Stripe Trial Integration

• Added 7-day free trial to the Manufacturer plan checkout session via TrialPeriodDays = 7 in StripeController.CreateCheckoutSession.
• Trial applies only to the Manufacturer tier — all other plans (Free, Starter, Teams, Enterprise, Agent) are unchanged.
• Added PaymentMethodCollection = "always" — card is collected at signup to ensure automatic charge fires on day 8.
• If customer cancels before day 7 — £0 is charged. Stripe handles this automatically.
• Added MissingPaymentMethod = "cancel" — subscription cancelled automatically if no valid card is present at trial end.
• Existing webhook handling already supports trialing subscription status — no webhook changes required.

Pricing Page Updates

• Added full-width green trial banner to Manufacturer card on /product-pricing — shows "7-Day Free Trial Included" with pill badges.
• Added trial summary box under the price — clearly shows free period, charge date, and cancellation terms.
• Updated Manufacturer CTA button from "Learn more" to "Start Free Trial — 7 Days Free".
• Added fine print under CTA — "Card required · No charge for 7 days · Cancel anytime · £150/month after trial".

Manufacturer Detail Page Updates (/pricing/manufacturer)

• Added green trial banner below page heading with three key trust signals.
• Added day-by-day trial breakdown inside pricing card — Today / Days 1–7 / Day 8 / Cancel before day 7.
• Updated CTA button to "Start Free Trial — 7 Days Free" with rocket icon.
• Added Stripe product description — visible at checkout and in customer billing portal.

Registration Page

• Added "7-day free trial" green badge to Manufacturer tier card.
• Added contextual green notice when Manufacturer is selected — confirms no charge today and trial terms.

Demo Booking System

• Added Google Calendar Appointment Scheduling for demo bookings.
• Integrated Google Meet — unique meeting link generated automatically per booking.
• Configured availability windows, buffer times, and 48-hour minimum notice.
• Created dedicated /demo page with value proposition, "What to expect" cards, and booking CTA.
• Updated navbar and hero "Book demo" button to route to new /demo page.

Brochure Download System

• Added new BrochureTypes, BrochureAssets, and BrochureDownloads database tables.
• Built fully dynamic brochure system — new business types can be added from admin without any code changes.
• Role-specific PDF assigned per business type (Manufacturer, Producer, Importer, Auditor etc.).
• PDFs uploaded directly from admin to Azure Blob Storage under showcase/marketing/brochures/.
• Public /brochure page with full name, business email, business type dropdown, and math CAPTCHA security check.
• Personal email addresses (Gmail, Hotmail etc.) blocked at validation — business email required.
• PDF download link delivered instantly to user's inbox via EmailService.
• All requests logged to DB with IP address, sent status, timestamp, and error tracking.
• Added /admin/brochure-requests page with stats dashboard (total requests, emails sent, failed, unique emails, downloads per type).
• Added /admin/brochure-types page — add new types, toggle active/inactive, upload PDF per type.
• Added brochure teaser section to Home page with glassmorphism CTA card and brochure thumbnail preview.

Home Page UI Enhancements

• Redesigned How It Works section — numbered gradient badges, enriched step descriptions with concrete examples, and FA6 icon tag lines per card.
• Improved Feature Grid — icons moved into dedicated pill containers above titles, hover effects added, EU 2027 deadline badge added to legislation card.
• Fixed typo in QR Labels section ("ton our" → "on our").

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Send Invite button on Manufacturer Users page not firing — Blazor disabled attribute binding corrected from "@busy" to "@(busy)".
• Fixed xproduct.eu domain — removed GoDaddy WebsiteBuilder placeholder DNS record, domain now resolves correctly to Azure App Service with 301 redirect to xproduct.co.uk.

Manufacturer & Lifecycle Improvements

• Rebuilt Manufacturer Batch Detail page lifecycle section to use the new LifecycleEvent model structure.
• Resolved data loading issues for lifecycle events (Category, Action, Outcome, Partner).
• Improved lifecycle table rendering with proper fallback values when related entities are missing.
• Removed legacy DisplayOrder / BatchId references from LifecycleEvent logic.
• Aligned lifecycle queries with updated EF model relationships.
• Fixed multiple compile-time errors caused by outdated property references.
• Stabilised Add Lifecycle Event flow for correct database insertion.

Manufacturing Timeline

• Maintained dedicated Production Timeline for manufacturing steps.
• Separated non-manufacturing lifecycle events from manufacturing progress steps.
• Improved visual consistency between timeline and lifecycle tables.

