HIFIS 4.0.60.5.2 Release Notes
As the Government of Canada advances the National Housing Strategy and Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy, the importance of data collection, management, and sharing has never been more pronounced. These elements are critical for advancing our collective understanding of homelessness and facilitating informed decision-making. Reaching Home underscores the significance of a data-driven, client-centred approach in addressing the needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness or at risk.
In this context, the Government of Canada remains dedicated to continually enhancing the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS). Our commitment is to ensure HIFIS is not only secure but also fully supportive of communities in their efforts to collect data, prevent homelessness, and drive meaningful reduction strategies.
In keeping with this commitment, Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada (HICC) continues to prioritize the security and integrity of HIFIS data. This release focuses on backend improvements with minimal impact on user workflows. It focuses on targeted security enhancements and system reliability improvements to help protect sensitive information and ensure accurate data is shared with HICC. These updates reinforce HIFIS as a trusted, secure system that supports communities by maintaining strong data protection standards.
If you have feedback on HIFIS you would like to share with us, please contact the HIFIS Client Support Center at 1-866-324-2375 or support@HIFIS.ca.
Important Notice:
Please be advised that this release is intended to address security vulnerabilities and improve system reliability. This update includes backend security enhancements related to document uploads and downloads. While no user action is required, organizations are encouraged to ensure users follow standard document management practices.
In addition, this release also resolves an issue that was discovered in Version 4.0.60.5.1 where the automated export process does not update the data tables prior to exporting to HICC. Following this update, automated exports will reflect the most current data available at the time of export.
No changes to client data or user workflows are expected as part of this release.
Warning:
Before implementing this release, a backup of your database is necessary. Taking a snapshot of your application tier before implementing this update is also important in the event that a roll back of the changes should be required.
Key Recommendations:
- Create a copy of your production environment and deploy it to your sandbox or testing site.
- Perform the update on the sandbox/testing environment first to evaluate the impact of the recalculation and the overall duration of the process.
- Verify that all key functionalities and client data behave as expected after the update in the sandbox environment before proceeding with the production update.
If you have any questions or require assistance, please contact the HIFIS Client Support Center.
Please note that Microsoft has ended its support of SQL Server 2014 effective July 9th, 2024. As a result, the lowest version of SQL Server supported by HIFIS will be SQL Server 2016.
We strongly recommend upgrading to SQL Server 2016. Moving forward versions and releases of HIFIS require SQL Server 2016, and Microsoft will not be able to assist with any server related problems experienced using SQL Server 2014. For more information on SQL Server 2014 support, you can visit the Microsoft website.
If your community has not yet implemented releases 4.0.58.1 or above, note that updating to release 4.0.60.5.2 may have an impact on your custom reports. This is due to changes to your database's underlying structure that were introduced in release 4.0.58.1 of HIFIS. Check release notes 4.0.58.1. for additional information on the affected tables. Consult your report service provider if you have any issues.
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Download HIFIS version 4.0.60.5.2
- Release date: 2026.01.20
- To download the application files, please contact the HIFIS Client Support Centre.
Release highlights
- Improved system security for document uploads and downloads to prevent unauthorized access.
- Fixed the automated export process to ensure quarterly data is updated prior to the export.
- Updated the Goods and Services filter to improve performance and reduce timeout issues when viewing results.
- In total, 5 Minor changes and 1 bug fix.
Minor changes
Minor changes included in this release:
Goods and Services
- Updated the Goods and Services filter presets and added Days 1–6 as options to reduce timeout issues when viewing results.
System
- Added a nonce token to prevent replay attacks during document uploads.
- Strengthened document submission security by tying requests to the logged-in user.
- Updated document identifiers to prevent access to documents through altered URLs.
- Added validation to block unauthorized document upload and download requests.
Bug fixes
Bug fixes included in this release:
Data Export
Fixed an issue where the automated export did not always process correctly in the background. (Issue ID: 771415).
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