What's new in ROK

Every change that affects what you see or do in ROK is listed here, newest first. Changes that need you to act are called out.

20 October 2026

Notifications you won't miss

• The bell no longer marks everything read when you open it. A notification is read when you open it or mark it, or when you choose Mark all as read, and the count on the bell is the real number of unread notifications. Every notification is kept on the new Notifications page, with filters.
• Notifications by email. Review assignments, field reports, requested changes, mentions, items waiting for a publisher, Library corrections and plan notices are now emailed too. Several notifications arriving together come as one email, and anything you read in the console first is not emailed. Choose which ones you get under Account → Notifications — the choice is per agency.

Bringing operators in

• Share an access code as a link, a QR code or a poster. Each code on Access codes has a Share button: copy a join link that fills the code in for the operator, download a QR code, or print an A4 poster for the station wall.
• Know when someone is turned away. When an operator with a working code can't join because every seat is taken, the people who manage access, codes or billing are notified, and the Access codes page shows how often it has happened lately.
• A warning before a smaller plan. Choosing a lower plan, pausing or cancelling now lists anything you would be over — members, content items, storage — before you confirm. Billing explains what happens at a limit; nothing is deleted.

Authoring at scale

• Import a folder of documents. Choose several Word or PDF files, or a whole folder, and ROK turns each into a draft article in the guide you pick — subfolders become sub-guides. See Import a document.
• Filter content by type, guide (including its sub-guides), tag and author on All content.
• Templates for guides and checklists, edited with the real editor, alongside article templates — see Templates.
• Checklist steps can carry a note (shown under the step in the app) and steps and sections can be reordered by dragging or with the arrow buttons.

A complete audit trail

• ROK support visits are recorded and limited. When ROK staff enter your agency to help, they must give a reason, and your audit log shows when they entered, why, and when they left. A visit is view-only unless they ask to make changes, and it can never publish, notify your operators, change who has access, or touch billing. Visits end after four hours.
• More changes are logged: your security policy and other settings, approval rules, access codes, your plan and limits, and your agency's status. Suspensions and removals made by an administrator now name that administrator instead of "System".
• ROK Library corrections reach you. If ROK corrects Library content you imported, your editors are notified so you can review the change and re-import it — see Content library.

19 October 2026

The mobile app keeps itself current, and keeps your work

• Phones sync on their own. The app now syncs when it opens, when it comes back to the front, when signal returns, and every 15 minutes while open — not only on first launch or when someone taps Sync now. Sending the notification for a critical item also syncs phones in the background. See how offline reading works.
• Nothing an operator does offline is lost. Acknowledgments, completions, quiz attempts and reports used to be thrown away if the server answered with anything but "no network". Now each one is either recorded, retried later, or — if the server refuses it — kept on the phone with the reason, under Settings → N changes couldn't be saved. Views and streaks count the day the work happened, not the day it synced. See the offline queue.
• Quizzes and checklists are checked by ROK. The server grades quiz answers itself and records the completion on a pass; a checklist counts as complete only when every step of the current checklist is ticked. A phone can no longer mark a failed quiz complete.
• Signing out is per device. Signing out of the console, or being signed out for inactivity, no longer signs you out of your phone. On a shared phone, signing out removes your favourites, progress and unsent actions from the screen; anything not yet sent waits for you to sign in again and never uploads as the next person.
• Devices and remote wipe. A member's page in People & access lists the phones that hold your agency's content — model, app version and last sync — with Sign out & wipe for a lost phone. Each person sees their own phones under Account → Security. Removing someone from your agency now deletes your agency's copy from their phone the next time it connects.
• Disclaimer, legal links and account deletion in the app. Operators accept the operational disclaimer on first launch, re-accept updated terms, find the legal documents in Settings → Legal, and can delete their account from the app.
• Notifications name your agency and leave a record. A notification now reads like "Metro Fire — New: Swiftwater entry", and each send — including Notify operators — is recorded with how many devices it reached and whether delivery was confirmed.

