VACompanion.us Website 1.01.73
VA Companion is easier to share, print, and use with assistive technology.
Shareable handout and accessibility commitment
Veterans, families, advocates, and community partners can now share VA Companion directly or print a concise one-page handout.
- Added a site-wide Share action with Copy Link, Facebook, X, and Instagram / More Apps options.
- Uses the native device share menu when available and provides a clear copy-and-paste fallback for Instagram and other apps.
- Added a letter-size printable product handout with a verified QR code that opens https://vacompanion.us/.
- Published a scoped WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance statement with testing practices, scope boundaries, and an accessibility feedback contact.
- Improved keyboard focus, dialog semantics, touch targets, responsive reflow, reduced-motion behavior, and print output for the new experience.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Clearer crisis and community help
The Crisis Help page now makes it faster to choose emergency, Veteran, active-duty military, or local essential-needs assistance without confusing their urgency.
- Placed 911, the Veterans Crisis Line, and the Active Duty Military Crisis Line in equal top-tier cards, with an unmistakable 911 call action, Veterans Crisis Line text and chat, and active-duty chat and overseas options.
- Added 211 as the clearly separated non-emergency path for housing, food, bills, transportation, health-care referrals, caregiver support, disaster help, and other essential needs.
- Added a private in-browser Community Help Navigator plus 211 support in the main call-script builder, with optional caller and ZIP details and practical questions for the resource specialist.
- Kept direct Call 211 access and the official local 211 finder available when local dialing or service coverage varies.
- Preserved 48-pixel contact targets and a predictable 911, 988, active-duty military, then 211 reading order across desktop and mobile.
- 211 support was recommended by Steve Preminger, Santa Clara County Veterans Commission.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Saved events, calendar subscriptions, and event alerts
The Veteran Events calendar now makes it easier to keep useful listings and hear about new events that match a selected area or topic.
- Added browser-private saved events with a dedicated Saved filter; saved event IDs stay on the current device.
- Added rolling, filter-aware calendar feeds that calendar apps can subscribe to and refresh automatically.
- Added double-opt-in email alerts with weekly digest or new-event delivery choices and optional cancellation or material-change notices.
- Every alert includes a two-step unsubscribe link, and failed delivery is paused after repeated attempts.
- Added event-specific search metadata and a live event sitemap to help public event pages appear in relevant searches.
- Added duplicate protection for community submissions plus private admin alert counts, run status, and manual due-alert delivery.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Clearer event sharing and corrections
Veterans can share a specific event with a useful preview and privately report details that need verification.
- Added durable event-specific links with the event title, description, flyer image, and canonical URL for social and message previews.
- Kept desktop sharing dependable with Copy Link and mobile sharing connected to the native share sheet.
- Added structured Stand Down, Resource Fair, and Memorial tags so quick filters remain accurate even when source categories are broad.
- Added a public Report a Change form and a private admin queue for verification, notes, resolution, and dismissal.
- Renamed the event views from Agenda and Month to the more familiar List and Calendar.
- Kept structured tags synchronized during official VA event refreshes and verified all seven VA Companion site-health checks.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Faster calendar and local directory searches
Veteran Events, provider searches, and public statistics now recover faster after a site restart and use less data during ordinary browsing.
- Added compact calendar summaries, progressive result rendering, Load More controls, and lazy event-detail loading.
- Added quick filters for local events, the next 30 days, Stand Downs, resource fairs, memorials, virtual events, and official VA events; Stand Downs and resource fairs match imported titles and details even when their source category is broader.
- Added source and sort controls, remembered location preferences, nearby distance results, and clearer empty-search actions.
- Enabled site-scoped static compression, versioned asset caching, event API caching, ETags, and compressed event responses.
- Reduced cold city/provider searches by selecting a small indexed candidate set before loading complete provider records.
- Added a durable daily public-statistics snapshot so an application restart does not put the expensive count refresh in a visitor request.
- Verified all seven VA Companion site-health checks after deployment.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Veteran Events calendar and community submissions
Veterans and families can now find official VA outreach and reviewed local events in one searchable calendar.
