RevMan release notes

June 12, 2025 

The RevMan 9.4.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements

  1. New in-text commenting system to improve the process of editing the review text. This new editor toolbar option is currently available on demand by contacting rhall@cochrane.org.
  2. EM submission file errors are now sent directly to the Support team instead of appearing in the Failed Notification Report. (Cochrane only).
  3. System administrators can enable banners and set messages in RevMan and RevMan Portfolio to increase user awareness and adoption of new features.
  4. Technical: Data refresh on Test and Training environments.
  5. Technical: Update of table editing components (AG Grid).
  6. Technical:  Investigate security and authorization for porto-api endpoint access.

June 2, 2025 

The RevMan 9.3.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements

  1. Improved study data import user experience with user-friendly error messages and the ‘Import’ button being disabled during processing to prevent duplicate action.  
  2. In the project management tool, completing or deleting the last task now automatically prompts milestone completion. 
  3. System administrators can remove rows from the decision log to fix errors. 
  4. EM rescinded decisions are supported and tracked in the decision log. (Cochrane only) 

Bugs

  1. The automatic generation of Risk of bias 2 supplementary material has been fixed to select and include the correct results for assessments of automatic analyses using contrast- and arm-level data. 
  2. The left-hand navigation scrollbar remains visible and functional after returning to the review Dashboard. 
  3. Totals in sensitivity analyses now update correctly in automatic analyses with subgroups. 
  4. Reference pop-ups in text sections display properly without jumping to the top of the page. 
  5. ‘Global find and mark links’ now excludes formatted text to prevent creation of invalid text. 
  6. Book icon in RevMan Portfolio now correctly links to the published review in the Cochrane Library. (Cochrane only)
  7. Technical: API Gateway now handles special characters in EM events. 

May 15, 2025 

The RevMan 9.2.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements   

  1. The maximum number of open invitations allowed at any one time for a given review has been raised from 10 to 20. 
  2. The search date is now displayed in UTC. 
  3. Date editing of protocol/review first published dates has been improved for system administrators and Cochrane Support (Cochrane only). 
  4. Editorial Manager contributions are updated in CRM when all the required reviews are completed (Cochrane only). 
  5. Performance improvements: The number of actions requiring a service account token has been reduced. 
  6. Technical: the number of requests made when viewing tables has been reduced. 

Bugs

  1. Issues affecting the expected deletion of content after subscription expiration and the end of the grace period has been fixed. 
  2. The spellchecker has been fixed to check all sections in any of the available views. 
  3. The review stage automatically changes from protocol to review once the protocol has been published. (Cochrane only).

May 1, 2025 

The RevMan 9.1.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements   

  1. Users can add and insert additional/other references in one go with the DOI lookup from Crossref. This greatly speeds up the workflow of citing in for example the Background and Discussion section. 
  2. Pre-print package updated to exclude Editors and Citation (Cochrane only)
  3. Accept "Protocol for external publication" as an invited article type. (Cochrane only)
  4. Technical: code managing Archie integration removed or simplified

Bugs 

  1. Corrections to the calculations of the chi2 value for the test for subgroup differences for analyses using HKSJ.
  2. Fixed an issue where the Characteristics of Included Studies could not be edited in full-text view in long format reviews.
  3. Resolved an error preventing the creation of new reviews without using an organizational template.
  4. Resolved issues generating PDF articles (Cochrane only)
  5. Fixed Risk of bias 2 labels that were not updating in the summary view after outcome name changes.
  6. Reviews can be created from a RM5 file containing study names with special characters without error.
  7. After creating a review from a RM5 file, the certainty of evidence is set to ‘Not specified'.

April 14, 2025

The RevMan 9.0.0 release includes the following changes

New features and improvements

  1. RevMan Meta-attack game.
  2. Technical: Removed dependency on RM5 file for CRS IDs assignment.

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed cursor position of ‘Find and replace’ in Proof view. (Cochrane only)

April 8, 2025   

The RevMan 8.21.0 release includes the following:.

New features and improvements

  1. The contrast in text editing in RevMan has been improved: text is now black against white background.
  2. Introduced the option to generate a pre-print package for Cochrane reviews. (Cochrane only)
  3. Focused review format and GRADEpro integration is automatically enabled for reviews with a Remove decision. (Cochrane only)

Bug fixes

  1. When there is only 1 result in a subgroup and the HKSJ method is selected, Z test value is presented for the subgroup test for overall effect instead of T test value.
  2. The track change on/off setting now persists when navigating between views.
  3. html entities for downloaded PNG are now rendered correctly.
  4. Subgroups data row results in CSV export are now in the same order as displayed in the forest plot.
  5. Test for subgroup differences should not be shown without subgroups.

