September was a busy month for Vala, both in the product and out in the field.
From NABVETS, FRA, and NOVA to onsite work with Lorain County and the kickoff of our Colorado DMVA pilot, we spent much of September listening to the teams serving veterans and seeing how Vala fits into their daily work.
Those conversations are shaping practical improvements for everyone, from individual advocates to larger organizations. This month, that means fewer manual handoffs, more flexible signing, and better ways to collect and use client information.
Thank you for continuing to tell us what would make your work easier.
- Kyle, James, Justin, and Lenaire
At Lorain County’s Annual Veteran’s Ball
What Shipped
Smarter Workflow Automation
Your workflows can now do more of the coordination that used to require a separate staff step.
You can now:
Automatically send a selected questionnaire to clients who have completed portal setup.
Set a claim's development stage or status through workflows, with optional checks on its current stage or status.
Add or remove claim tags and update claim custom fields.
Set frequency limits on automated emails and templated messages, including once per conversation or once per client within a chosen interval.
These additions give your team more control over how work moves forward and how often clients hear from you. Automated questionnaire delivery requires an eligible client-facing questionnaire and a portal-ready client with a valid email address.
More Flexible Signing and vSign
Preparing a signing packet is easier when the documents and signatures you need are already on file.
You can now:
Add existing PDF documents from a client's record to a signing packet.
Include documents that need signatures alongside supporting documents that do not.
Upload, replace, or remove a client's existing signature, with an authority and consent attestation.
See the saved signature's source and, where available, who added it and when.
Signature reuse remains subject to applicable signing requirements. The new upload option handles individual signature images, not bulk migrations or automatic signature extraction.
Better Questionnaires and Intake
We made questionnaires easier to review and connected their answers more closely to the work that follows.
You can now:
Preview questionnaires and prompt templates without opening them for editing.
Send questionnaires to portal-ready clients, who can find their assignments in the portal.
Filter submitted responses by date and source, review incomplete drafts, and export filtered rows to CSV.
Map compatible questionnaire answers to claim custom fields when the questionnaire is linked to the correct claim.
That means less re-entry and a clearer path from collecting information to using it. Blank answers do not erase existing claim values.
Larger Files, Better Case Management
Managing complex cases means keeping large records organized and accessible.
You can now:
Add an event date to a note so it appears in the appropriate place in the client's history while preserving when the note was created.
Upload PDF files up to 10 GB, making it easier to work with large C-Files, medical records, and extensive document collections.
Keep uploaded records in Vala's normal document-processing workflow.
These improvements help teams manage larger, more complex cases while keeping important information organized and accessible.
Better Partner Handoffs
We continued improving coordination around clients shared or transferred between partner organizations.
You can now:
Generate notifications for receiving organizations when clients are shared.
Use the Client shared with organization workflow trigger.
Trigger New client added workflows following completed ownership transfers.
Preserve existing referral-source information or, when blank, record the sending organization during a completed transfer.
Sharing and transferring are different events. Teams can configure the appropriate workflows for their own intake and follow-up processes.
Friends of Vala gathered in Indianapolis during NOVA 2026.
Built for Public-Sector Work
Our work with Lorain County and Colorado is helping us understand the needs of teams serving veterans across offices and programs.
For Lorain County's enabled implementation, recent Financial Assistance development adds a dedicated client view and structured fields for information such as employment and housing. This remains an organization-specific capability rather than a feature enabled for every Vala customer.
The goal is to turn real implementation needs into useful, repeatable improvements while respecting each organization's operating model.
Onsite with the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs for our pilot kickoff.
Security and Reliability
We continued improving application responsiveness, access controls, and deployment reliability. Recent improvements support smoother client and questionnaire navigation and more dependable day-to-day operations.
What We’re Building Next
A More Complete QuickSubmit Handoff
We're working on making it possible to hand off a completed signing packet and its supporting evidence as one package.
This remains in development as we complete the Chrome extension release and full end-to-end validation.
State-Governed Workflows
Our Colorado pilot is informing the next phase of organizational administration, including state-level workflow standards, office-level configuration, and more flexible administrative controls.
We're developing these capabilities around Vala's current organization-and-offices model.
Reusable Tasks and Clearer Checklists
We're continuing work on reusable task templates and a more intuitive checklist creation experience.
The goal is to reduce repetitive setup and make it easier for teams to standardize common processes while maintaining flexibility for individual cases.
Ask
What is the one step that still slows your team down?
Reply to this email with a repetitive task, a difficult handoff, or a feature request. If your state or county organization is interested in future pilot observation opportunities, let us know that too.
We're always looking for ways to help you serve more veterans while spending less time on administrative work.