Blog System Enhancements

• Added "From the Blog" section to Home page.
• Displays latest two published blog posts dynamically.
• Integrated "Read Post" call-to-action buttons.
• Improved card layout and removed unnecessary keyword text near CTA buttons.
• Ensured Blog Index page filtering and pagination continue to function correctly.

UI & UX Refinements

• Improved gradient buttons and consistent card styling.
• Better spacing and alignment across lifecycle and blog sections.
• Cleaned up visual inconsistencies in tables and action buttons.

Technical Stability

• EF Core model configuration updates for Lifecycle entities.
• Improved null handling for navigation properties.
• Safer fallback display values for missing related data.
• Code cleanup and removal of legacy property references.

Result: Improved lifecycle transparency, more reliable data rendering, and enhanced public-facing content visibility via integrated blog previews.

Advanced Blog & SEO Infrastructure Upgrade

This release introduces a comprehensive blog system upgrade focused on SEO performance, content scalability, and search engine automation.

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📰 Blog System Enhancements

• Implemented full blog management system with draft, publish, unpublish, and delete functionality
• Added thumbnail image support for blog cards (separate from featured image)
• Improved content rendering with structured Markdown formatting
• Enhanced blog card layout and filtering UI
• Added pagination support for scalable blog growth

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🔍 SEO Improvements

• Dynamic blog sitemap (/sitemap-blog.xml)
• Static sitemap separation (/sitemap-static.xml)
• Sitemap index file (/sitemap.xml) referencing both sitemaps
• Automatic <lastmod> handling for blog posts
• Meta Title, Meta Description, Canonical URL, Robots directives support
• OpenGraph & Twitter Card metadata support
• Structured JSON-LD override support

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🔔 Search Engine Automation

• Automatic Google sitemap ping on blog publish
• Automatic Bing sitemap ping on blog publish
• Improved indexing speed for newly published content

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📰 RSS Feed

• Added RSS feed at /rss.xml
• Includes latest published blog posts
• Proper RFC1123 publication dates
• SEO-ready feed structure for aggregators

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🎨 UI & Formatting Improvements

• Improved blog content typography styling
• Better spacing for headings, paragraphs, lists, and dividers
• Improved filter layout alignment and responsiveness

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📈 Business Impact

This upgrade significantly improves organic search discoverability for Digital Product Passport (DPP), circular economy, sustainability, and EU compliance-related keywords. The system now provides a scalable foundation for long-term content marketing growth.

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Status: Production Ready
Deployment: Azure
Impact: SEO, Marketing, Content Infrastructure

New Feature: SEO-Optimised Blog System

We’ve successfully implemented a fully featured, SEO-ready blog system inside the xProduct platform. This release introduces content management, image handling, structured metadata, filtering, pagination, and Azure Blob integration — designed for performance, scalability, and search visibility.

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Core Blog Capabilities

• Create, edit, publish and unpublish blog posts
• Markdown-based content editing using Markdig
• SEO fields: Meta Title, Description, Canonical URL, Robots
• OpenGraph + Twitter Card support
• Optional JSON-LD override for structured data

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Image Management (Azure Blob Storage)

All blog images are securely stored in Azure Blob Storage and served via CDN when available.

• Featured Image – displayed at the top of the blog post
• Inline Content Images – inserted directly into markdown
• Thumbnail Image – separate square image for blog cards

Thumbnail support allows better visual control for listing cards without affecting the main featured image.

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Thumbnail Implementation

New fields added to BlogPost model:

• ThumbnailImageUrl
• ThumbnailImageAlt

Database configuration was updated and BlogService.UpdateAsync was extended to persist thumbnail changes.

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Pagination & Filtering

The public blog page now includes:

• Server-side pagination
• Search (title + excerpt)
• Tag filtering (based on Keywords field)
• Clean UI alignment and improved layout

Pagination prevents performance issues when scaling to large numbers of posts.

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Markdown Styling & CSS Improvements

Custom styling for blog content was implemented via .blog-content class:

• Proper spacing for headings (H1–H3)
• Improved paragraph margins
• Styled horizontal rules
• Enhanced list formatting
• Blockquote design improvements

This ensures clean typography and consistent formatting for long-form content.

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SEO Enhancements

Each blog post now automatically supports:

• <title> override
• <meta name="description">
• <meta name="keywords">
• Canonical URLs
• Robots control (index, follow, etc.)
• OpenGraph tags
• Twitter Card metadata
• Article JSON-LD schema generation

This significantly improves search engine visibility and social sharing previews.