March 27, 2025   

The RevMan 8.20.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements

  1. Introducing more granular permissions to reduce number of people with org admin permission in RevMan in the Cochrane organization:
    1. Read access to Cochrane Portfolio: this permission means that the user can search for any review in the Cochrane organization and open them to view. It is not possible to edit any content related to the review and none of the portfolio features are available. It is also not possible to create or delete reviews.
    2. Write access to Cochrane Portfolio: this permission means that the user can search for any review in the Cochrane organization and open them to edit if there is an open project for the review. It is not possible to create or delete reviews and none of the portfolio features are available.
    3. Editor: this permission means that the user can search for any review in the Cochrane organization and open them to edit if there is an open project for the review and the review is in editorial phase and view if the review is in authoring phase, see more info on editorial lock. It is not possible to create or delete reviews and none of the portfolio features are available.
  2. The milestones and task panel on Dashboard will now be collapsed by default and instead it will either display when there are overdue or due tasks and the milestone summary has been moved to the panel header so it can always be seen.
  3. The way we manage who is considered an active author in the Cochrane organisation is improved. (Cochrane only)

Bug fixes

  1. When there are no submission files attached for Proposal submission, em-events-handler lambda execution no longer ends up with an error
  2. Issues with resolving users who made tracked changes are resolved

March 20, 2025   

The RevMan 8.19.0 release includes the following changes:   

New features and improvements   

  1. Dynamic analysis results can be inserted for analysis subgroups.
  2. Default summary effect CI method changed to Wald in random-effects analyses.
  3. Improved performance when finding reviews in organizations with many reviews. 
  4. Archie retirement: Get published JATS from Archive instead of Archie. (Cochrane only) 
  5. Technical: Improved handling of EM invitation events displayed in the decision log to show date of daily invitation batch processing. (Cochrane only)
  6. Technical: Simulate Editorial Manager decisions. (Cochrane only) 

Bug fixes 

  1. Fixed 'risk of bias' fixing tool so that it checks for system administrator permission instead of  Archie super user permission.
  2. Removed notifications for ‘Proposal’ article type from the ‘Failed notifications’ report. (Cochrane only)

March 05, 2025 

The RevMan 8.18.0  release includes the following changes: 

New features and improvements 

  1. Tables are shown in landscape mode in the article PDFs.
  2. Technical: ReviewDB access logs in JSON format.
  3. Technical: Decision log events load only when the panel is expanded, improving overall performance of the review dashboard.

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed automatic renumbering of figures when a connected analysis is deleted.
  2. Fixed default Confidence Interval (CI) to 95% CI when using the calculator in GIV analyses.
  3. Fixed an issue preventing the correct transfer of combined sample sizes from multiple arms from the calculator to the forest plot in GIV analyses.  
  4. Resolved an issue preventing an organisation's project report from being generated.

February 19, 2025 

The RevMan 8.17.0  release includes the following changes: 

New features and improvements 

  1. Include figure number in dynamic analysis results and stop supporting inclusion of analysis number. 
  2. Disabled validation warnings and User Interface (UI) messages with recommendations for new random effects methods as these are not yet mandatory for use in Cochrane reviews. 
  3. Performance improvements: investigated reasons for slow loading of Cochrane ‘Independent authors’ unit in RevMan. (Cochrane only) 
  4. Technical: Add Cochrane ID to the access log. 
  5. Technical: Endpoint for getting versions of a review. 

Bug fixes

  1. Show student t test instead of z test for test of overall effect for analyses and subgroups using HKSJ.
  2. Individual subscriber role not presented in user search results. 
  3. Performance improvements: investigated error displayed after slow loading of an organization's Users page. 

February 11, 2025

The RevMan 8.16.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Changes to permission model to reduce the total number of roles in Keycloak in order to improve performance. 
  2. Organization settings now include the option to allow unit leads to delete reviews in their organizational unit(s).
  3. Improved handling of EM invitation events to ensure that after daily batch processing of invitation events:
    1. The 'submission due' chip is displayed correctly on the review dashboard and the review is unlocked when there is an open invitation to submit.
    2. The 'submission due' chip is updated when there are changes to the submission due date in Editorial Manager.
    3. The review is locked when the authors submit the manuscript to Central Editorial Service or when the invitation is closed.

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where changing study grouping settings in an analysis after initial setup could cause the rob table information to be incorrectly/partially populated and displayed in the supplementary material. 

January 23, 2025

The RevMan 8.15.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Introduced new random effects methods in RevMan:
    1. Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML): This method offers a more reliable estimation of heterogeneity variance.
    2. Confidence interval for heterogeneity variance: The use of Q-profile statistics helps convey the uncertainty in the estimate and provides an indication as to whether there truly is heterogeneity.
    3. Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman (HKSJ) method: Designed to deliver more accurate confidence intervals for the summary effect.
    4. Prediction intervals: Utilizes t-distribution or normal distribution to offer clearer insights into review findings.
  2. Integrated guidance for study-centric data: The pop-up containing information about study-centric data has been replaced with contextual guidance provided through clickable information 'i' icons in the 'Review criteria' and 'Add analysis' screens.

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed an issue with invitation links for long titles or titles with special characters.

