development Kit.

We now offer a Software Development Kit (SDK) that can build and run successfully in a .NET 4.8 application, with no dependency requirements for .NET 2.1+ or .NET 6+ features. This SDK supports the same core API endpoints as our .NET 8.0 SDK, and matches the same authentication flows (e.g. API keys, OAuth, etc.).

Why did we make this change?

We became aware that some developers using our software were running legacy or enterprise applications on the .NET 4.8 framework, which is incompatible with the .NET 8.0 SDK we offer. By providing an SDK option for developers working in the .NET 4.8 framework, we make NorthStar CCM easier and more effective for a broader range of legacy and enterprise applications.

Version R2026.01.1 (February 2026)

MHC NorthStar CCM R2026.01.1 includes the launch of NorthStar Designer, a new design tool that allows you to create, design, and style rich CCM templates with integrated data and conditional formatting. You can learn more about the features of NorthStar Designer in our user guide.

This release also includes:

• Enhancements to accessibility reporting
• Synchronized text box fields in forms
• Improved template migration functionality

NorthStar Designer Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Create, design, and style rich CCM templates within NorthStar CCM.

Opening a document template or content fragment within NorthStar CCM will now open that template within NorthStar Designer, our new template editing tool. NorthStar Designer includes a suite of standard styling and formatting features, along with support for connecting a template to a data source, embedding data elements and content fragments in the template, and conditionally formatting or adding content based on the data.

Why did we make this change?

NorthStar Designer enables a rich level of template editing and design from any browser, ensuring that your tools and templates are accessible and up-to-date.

Accessibility Report Improvements Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Review accessibility reports with improved ease, clarity, and readability.

We've updated accessibility reports to remove inessential information, reduce redundancy, and highlight the most relevant information from the report. This includes the following changes:

The report will no longer display internal rule codes (such as RC4 or RC6), since these have no external relevance. The full description for an accessibility rule will only be provided once in the section header, instead of repeating it with each violation of the same rule. Content fragments will be listed as a separate location in the report, enabling users to more easily locate issues in content fragments. The report will not require that content fragments have a title or language. If the document fails multiple contrast standards, only the highest selected standard will be shown. The report will display the document name, but not the long alphanumeric template ID, which isn't generally helpful as user identifier. The "Required" or "Not Allowed" status for rule issues has been removed, since all issues found on a report share this status. We've improved the text/background contrast of the report banner to make it more accessible.

Why did we make this change?

These changes make the report easier to read, easier to understand, and more actionable for users, while reducing visual noise.

See the Communications App Guide for Accessibility reporting intructions.

Text Box Fields Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Keep repeated instances of a form textbox synchronized.

We've updated the form functionality so that when multiple text boxes share the same field name, such as the same field appearing on multiple pages, entering or displaying a value in one instance will now be reflected in all other instances, for consistent Adobe-compatible behavior.

Why did we make this change?

Previously, repeated text boxes could behave as separate fields even when they shared a name, which could lead to inconsistent outputs. This change ensures repeated fields function as a single shared form field across the document, improving consistency for templates that reuse the same value in multiple locations.

Template Migration Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Migrate existing templates and route documents more efficiently with workflow parameters.

Business rules now support workflow parameters to drive conditional logic when selecting the routing paths for templates. This enhancement allows organizations to route documents dynamically based on parameter values provided by the workflow, rather than relying on rigid or duplicated configurations.

Why did we make this change?

Previously, migrating complex folder setups required separate workflows or templates to accommodate each variation in document structure. With this update, a single business rule can evaluate a workflow parameter (such as a template name or document type) and conditionally apply the appropriate template path. This change simplifies large-scale migrations, reduces configuration overhead, and increases flexibility when handling documents with varying XML structures.

Template Migration Enterprise Enterprise Plus

Reference workflow parameters with XPath expressions.

XPath expressions used in business rules can now reference workflow parameters, enabling more flexible and dynamic rule evaluation. This enhancement allows XPath conditions to incorporate parameter values—such as file names or naming patterns—when determining how documents are processed.

Why did we make this change?