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Technical Notes

• Markdig NuGet package installed
• BlobStorageService extended for blog uploads
• BlogService updated to persist new fields
• ApplicationDbContext model configuration updated
• UI alignment improvements for filter section
• Editor stability fixes (null checks + state handling)

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Result

The xProduct platform now includes a production-ready blog system that supports:

• Scalable content publishing
• Structured SEO optimisation
• Azure-native storage architecture
• Professional UI presentation

This lays the foundation for content marketing, compliance updates, industry guidance, and Digital Product Passport thought leadership.

Governance & Manufacturer Platform Stabilization Release

This release delivers major architectural stabilization and governance enhancements for Manufacturer environments. The platform now provides improved role-based access control, clean session handling across Interactive Server pages, and structured Auditor oversight.

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🔐 Role & Access Improvements

• Stabilized role-based authorization flow across all secured pages.
• Resolved session timing issues related to prerendering and InteractiveServer lifecycle.
• Improved ManufacturerOwner, ManufacturerAdmin, and ManufacturerAuditor separation.
• Ensured consistent access enforcement for tenant, tier, and role combinations.
• Standardized dependency injection using service interfaces for improved reliability.

🏭 Manufacturer Enhancements

• Manufacturers can now properly manage and operate within tenant scope.
• Improved tenant-aware session handling.
• Stabilized Manufacturer-specific dashboards and settings pages.
• Improved security around user management and lifecycle access.

🛡 Auditor Governance Dashboard

• Dedicated Auditor dashboard with lifecycle oversight metrics.
• Read-only governance view of recycle, repair, and return events.
• Risk-based monitoring of lifecycle activities.
• Improved recovery metrics and hazardous material visibility.

⚙ Platform Stability

• Resolved JavaScript interop timing issues during prerender.
• Improved session loading reliability using proper lifecycle handling.
• Eliminated duplicate service registrations and dependency conflicts.
• Strengthened ProtectedSessionStorage handling and retry logic.

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This release significantly improves platform stability, governance transparency, and role clarity across Manufacturer environments.

Version: v2.1.0

Product Update: Manufacturer Navigation + User Invitations + Transfer Quantity groundwork

• User invitations fixed (Manufacturer tenant): Resolved EF Core query translation error caused by calling a custom role-normalization method inside LINQ-to-Entities. Roles are now matched safely after loading role records, allowing invites to complete successfully.
• Invite UX improved: Added/verified busy state behavior and UI messaging so users get immediate feedback while invites are processing, and the table updates after completion.
• Transfers: Quantity groundwork: Added Quantity to OwnershipTransfer (default 1) and prepared payload support so ledger health events can include the number of units transferred.
• Navigation roles fixed: Implemented robust role normalization in UserSessionDto so values like ManufacturerAuditor correctly map to Auditor, and spacing/format variants (e.g. “Lifecycle Manager”) are handled consistently. This makes the role-based navigation matrix functional.
• Verification: Confirmed Manufacturer Auditor can be created and sign in, and role label displays correctly on the dashboard. Navigation visibility now follows the configured role flags.

🚀 Manufacturer & Auditor Release: Lifecycle Dashboards + Recycle Oversight

Today we expanded the Manufacturer lifecycle experience and introduced a read-only Auditor dashboard view. We focused on making lifecycle and recycling activity easier to monitor without querying the ledger (SQL remains the UI source of truth; ledger is immutable audit proof).

🧭 Lifecycle Manager (Manufacturer)

• Added a new Recent Activity panel to show the latest lifecycle actions (top rows) with a View all link into Governance.
• Aligned the UI direction so Manufacturers review partner lifecycle events via /manufacturer/governance.
• Confirmed recycle metrics are stored in SQL (not ledger parsing) and can be displayed directly.

♻️ Recycling Metrics Visibility

• Verified recycling inputs are captured per event (Input weight, Recovered weight, Recovery %, Method, Energy recovery %, Hazardous handled, Material breakdown).
• Recycle metrics are stored as JSON in SQL (e.g. LifecycleEventRecycleMetric.MetricsJson and/or LifecycleEvent.RecycleMetricsJson).
• Implemented parsing that supports both JSON shapes:
  • Top-level fields (e.g. inputWeightKg), and
  • Nested payloads (e.g. { recycle: { inputWeightKg: ... } }).
• Recycle Oversight now loads using SQL-first lookup (table metrics preferred; event JSON as fallback).

🕵️ Auditor Dashboard (Read-only)

• Created an Auditor Dashboard concept for read-only oversight: integrity, compliance and audit readiness.
• Added KPI cards: Lifecycle events (30d), End-of-life events (30d), Pending reviews, Latest event.
• Added Attention Required table (Pending/Rejected/Corrected) with a direct navigation to Governance.
• Added Recycle Oversight table showing latest recycle metrics per event (Input/Recovered/Recovery%/Hazardous).
• Added a Search box that filters both Attention Required + Recycle Oversight tables.