January 09, 2025

The RevMan 8.14.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Dynamic analysis results are now available in the Abstract section. 
  2. It's now faster to add the first analysis in an analysis group as you can add it directly from the analysis group page
  3. Reviews in your portfolio are now always highlighted when you navigate from a search, open a project or copy a review.
  4. The Dashboard message when there is no project started on a Cochrane review was updated to help authors contact support. (Cochrane only)

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed issue with sorting by completion date in portfolio Tasks reporting
  2. Hazard Ratio and Rate Ratio options are now disabled for analyses with mixed data sources
  3. The risk of bias summary is now displaying on the analysis list screen summary view), edit analysis graph tab and in the analysis supplementary material when the setting is enabled
  4. Publication no longer blocked for long-format reviews with analyses excluded from publication (forest plots excluded in the publication package) (Cochrane only)

December 18, 2024

The RevMan 8.13.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Make mentioning analysis number optional for dynamic analysis results.
  2. No personal information (name or e-mails) are captured in our front-end analytics tool.
  3. Contextual links to relevant handbook chapters for statistical options when selecting options for analyses.
  4. Options in Manage author/author support dialog disabled when review is inactive.
  5. Allow editor's copy to be created after the same PDF has been submitted twice. (Cochrane only)

December 12, 2024

The RevMan 8.12.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. New functionality to insert dynamic analysis results into text to keep your reporting up to date. Inserted analysis results are automatically updated as the underlying data in the analyses changes.
  2. Optimisation based on orgId, resulting in ~18% faster performance of the functionality to retrieve authors for all reviews within an organisation.

Bug fixes

  1. Improved display of reference pop-ups in smaller text sections or near the top, ensuring the text editor toolbar no longer hides them.
  2. Fixed handling of special characters that displayed incorrectly in the 'Manage author/author support' dialog in RevMan portfolio. 
  3. Fixed issue with internal links to headings within the same review section in the default view, ensuring they now navigate correctly to the linked section.
  4. Fixed permissions for editors to allow them to revert to a previous version while the editorial/production lock is enabled on the review. (Cochrane only)
  5. Improved handling of HTML entities in study names from CRS responses to prevent submission failures. (Cochrane only)
  6. Fixed retrieval of incorrect DOI version when generating production package to ensure that the base DOI is the same as the published version. (Cochrane only)

November 28, 2024

The RevMan 8.11.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Added functionality to remember link type and target when editing a link.
  2. Published reviews only have one version marked as 'Published' in the History and shows the license and copyright information. (Cochrane only)

Bug fixes

  1. Identified root cause for RevMan downtime on November 14 and released a fix.
  2. Fixed issue where study import failed to match names with HTML entities.
  3. Fixed 'Manage unit lead invitations' being greyed out despite pending invitations.
  4. Set reviews to inactive when the project is closed.
  5. Fixed that flexible reviews were created with an incorrect set of excluded characteristics.
  6. Resolved problem where org admins could not edit reviews when the review was locked. (Cochrane only)
  7. Allowed SysAdmins to move reviews. (Cochrane only)
  8. Fixed that review group failed to show on RevMan Dashboard for reviews managed in Archie. (Cochrane only)
  9. Ensured projects are only started on Porto reviews. (Cochrane only).

November 14, 2024

The RevMan 8.10.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Enabled export and import of RoB1 files with the judgement type "Not applicable".
  2. Moving between author and author support role is now managed in the Portfolio.
  3. Added options to restrict who can transfer and move reviews at the organization level.
  4. Added a loading icon for Portfolio lists.
  5. Ensured a consistent order of study references in the view.
  6. Updated review access and project status handling after publication and rejection. (Cochrane only)
  7. Added confirmation for role changes in the Manage author/author support dialog to ensure. (Cochrane only)

Bug fixes

  1. Self-notify about text section update: Users will now receive notifications when text sections are updated.
  2. Special expand fields: These fields are now only included when combined with other expand fields.
  3. lastPublishedDate: This field will no longer be set to null when a version is tagged or a review is reverted.

October 31, 2024

The RevMan 8.9.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Introduced editorial and production locks to block unauthorized edits by authors and unit leads (Cochrane only).
  2. Enabled search for reviews across all organizations, enhancing accessibility and efficiency (Cochrane System Admins only).
  3. Porto codes now allow up to 8 characters - supporting any characters.
  4. Moved the message about the order of figures and tables above the list (Cochrane only).
  5. Removed the Focused Review Format pop-up for new reviews to improve user experience (Cochrane only).
  6. Prevent the transfer of irrelevant review content when copying reviews in Porto; e.g. what's new events and History.

Bug fixes

  1. Fixed issue with special characters not displaying correctly on the Author Invitation Page.
  2. Addressed the problem where search results were not highlighted on the Assessment Due tab.

October 22, 2024

The RevMan 8.8.0 release includes the following changes:

New features and improvements

  1. Managing roles on the review as a unit lead or organization administrator is now easier:
    1. Author support role can be managed to grant access to edit the review without changing the author byline.
    2. One dialog for related actions: adding, managing invitations, removing, changing contact person and moving between author and author support.
    3. Multiple invitations can be sent swiftly.
    4. You will have immediate feedback when a user is added or invited, to reassure that the operation was successful.
  2. A P or R icon is displayed next to each review to indicate either the Protocol or the Review/Update stage. Icons are displayed in the RevMan Portfolio as well as on the My reviews page.

Bug fixes

  1. Subscript and superscript nesting is prevented in text sections to avoid validation errors when processing the files for publication.