Editing, images and print

• Links to other content work everywhere. Link to content covers guides, articles, checklists, quizzes, video and audio, with search, and operators can tap those links in the app. Library imports re-point links between imported items instead of leaving them broken.
• Phone preview. Phone next to Preview in the editor shows a phone-sized approximation of what operators see. Tables with merged cells, numbered lists (1. → a. → i., any start number) and image proportions now look the same in the editor, the preview, the app and the printed binder, and binders print real tables.
• iPhone photos and WebP upload. Every image is converted and resized in your browser as it uploads — HEIC and WebP become JPEG or PNG, location data is removed, and the app shows each image at its own proportions instead of cropping it to a fixed shape.

Your account stays yours

• Invitations to existing accounts must be accepted. Inviting an address that already has a ROK account used to add that account to your agency on the spot. Now the person is emailed an invitation and joins only when they accept it on the new Invitations page; they can also decline. Until then they are not a member and use no seat, and the Invites tab shows Awaiting acceptance or Declined. Action needed: if someone says an invitation "didn't add them", ask them to open the email (or sign in and use Review at the top of the console) and accept it.
• Password and two-factor resets respect other agencies. Reset password on someone who also belongs to another agency no longer sets a password: ROK emails them a link to choose one. A two-factor reset for such a person is refused and handled by ROK support. Every password an administrator sets is now followed by an email to its owner.
• Two-factor authentication is enforced by ROK itself. When your security policy requires it — and always for anyone who has an authenticator — staff permissions only work from a session that passed two-factor authentication, including print binders, push notifications, exports and billing. A stolen password alone no longer unlocks them. Nothing changes for people who already sign in with their code.
• Agencies edit only agency-facing profile fields. On a member's page you can still change their name, role, credentials, organization and contact details; their email, account status and sign-in settings are theirs.
• Suspended members can't print or notify. A member suspended in your agency can no longer generate print binders or send push notifications to your operators.
• Badge icons are plain shapes only. An uploaded SVG icon is rebuilt from its basic shapes — text, images, gradients, styles and links are dropped, so convert lettering to outlines before uploading. The same cleaning runs every time a badge is drawn, so a badge saved any other way can't carry anything else either.
• Safer sign-in links and pages. A sign-in link can only send you to a page on ROK itself, and the console and website now tell browsers not to let other sites embed them.

Saving, publishing and switching agencies you can rely on

• Each device keeps its own agency. Switching agency, opening the platform Library or entering an agency from the platform console now changes it only in the browser you did it in. Your phone and other computers stay where they are, so a phone with work waiting to sync is never moved to another agency. A switch to an agency you belong to is also where your next sign-in starts.
• Tabs notice a switch. The tabs of one browser share one sign-in. If you switch agency in one tab, the others say so and stop saving until you choose, so an item left open can no longer be saved into the wrong agency.
• Autosave tells the truth. Cancel and leaving the editor now save any change still waiting. A save that fails, or that hits someone else's newer version, shows in red as Not saved instead of Saved, and an autosave in progress always finishes before Publish runs.
• Shorter history. A run of autosaves by the same editor is now one entry in History (a new one every ten minutes it continues), not one every two seconds. History loads 30 entries at a time.
• Bulk Publish runs the editor's checks. Publish and Schedule on All content now check each item the way the editor does — a title, a complete body, no links to deleted items, and your agency's publish requirements — and skip those that fail. Bulk-published items now carry their publish date, so they appear in Review due, the calendar and the reports. Submit for review now moves drafts only; it no longer takes published items off operators' devices.
• No empty item reaches operators. On every path, scheduled publishes included, an item with no usable body can no longer be published, and clearing a published item's body holds the change until it has content again.
• Review screens match what is enforced. Review due now lists items on a shorter per-type interval than the default (a 90-day checklist used to wait for the 365-day default). The review queue shows approvals required by approval policies, not just the item's own box, and how many are still needed. The reviewer and @mention pickers list your colleagues again.
• Large agencies see everything. Lists that stopped at 1,000 rows without saying so — the content count on Billing and Settings, the editor's link check, the calendar, the broken-links report, People and the platform's user list — now read every row. Links to older items no longer block publishing, and every member receives push notifications.

