Release 12 – January 4, 2026

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New Features and Enhancements

Cross-Portal Enhancements

Liaison's suite of portals work together to help you collect and manage applications. The CAS application, also referred to as the CAS Applicant Portal, is the system where applicants find and apply to your programs. You receive these applications in WebAdMIT or Liaison Outcomes, where you perform your review processes. The appearance of your program and your requirements are customized in the CAS Configuration Portal, where you establish the program-specific elements that your applicants will interact with. Additionally, your program may use one or more of the following tools and platforms:

API: a data integration tool.
CAS Applicant Gateway: a platform for applicants who have already submitted their CAS application to complete and upload additional materials requested by their programs.
CAS Liaison Analytics and Othot: advanced analytics solutions and data reporting tools.
CAS Liaison Letters: a platform for evaluators to submit their letters of recommendation.
Enrollment Marketing and TargetX: customer relationship management (CRM) systems for student lifecycle management.
Living Profile: a platform where students can connect their academic pursuits with their career aspirations.
SlideRoom: a platform for collecting digital portfolios.
Time2Track: a platform for tracking, verifying, and managing experiences.

Disclaimer: on rare occasions, a new feature or enhancement may be moved to a future release or otherwise subject to change.

Experience Description/Key Responsibilities Character Limit Increase

This enhancement is automatically available for use by all CASs using the standard Experiences section. No action is required on the part of any association, school, or program. Contact a member of your account team for more information.

The Description/Key Responsibilities field in the Experiences section of the CAS Applicant Portal has increased its character limit from 600 to 700 characters. This allows applicants to provide more detailed information.

If you extract this data via the CAS API, Liaison Outcomes, or WebAdMIT, you may need to update your data integrations to accommodate the increased character limit.

Coming Soon: TOEFL Scoring Scale Changes

This enhancement is automatically available for use by all CASs accepting unofficial and official TOEFL scores. No action is required on the part of any association, school, or program. Contact a member of your account team for more information.

Starting January 21, 2026, ETS's TOEFL exam will have a new 1-6 scoring scale for each section and overall total score. This new scale is more directly aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). To accommodate this, the following changes will be made:

CAS Applicant Portal: applicants will be able to report their scores in both the old and new scoring scales in the Standardized Tests section. If available in your CAS, they can continue to send official TOEFL scores to their programs via the CAS TOEFL code.
CAS API: the CAS API Application response models (v1 & v2) have been extended with two new JSON nodes to support these changes. The location of the new node for applicant reported tests is academicHistory->tests->reported->TOEFL2026, while the location of the new node for official tests is academicHistory->tests->official->TOEFL2026. For more information, including supported properties under each node, see the application response models on the CAS API Swagger page.
Liaison Analytics: TOEFL scores on the new scale will be available in the existing TOEFL dashboards.
Liaison Outcomes: the updated scoring scale will be reflected in the TOEFL score table.
WebAdMIT: a new set of TOEFL-related fields for this new scoring scale will be available. You must add these fields to any place you may already pull in TOEFL fields (e.g., lists, exports, scoring, etc.).

Important: when you receive official TOEFL scores taken after January 21, 2026, ETS will provide the historical scale equivalent for only the overall total score (i.e., both a 6 (on the new scoring scale) and 120 (on the old scoring scale)). ETS is not providing the historical scale equivalent for any section scores (i.e., you will only get a 4 (on the new scoring scale) for the Reading section). Be sure to review all your templates to accommodate the new scoring scale and capture the data you need.

More information will be shared in future release notes.

CAS API Enhancements

The following enhancements are automatically available for the CAS API, and no action is required on the part of any school or program. If you have any questions about these features, contact support.

Disclaimer: on rare occasions, a new feature or enhancement may be moved to a future release or otherwise subject to change.

New Jumpstart API Automatically Filters the Add Programs Page

A new public, instance-scoped CAS Jumpstart API allows you to pre-filter the Add Programs page in the Applicant Portal so that applicants initially see only the programs that belong to the schools or campuses they've been conditionally admitted to.

For more information, see the conditionalAdmits endpoint under the Application resource in the CAS API Swagger page.

Coming Soon!

Please review the list of upcoming events, including product updates and regional training opportunities.

Event	Date	Details
Shared Lookup Table Updates for Spring 2026	March 2026	Many fields in the Applicant Portal contain predefined answer values that applicants can select; for example, the Country and County fields both have predefined answer values. These values are housed in shared "lookup tables" which are viewable in your CAS's/UniCAS's data dictionary file. Lookup table change requests can be sent to a member of your account team, who will compile and review these requests. New lookup table values will appear in the CAS Applicant Portal in March 2026 (subject to change). Visit the Shared Lookup Table Updates page for more information.
CAS 3+ Upgrade	2026	Liaison is excited to announce that in the 2026-2027 application cycle, all of our Centralized Application Services (CAS) will be upgraded to a new, mobile-first, and modern applicant portal that we call CAS 3+. Visit the CAS 3+ Upgrade page to learn more about its key benefits and a preview of the upgraded application.
experience: LIAISON \| Baltimore	June 8–10, 2026	Set sail with us to explore new strategies, uncover trends shaping the future, and dive into real stories of transformation from peers using Liaison's solutions at experience: LIAISON, June 8–10, 2026 in Baltimore, MD. Register now!

Event

Date

Details

Shared Lookup Table Updates for Spring 2026

March 2026

Many fields in the Applicant Portal contain predefined answer values that applicants can select; for example, the Country and County fields both have predefined answer values. These values are housed in shared "lookup tables" which are viewable in your CAS's/UniCAS's data dictionary file.

Lookup table change requests can be sent to a member of your account team, who will compile and review these requests. New lookup table values will appear in the CAS Applicant Portal in March 2026 (subject to change).

Visit the Shared Lookup Table Updates page for more information.

CAS 3+ Upgrade

2026

Liaison is excited to announce that in the 2026-2027 application cycle, all of our Centralized Application Services (CAS) will be upgraded to a new, mobile-first, and modern applicant portal that we call CAS 3+. Visit the CAS 3+ Upgrade page to learn more about its key benefits and a preview of the upgraded application.

experience: LIAISON | Baltimore

June 8–10, 2026

Set sail with us to explore new strategies, uncover trends shaping the future, and dive into real stories of transformation from peers using Liaison's solutions at experience: LIAISON, June 8–10, 2026 in Baltimore, MD. Register now!