VisNavigans Admin
A quarterly changelog is only useful if the changes actually affect your life. Here are 8 things we shipped in Q1 that will touch your day-to-day use of the platform.
1. Refund policy with real teeth
Previously, refunds worked but had undefined rules. Now each product type has an explicit refund window and eligibility check: 7 days for courses, 7 days for bundles, 1 day before session start for bookings, etc. Mentees self-serve refunds within policy; outside policy triggers admin review.
Why it matters: you know before you buy what your refund rights are. Mentors stop absorbing goodwill refunds they didn't realise they were absorbing.
Configure: mentees see the policy on each product page. Admins tune it under Admin → Refund Policies.
2. Stripe Connect payouts
Mentor earnings now flow via Stripe Connect transfers on each mentor's chosen payout day. No more manual admin-issued payouts; no more "when will I get paid" support tickets. Automatic, traceable, with a full payout history page per mentor.
Why it matters: mentors get paid on schedule. Admin no longer has to chase monthly payout runs.
Configure: mentors set up Stripe Connect from their dashboard.
3. Lesson comments
Every video, text, and document lesson now has a comment thread underneath. Mentees ask questions; mentors answer; discussion threads form naturally. One-level nesting (comment → reply), likes, reports, and admin moderation. Mentors can disable comments per lesson if they prefer.
Why it matters: the #1 self-paced-course complaint was "I have a question, there's nowhere to ask it". Now there is.
4. Knowledge base overhaul
We rebuilt the help centre from scratch. Categories with filterable article counts, proper article pages with covers and rich formatting, draft/published toggle, admin-only categories for internal documentation.
Why it matters: self-serve gets faster. Every common question has a dedicated page. Support-ticket volume for FAQ-style questions drops.
Find it: click Help in the top nav on any page.
5. Coupon mechanics, fixed
Coupons now distribute correctly across multi-item carts, reaching the revenue split, so mentors earn their correct percentage of the discounted amount rather than the list price. Also: max_discount caps now rescale per-item shares proportionally without rounding drift.
Why it matters: mentor earnings are now correct. Before this, we were quietly absorbing coupons out of admin cut. Now everyone shares proportionally.
6. Mentor balance ledger
Every mentor has an append-only balance ledger tracking credits and debts with the platform. If a refund is processed after a payout, we try Stripe Transfer Reversal; if that fails we record the owed amount, which gets deducted from the mentor's next payout. No more "mystery" refund situations.
Why it matters: mentors have full visibility into why their payout is a specific number. Admin has full audit trail on every dollar.
Find it: admin panel → Mentor Balances.
7. Security audit pass
We ran an exhaustive security audit and shipped fixes: IDOR fixes on 6+ endpoints, payment idempotency, CSRF hardening, upload MIME enforcement, session invalidation on password reset. 46 unit tests now covering the money paths.
Why it matters: your data, your sessions, and your money are meaningfully safer than 3 months ago.
8. Mobile polish
Admin and mentor dashboards now work properly on phone screens. The hamburger menu opens correctly on every page. Revenue charts don't stretch to 10,000px tall on small screens anymore. Header logo sized for mobile.
Why it matters: you can actually run the platform from your phone now.
What didn't ship
A few things we started but didn't complete in Q1:
- Mobile app — still scoping. We're web-first for the foreseeable future.
- Affiliate program — architecturally possible but deprioritised for Q2.
- Team accounts — multiple learners under one billing entity. Q2 or Q3.
What's planned for Q2
- Improved course discovery — better search, better recommendations, topic pages.
- Bootcamp v2 — cohort features (pinned discussions, homework review queues).
- AI-assisted quiz generation — for mentors creating courses.
- Data export — self-serve, GDPR-compliant.
How we decide what to ship
We read every support ticket. The topic with the most tickets in a quarter usually becomes the thing we fix next quarter. Lesson comments came from six months of "where do I ask questions" tickets. Balance ledger came from admin confusion over payout math. Mobile polish came from bounces on the analytics.
If there's something that's frustrating you, open a ticket. It goes into the backlog with a real chance of being built.