Storage you can see, and suspension that takes effect at once

• One storage figure. Billing, Settings, Media (opens the admin console) and the dashboard now show the same storage figure the cap counts — the files stored under your agency. They used to add up only the files on record, so an upload could be refused before the meter reached 100%.
• Deleting content frees its files. Deleting items from All content now removes the files they had attached, unless another item still uses them; those stay in Media, unattached. Files used to stay stored, counting against your limit, with nowhere to find them.
• Every stored file is in Media. Library imports register every file they copy, including cover, hero and body images, and each is checked against your storage limit as it is copied; an import that reaches a limit removes what it had copied. Once a night, ROK lists any other stored file that was missing from Media — such as images from earlier imports — as an unattached file, so you can keep or delete it.
• Suspension is immediate everywhere. Suspending or removing a member, or suspending an agency, now stops their reading of published content and files on their next request. A session that was already open used to keep that for up to an hour.
• Library drafts stay private. Other agencies can now read only the files that published ROK Library items use, not every file in the Library.
• Faster lists. The database checks your access once per request rather than once per row, so long content lists load noticeably faster.

18 October 2026

Changes to published content are released, not shipped on save

• Held changes. A save to a published item now reaches operators straight away only when the person saving holds Publish and the item needs no two-person sign-off. Any other change — by someone with Edit content alone, or by anyone to an item that needs sign-off — is saved in the console while operators keep the version they have. The item's Changes since last publish card shows Not yet released, and someone who holds Publish sends the changes with Release to operators, after any approvals the item needs. See The content editor.
• Edit a live procedure without taking it down. A published item that needs sign-off used to refuse changes to its title, summary or body until it was unpublished. Those edits are now allowed and held, so you can prepare the next revision while operators keep the current one.
• Changes awaiting release. A new card in the Review queue (opens the admin console) lists published items with held changes, the version operators have, and the approvals each still needs. Awaiting my approval on the dashboard includes them too.
• What operators, binders and imports get. The app, printed binders (Download PDF) and Library imports always use the released copy. Acknowledgment coverage counts against it, so a held change does not make anyone's acknowledgment stale.
• Attachments of published items. Attachments have no versions, so on a published item only people who hold Publish can remove, replace or move an attachment, or attach a PDF, video or audio file. People with Edit content can still add images to the body.

Scheduling needs Publish

• Setting or moving a publish time needs Publish, including on a new item. Cancelling a schedule still needs only Edit content. ROK records who set each schedule, and publishes the item at its time only while that person still holds Publish in your agency.
• The scheduler counts as the publisher for two-person sign-off: their own approval does not count toward a scheduled publish, just as it would not if they pressed Publish.
• Waiting, not processing. An item the scheduled job is skipping now shows waiting in Scheduled (opens the admin console), with the reason, instead of processing… forever. The Reschedule field is disabled for people without Publish. See Scheduled.

Your agency's export download

• Latest export on Settings → General (opens the admin console) always offers the newest export your agency made there, with access-code values left out and search history and notification receipts de-identified. An export ROK's platform team makes is kept separately and is never offered on that page.

Scheduling, invitations and recognition fixes

• Scheduling no longer cancels sign-off. Setting or moving a publish time used to discard the two-person sign-off approvals an item already had, so an approved item that was then scheduled never went live. A publish time is now not treated as a change to the item: approvals — and operators' acknowledgments — survive it. Action needed: an item already stuck on processing… in Scheduled needs its approvals given again once.
• Saving a checklist, quiz, video or audio item keeps its schedule. It used to clear it.
• Invitations show Pending until they are opened. An invitation now turns Joined when the person opens the link, not the moment it is sent, so Resend and Revoke work on the ones nobody has opened. Revoking frees the seat, and never deletes an account another agency also uses. See Invitations.
• Streaks earn their points. The Extending a streak points are banked once a day, on a day the streak grows and the member passes a quiz, completes an item or signs an acknowledgment.
• A leaderboard you can see. With the leaderboard switched on, members see it on their badge wall under Account settings → Badges. See Recognition settings.