This change allows XPath expressions to evaluate workflow parameters to replicate existing file-based routing logic, such as selecting templates based on XML file name patterns. This makes it easier to migrate complex folder setups to NorthStar CCM's cloud services, reduces the need for duplicate workflows, and provides greater control when handling documents with varied XML structures.

Issues Fixed

Version R2026.03.1

PDF Generation (Develop)

Summary: Generating a PDF in Develop was producing a document whose text layout did not match the original, with unexpected extra spacing that split words and inserted gaps between characters.

Solution: The PDF rendering was corrected so the generated output matched the original again (as long as PDFFloatPrecision was set to 6).

PDF Rendering

Summary: Rendering a specific PDF input was previously causing an unhandled exception and crash.

Solution: Changes made for Custom Encodings resolved the crash. The output still showed visual differences with some text rendered incorrectly due to unsupported Type1 CID fonts with /subtype/opentype; no fix could be made for these differences because the underlying PDF library does not support /subtype/opentype for Type1 CID fonts.

REST API Endpoints (Ruby/Onyx)

Summary: In the NorthStar CCM Ruby version, the /api/v2/status REST endpoint was missing from the REST API page and no longer returned ImageProductName, ProductVersion, and BuildNumber fields that were previously available in Onyx.

Solution: The API was updated to expose a simplified /api/v2/status response focused on server connectivity, introducing new StatusCode values (0–3) to indicate PE and DE connection states and removing fields deemed unnecessary for server status.

Word Document Importing

Summary: Importing a Word document into a Communications project was causing the import to fail with “Server exception occurred: Invalid XPath” in the enterprise-eudemo01-cx environment.

Solution: The issue was fixed in the Publishing Engine’s DOCX-to-EPR conversion path.

Version R2026.02.1

CJK Fonts

Summary: Opening certain vendor PDFs that used KSC-EUC-H font encoding without embedded font data or ToUnicode mappings was causing them to appear blank in Adobe and in NorthStar CCM-generated output.

Solution: The fix was to extend support to these external Adobe CJK encodings by adding the appropriate cmap and cidToUnicode resources (e.g., Adobe-Korea1.cidToUnicode) into Bin/Resources and implementing PDFFontResource to read the generated CTU mappings.

PDF Rendering

Summary: Rendering a certain PDF input in NorthStar CCM was causing repeated "Embedded font file is not a stream" warnings followed by an unhandled exception and memory leak in the Ecrion PDF engine.

Solution: The PDF rendering logic was updated to handle non-stream embedded font definitions in such input files, preventing the crash and leak.

Unicode Characters

Summary: Unicode characters in URL links within Procore XSL‑FO inputs were causing ASCII conversion failures, resulting in unhandled exceptions during PDF generation.

Solution: To fix this, URL handling was updated to properly support Unicode characters, preventing ASCII conversion errors and eliminating the resulting exceptions.

JSON Parsing

Summary: Numeric values from JSON data sources were being rounded (e.g., 0.0418 to 0.042) when rendered in Publisher.

Solution: Numeric parsing was updated to preserve the original precision so values from JSON were no longer rounded during rendering.

Microsoft Defender

Summary: Installing MHCCreate-25.08.1-06045.exe had left Engines.WebServer.exe unsigned, causing Microsoft Defender to block the service from running despite correct service rights, folder permissions, port configuration, and other troubleshooting attempts.

Solution: We identified that Engines.WebServer.exe needed the same code-signing treatment as PublisherSvc.exe. We provided a properly code-signed version so it could run without being blocked by Microsoft Defender.

Version R2026.01.1

CJK Language Support

Summary: We observed incorrect punctuation when rendering documents containing Korean, Chinese, or Japanese (CJK) text.

Solution: We've fixed this by updating the punctuation font selection logic so that punctuation no longer inherits the font of the preceding CJK character.

Padding and Autofit

Summary: We observed a scenario in which the spacing between text elements was not automatically expanding as the font size was changed.

Solution: We examined the issue and found that the issue was caused by a nested block container. Nested block containers should be avoided, and removing it corrected the issue.

Arabic Language Support

Summary: We observed parentheses in the Arabic XSL‑FO output could display incorrectly after the most recent upgrade.

Solution: We corrected the XSL‑FO formatting so that parentheses rendered in the proper direction in the generated PDF.