- Added agenda and month views with date, category, attendance, state, city, ZIP, and distance filters.
- Refreshes official VA events daily, with a weekly full reconciliation and visible source freshness.
- Added event details, directions, sharing, source links, and downloadable calendar files.
- Added a comprehensive public submission form; community listings remain private until admin approval.
- Added admin review, editing, publishing, source health, import history, and manual refresh controls.
- Uploaded flyers are limited to 5 MB and automatically deleted after the event ends while the event record remains.
- Added HTTPS support for events.vacompanion.us, which redirects to the canonical calendar.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Mobile menu destination alignment
Phone-size navigation now lands on the selected tool or section instead of leaving the destination below the viewport.
- Stopped the hidden off-canvas tool rail from being counted as a vertical sticky navigation bar.
- Aligned native section links with the measured mobile header height.
- Restored reliable sticky Menu and Crisis access while scrolling on mobile browsers.
- Kept tablet and desktop navigation offsets unchanged.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Automatic browser-extension user counts
The homepage and extension page now use a locally cached status feed that refreshes from the official browser stores every four hours.
- Added a VA Companion-only scheduled task for Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge Add-ons user counts.
- Validates store responses before publishing and retains the last known good values during a temporary store outage.
- Updated the current combined count to 234: 28 Chrome users and 206 Edge users, checked July 21, 2026.
- Kept store requests on the server so public pages stay fast and visitors do not contact the stores merely by viewing VA Companion.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Automatic VA News and extension store status
Official news stays current without a manual admin refresh, while veterans can see the published browser versions and current store-listed user count.
- Added a least-privilege scheduled task that refreshes enabled official VA news feeds every four hours.
- Ran the first automatic catch-up and refreshed all four official news sources.
- Updated the browser-extension page to show Chrome 0.2.2 and Edge 0.2.1.
- Added a Current users label showing 212 combined store-listed users: 28 Chrome and 184 Edge, checked July 14, 2026.
- Kept the manual admin news refresh available as a fallback.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Enterprise navigation and guided tool workflows
A broad website experience pass makes common veteran workflows easier to find, understand, save, and resume.
- Rebuilt the website navigation into a modern icon-led task rail with responsive desktop and mobile behavior.
- Increased the visual priority and contrast of Crisis Help so the life-safety action stays easy to find.
- Upgraded the Rating, VA Pay, and Benefits by Rating calculators with guided steps, clearer summaries, and saved-work recovery.
- Added focused C&P practice modes with private browser progress and notes.
- Added an immediate-action Death & Burial task hub and a copyable military funeral honors script.
- Improved TERA research with presets, guided filters, sorting, and a persistent shortlist.
- Added Saved Work shortcuts, filtering, and exact scenario restoration for member workflows.
- Verified updated workflows at phone, tablet, laptop, and wide-desktop widths without horizontal page overflow.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Traffic report date windows and Pacific-time polish
- Added analytics and traffic-report windows for last 24 hours, last 7 days, last 30 days, last 180 days, and custom date ranges.
- Changed custom report ranges to use Pacific Time calendar days while keeping database timestamps stored in UTC.
- Updated the printable traffic report header with the VA Companion logo for a more polished board, grant, and outreach packet.
- Changed visible report timestamps to Pacific Time so California admins do not see the next UTC day as today's date.
- Corrected the website release-log dates affected by UTC/Pacific rollover.
- No desktop installer was published with this website reporting polish.
Traffic reporting and visitor-area analytics
- Added local DB-IP Lite visitor-area resolution for public analytics without sending visitor IP addresses to a third-party lookup API.
- Added a compact GeoIP visitor cache so VA Companion stores only observed visitor lookups instead of importing a large global IP-range table into SQL.
- Added an hourly server task to refresh visitor-area cache rows and backfill recent unresolved analytics events.
- Added a private admin Traffic Report that summarizes events, sessions, visitors, locations, referrers, device mix, tool usage, and daily activity.
- Kept the report privacy-safe for grant and outreach use by excluding raw IP addresses, visitor fingerprints, member names, VA.gov records, claim details, medical details, and typed form text.