Help for every console screen

• Every page in the admin console now has a reference article describing each control, column and setting, who can use it, and what happens when you do. Select the ? button in the console header to open the article for the page you are on.
• This page.

Your agency's data

• Export your agency's data is on Settings → General (opens the admin console) for anyone who can manage settings. An export can be made once every 24 hours; the download link lasts 24 hours and the file is deleted after 14 days. Access-code values are left out, and search history and notification receipts are de-identified. See General settings and data export.
• The retention periods in the Privacy Policy are now enforced automatically every night. Reading history older than 400 days is reduced to daily counts per item, searches are kept for 180 days, read notifications for 90 days and the access audit log for two years. Compliance records — acknowledgments, quiz attempts and approvals — are never pruned.
• Push notifications for scheduled publishes are now retried if a delivery fails, with increasing gaps over about half an hour, instead of being dropped.

Import PDF documents

• The Import a document dialog (the upload icon in the editor toolbar) accepts PDF files as well as Word documents. Headings, lists and paragraphs are rebuilt from the page layout, and the original PDF is attached to the article by default. A scanned PDF with no text in it can still be attached as-is. See Import a document.

One sign-in page

• The console sign-in page and the sign-in page on www.rokrescue.com now share one design and behave the same way.

A faster start for new agencies

• A new agency starts with a draft Welcome to ROK guide, a starter access code for operators that is valid for 30 days, and a review policy and security policy set to sensible defaults.
• The dashboard shows a Getting started checklist until each first-run step is done.
• Invite up to 200 people at once by pasting a list into the invite dialog. Each row reports its own result.
• New Settings → Security page: require two-factor authentication for staff or for everyone, sign idle console sessions out after 30 or 60 minutes, and reset a member's authenticator when they lose their phone. See Security settings.
• Restoring an old version from an item's history is refused if someone changed the item after you opened it, and you can restore the last published version directly.

Five plans, monthly or annual

• Plans are now Free, Group, Team, Agency and Enterprise. Group, Team and Agency can be bought monthly or annually (annual costs ten months), with prices in Australian dollars excluding GST. Enterprise is arranged with us directly. See www.rokrescue.com/pricing.

Start an agency yourself

• Anyone can create an agency at www.rokrescue.com/start: confirm your email, accept the terms, name your agency, and you land in its console on the Free plan.
• If you sign in without belonging to any agency, the console now offers to redeem an access code, start an agency or request access, instead of showing an empty console. See Signed in without an agency.

17 October 2026

Privacy, terms and your account

• The Privacy Policy, Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy are published at www.rokrescue.com/legal. Action needed: everyone is asked to accept the current terms the next time they open the console, and again whenever they change.
• Account settings → Security now has Download your data (a copy of everything ROK holds against your account) and Delete account. See Account settings.

Tighter access controls

• You can only give someone a group whose permissions you hold yourself, you cannot change your own groups, and only people who can manage groups can make someone an Admin. The same rule applies to invitations and to the groups an access code grants.
• Mark reviewed now needs the Publish permission, and review dates, publish dates and authorship can only be changed by publishers.
• Acknowledgments and quiz results recorded offline are checked by the server when they sync: pass or fail is worked out on the server, and records more than 30 days old are refused.
• Deleting a member no longer fails, and the agency's compliance history stays readable: comments, revisions and approvals keep the name the person had at the time.

Help centre

• The help centre opened at www.rokrescue.com/help and inside the console, with search and the ? button in the console header.