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Gateway Releases

20252024

Welcome to our Gateway release summary page!

Here, you can learn more about the Gateway's newest features, improvements, and updates, through periodic summaries that are designed to be more digestible than our full ticket by ticket release notes. If you are interested in the detail, our full release notes can be accessed here. Our Technology Team is committed to continuously enhancing the Gateway, delivering regular updates and improvements through agile, user-focused development. Explore each detailed release to discover how the Gateway is evolving, or await the higher level summaries that we aim to publish every eight weeks (covering the previous four releases).

To learn more about what is planned on our development roadmap please see the 'What next?' section here. If you would like to share feedback or suggest improvements to add to the Gateway roadmap, please contact us through our Support Centre.

April 2025 update

A streamlined and flexible approach to managing Data Access Requests:

Data Custodians now have a Gateway-powered option for a cost-free, open-source solution for the submission, management and review of Data Access Requests for Datasets & BioSamples surfaced on the Gateway via the Data Access Module.

For Data Custodians, the Data Access Module provides functionality to:

  • Manage your Data Access Requests in one place via an easy-to-use web-based interface and application dashboard.
  • Tailor a Data Access Request form to your needs in alignment with the 5 Safes Framework. Our ‘Question Bank’ feature allows you to easily drag and drop questions to build your form as well as customise individual question guidance to your requirements.
  • Easily review requests and manage decisions via automated notifications and status updates shared directly with your relevant Team members and applicants.  
  • Support applicants during the review stage through in-application annotations and message sharing.

For Researchers, the Data Access Module provides:

  • Transparent updates about the status of your Data Access Requests.
  • Streamlined communication with Data Custodians about your application.
  • A simple, web-based interface for drafting and managing applications. The new ‘My Data Access Requests’ button on the Gateway homepage will take you to your personal application dashboard.

If you are interested in adopting the Gateway’s Data Access Module as a Data Custodian, please reach out to the HDR UK Technology Team by raising a Support Request ticket here.

More detailed guidance on how to use the Data Access Module will be coming soon.

Increased Gateway search flexibility and precision:

  • To help refine your Dataset & BioSamples search further, it is now possible to filter by ‘Data Standard’ (e.g. OMOP, FIHR), outlining which standardised models a particular Dataset is stored in or transformed to.

Improvements to the Data Custodian pages:

  • To provide further clarity on which entities are created or managed by particular Data Custodians, only Collections owned by a particular Data Custodian will now appear on their page. Previously, Collections owned by other users and Data Custodians would appear on a Data Custodian page if a Dataset & BioSample of the Data Custodian was part of a Collection.

Improvements to the Cohort Discovery Access Requests process:

  • The wording and format of email notifications when requesting access to Cohort Discovery has been refined to provide further clarity to users on the status of their request. 

Improvements to metadata onboarding:

  • Renaming of integrations to more user-friendly terminology:
    • Custom Integrations (formerly ‘Private Apps’) are bespoke integrations Data Custodians can setup with specific permissions and related ids for secure, automated interaction with the Gateway via API.
    • Predefined Integrations (formerly ‘Gateway Apps’) offer a readily available set of useful operations within the Gateway itself, that can be set to periodically retrieve metadata from an external source, for example.
  • Update to Custom Integrations to prompt Data Custodians to generate a new unique client ID when permissions are changed (supporting data security), and we have added a new self-service button to generate a new client ID.
  • Adding a DOI for a publication related to a Dataset & BioSample will now automatically create a Publication entity on the Gateway (if one doesn’t already exist), increasing linkages across research resources on the Gateway and reducing duplication of effort for Data Custodians.

Detailed release notes:

  • Alongside these release notes summaries, we are delighted to share more detailed, technical descriptions of our feature releases and bug fixes. Details can be found via the ‘News > Detailed Release Notes’ section of the Homepage banner, or by clicking here.

Since our last release notes publication, we have identified and resolved over 40 bugs to ensure the Gateway provides a consistent, smooth and reliable user experience.

Increased Gateway search flexibility and precision:

  • We have improved search and filtering options under ‘Datasets & BioSamples’ making it easier for users to find what they need: 
    • Search for datasets using standard terms (including ICD-10, MeSH, SNOMED CT codes)
    • Search by dataset DOI (if provided in the metadata)
    • Filter by Data Custodian Network to narrow your search to specific networks, for example the NHS Research Secure Data Environment Network
    • Filter by Dataset ‘subtype’ to refine results by selecting disease-specific categories like ‘cancer’ or ‘cardiovascular’
    • Click directly from a Dataset card to a Data Custodian’s profile page, making it easier to discover related resources
    • Download observations, summary and structural metadata for every Dataset listed on the Gateway.
  • Users can now filter by ‘Data Custodian’ under ‘Collections / Networks’ to see if a particular custodian is part of a wider network (for example, the NHS Research Secure Data Environments) and view the Collections managed by that custodian.
  • Users can also filter by ‘Collections’ within the Gateway Data Use Register to identify Research Projects and Data Uses grouped by a particular curated list of resources.
  • The ‘online’ Publications search now supports searching by multiple datasets at once, helping users discover a wider range of relevant research outputs

Improvements to uploading and managing Gateway entities:

  • The Gateway’s Data Use Register upload feature can now automatically detect and link to datasets that are already discoverable on the Gateway, streaming navigation and improving dataset findability. 
  • To support the updating and creating of Gateway entities, A new What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor has been introduced for creating and updating Gateway entities. This improvement makes it easier to format text, ensuring users can preview content exactly as it will appear before publishing.

Requesting access to Cohort Discovery:

  • The process for requesting access to the Cohort Discovery tool is now more streamlined and user friendly. To find out more about how to request access here.
  • The Cohort Discovery Admin panel now automatically pulls relevant information from a user’s profile when they submit a request to use the tool. This speeds up the review process to enable faster approvals and access to the tool.

Team management:

  • When making multiple permission changes within a Data Custodian Team, users now receive one consolidated email with all of the changes to their permissions, reducing the number of notifications sent to Team members.

Obtaining user feedback:

  • We have introduced a user satisfaction survey to make it easier to share your thoughts on the Gateway experience. A ‘pop-up’ window will appear at the bottom of your screen whilst navigating Gateway.

Additionally, we have identified and resolved over 100 bugs to ensure the Gateway provides a consistent, smooth and reliable user experience.