- Added DB-IP attribution in the private analytics area and report.
- No desktop installer was published with this website analytics release.
Contact support and admin-only IP safety update
- Added a direct Email Support button on the public Support page.
- Added a clear Contact VA Companion card with admin@vacompanion.us for non-registered visitors.
- Added raw IP capture to VA Companion usage analytics for administrator-only review.
- Stored IP address, hashed fingerprint, and browser metadata on new chat-room threads and replies for moderation and credible safety response.
- Kept public forum responses free of IP fields; protected details are returned only through admin moderation and analytics endpoints.
- Updated the privacy page to explain IP safety logs and emergency moderation use.
- Verified analytics write/read, public forum read, admin analytics read, privacy page availability, and public forum leak check.
Medical provider result copy and paging polish
- Removed internal wording from provider result status copy so visitors see clear result counts, verification guidance, and View More actions.
- Hid the provider mode guidance after results load so the result toolbar no longer crowds nearby text.
- Shortened CHAMPVA and TRICARE provider card notes to focus on what users should do before scheduling care.
- Confirmed the first 25 results load with a View More path to 50, then 75, then 100 results.
- Ran a controlled concurrent-read check against provider searches; 16 simultaneous read requests returned HTTP 200 responses and provider result arrays.
- No desktop installer was published with this website polish.
Medical provider specialty search performance fix
- Optimized the provider lookup path used when a visitor chooses a specialty such as Obstetrics.
- Added VA Companion SQL indexes for state, category, and specialty provider searches.
- Added friendly specialty mapping for terms such as Cardiology and Psychiatry when source data uses different labels or care categories.
- Stopped live external provider seeding from blocking specialty searches; specialty searches now return from VA Companion SQL data first.
- Kept searches limited to fast first-page results so users get usable provider leads quickly.
- No desktop installer was published with this website fix.
TRICARE source and provider directory polish
- Added official TRICARE verification paths for Find a Doctor, all provider directories, East Region, West Region, overseas, pharmacy, dental, and Medicare/TRICARE For Life planning.
- Added those official source records to the VA Companion source tracker for admin review and future maintenance.
- Updated the official handoff allow-list so TRICARE, Medicare, pharmacy, dental, and milConnect links open cleanly through the VA Companion handoff page.
- Kept TRICARE provider search positioned as VA Companion provider leads plus official verification before care.
- Confirmed homepage directory metrics use spacing between counts and labels.
- No desktop installer was published with this website release.
Enterprise phone experience polish
- Hardened the mobile layout so the main content stays inside the phone viewport without clipped copy or oversized panels.
- Converted phone hero actions and product-page actions into a clean single-column stack.
- Reduced decorative guide-page bulk so CHAMPVA, TRICARE, desktop, and release pages reach useful content faster.
- Validated key mobile pages at phone width with no horizontal page overflow.
- No desktop installer was published with this website polish release.
Enterprise mobile and navigation polish
- Widened phone layouts so forms, guide pages, and tool panels use the available screen more effectively.
- Tightened the mobile shortcut rail and removed small group labels that took space away from the user task.
- Improved in-page scroll targeting so buttons land below the sticky header and mobile shortcut rail.
- Kept the desktop header on one clean row at standard desktop widths.
- Cleaned up remaining product copy that sounded like internal notes.
- No desktop installer was published with this website polish release.
Navigation and search polish
- Improved in-page navigation so tool buttons land on the intended workspace more reliably.
- Fixed mobile wrapping for guidance text and status notes in dense tool panels.
- Standardized Death & Burial Benefits labels for funeral homes, cemeteries, and military funeral honors coordinators.
- Clarified VSO data-quality and duplicate-review language in the admin workspace.
- No desktop installer was published with this website polish release.
Member workspace polish
- Cleaned up the signed-in member account workspace.
- Expanded the desktop download card so release notes no longer squeeze into a narrow column.
- Changed the desktop release summary into readable bullet points.
- Updated cache tokens so browsers receive the current layout immediately.
- No desktop installer was published with this website polish release.