✅ Governance & Review Flow Confirmed

• Partner submits lifecycle events (including recycle metrics).
• Manufacturer reviews and approves/rejects via Governance workflow.
• Approved events are visible in product event details and in the product ledger timeline.

Note: UI queries use SQL tables for performance and correctness. Ledger is retained as immutable audit evidence.

🚀 Major Manufacturer Release: End-to-End Lifecycle & Governance

This release introduces the full Manufacturer workspace — a comprehensive system for managing products, teams, certifications, governance, and operational lifecycle events from creation through production, transfer, and recovery.

📦 Product Management

• Product creation flow for registering new products.
• Product list with centralized browsing and management.
• Ledger Health view for visibility into product event integrity and lifecycle history.

📜 Certifications

• Dedicated Certifications page combining upload and management.
• Structured certification library with table view of existing records.
• Foundation for future verification, expiry tracking, and compliance workflows.

🏢 Company Settings & Team Management

• Company settings for managing manufacturer address and core details.
• Team member invitations directly from the settings area.
• User & invitation management restricted to Manufacturer Owner for full control.

🏭 Manufacturer Master Data

Configurable operational building blocks that power batches, transfers, and governance:

• Factories with quick-add modal.
• Batch statuses to model production progress.
• Batch steps defining structured manufacturing workflows.
• Transfer types for standardized movement classification.
• Recipient entities representing downstream partners.
• Partners directory with add-new flow.

🛡️ Lifecycle Governance

• Lifecycle Governance overview for policy and oversight.
• Governance Actions for structured Return, Repair, and Recycle operations.

⚙️ Manufacturing Operations

• Production Batches for tracking manufacturing runs.
• Transfers to record product movement between entities.

🔒 Platform Foundations

• Consistent manufacturer-level permissions and access control.
• Strong data separation between configuration, operations, and governance.
• Designed to support future auditability, compliance, and regulatory reporting.

🔮 What This Enables Next

• Batch-level lifecycle event logging.
• Public-facing transparency views for verified manufacturers.
• Deeper governance enforcement across transfers and recovery flows.
• Regulatory-ready Digital Product Passport lifecycle expansion.

This release establishes the Manufacturer backbone of xProduct — unifying products, people, governance, and operations into a single, scalable lifecycle platform.

🚀 Major Feature Release: Product Ledger & Blockchain Verification

This release introduces a powerful new trust layer to xProduct with a full blockchain-style audit ledger, certification verification, and integrity checking across the product lifecycle.

🔐 Product Ledger & Integrity Verification

• New Product Ledger page with a complete audit timeline of product activity.
• Append-only ledger architecture (tamper-resistant, verification-ready).
• One-click “Verify integrity” to detect any modified or removed ledger entries.
• Automatic hash chaining between ledger events for full historical traceability.

📜 Lifecycle Events Now Tracked

The ledger now records key product lifecycle actions, including:

• ProductCreated
• QrCodeGenerated
• TemplatesSelected
• TemplateUpdated (per template key)
• ProductImageUpdated

Each event is hashed, chained, timestamped, and verifiable.

⛓️ Blockchain Certification Anchoring

• Certifications can now be anchored on-chain with cryptographic proof.
• On-chain status tracking: Pending / Confirmed / Failed / Revoked.
• Transaction hash & block number stored and displayed in the UI.
• Direct links to Polygon (Amoy) block explorer for independent verification.
• Confirmed certifications automatically remain trusted when assigned to multiple products.

🧾 Certification Management Improvements

• Dedicated Certification Library with assign/remove per product.
• Expiry status handling: Valid / Expiring soon / Expired / No expiry.
• Support for annual recertification workflows.
• New Bulk Replace tool to swap expired certifications across many products in one action.

🖥️ New User Interfaces

• Product Ledger timeline UI with payload inspection.
• Ledger access directly from Product & Template pages.
• Verified badge when ledger integrity is intact.
• Certification anchoring controls directly on assigned products.

🛡️ Platform Hardening

• Append-only ledger design (no silent edits or deletions).
• Hash-chained events protect full product history.
• Prepared for future SQL triggers to fully block UPDATE / DELETE at database level.

🔮 What This Enables Next

• Manufacturer accounts with verifiable production history.
• Public trust view of certified & verified products.
• Regulatory-grade Digital Product Passport audit trails.
• Future expansion to supply-chain and batch-level blockchain anchoring.

This release establishes xProduct’s core trust infrastructure — a tamper-proof foundation for compliance, sustainability, and verified product transparency.