2025/26 mid-year check in: What’s new and what’s coming in Xello?
Everything you need to know about what’s new and what’s coming soon to Xello.
The halfway point of the school year is well upon us, bringing both renewed momentum and ongoing challenges. Keeping up with initiatives made in the fall are now meeting second-semester complexities–overloaded workflows, evolving student needs, and limited time.
Our focus at Xello is to help tackle that pressure by reducing educators’ workload while supporting student decision-making. In this post, we’ll look back at key launches from this year, and how your teachers and administrators can be using them to optimize workflows and stay on track in the homestretch. We’ll also take a look ahead at new features to come!
Connecting students with colleges: Supporting intentional postsecondary exploration
Students trying to make informed postsecondary decisions shouldn’t be limited by one-off events or big college fairs. Xello is supporting intentional college exploration by opening up doors for students to engage thoughtfully with more postsecondary opportunities. This empowers students to start learning about their ideal schools earlier: Asking questions, making connections, attending events, and following college updates to get a more realistic picture of college life.
In Xello, students are now more immersed in colleges of their interest. They are able to register for and attend events to learn about colleges from school representatives. They also can view and engage with curated college posts in Xello to learn what life looks like at their top schools. Plus, they’re able to show their interest and reach out to vetted college reps by sharing their Xello profiles or requesting more info.
For educators, this update means educators can create more intentional interactions between students and college representatives without adding complexity. Since everything is managed inside Xello, educators won’t have to toggle between spreadsheets and forms. Ready to get started? Start with a simple opt-in at the school or district level. From there, educators and administrators can start inviting college partners and creating events.
Ranking Plans: Clearer insight into student intent and plans
This year, we focused on improving student visibility into postsecondary planning, starting with Ranking Plans. Students can now use prioritization and ranking to organize their best-fit schools, encouraging them to ask more intentional, thoughtful questions about their plans. Not only does Ranking Plans support student ownership, it also offers educators a clearer picture of true student intent for more focused conversations.
With better visibility into student priorities, administrators can more effectively report, advise, and guide students in their planning decisions. Ranking plans is simple with an intuitive drag-and-drop feature, and educators can filter primary plans for clearer reporting and quick reference.
Bulk sending transcripts & updates to College Applications manager: Reducing friction during college application season
In the fall, we reorganized the way counselors manage application documents to tackle some of the challenges they face during peak enrollment season. Our new Application Manager dashboard and Document Center work together to help reduce counselors’ workload and prevent oversights during those peak months, when tasks have a greater potential to fall through the cracks. With a centralized hub for managing applications and bulk-sending documents, counselors can redirect time spent on manual tasks towards ongoing student support.
When counselors log into Xello, they’ll see a streamlined college planning landing page with at-a-glance stats and activity graphs for each student. From there, the Application Manager and Document Center will be their go-to hub for managing requests, sending transcripts, bulk-sending documents, and more. By simplifying application workflows, educators can ensure every task and document is managed effectively, without any extra time or effort.
Work-based learning: Better visibility for WBL programs
Work-based learning programs have grown by leaps and bounds this year, and Xello is committed to supporting them with updates to our WBL feature. As of fall 2025, schools can manage WBL programs more effectively through streamlined permissions, clearer visibility, and bulk data access.
With our latest update, educators can now quickly see who added companies, their approval status, and when they were last updated. They can also bulk change opportunities from Active to Inactive (or vice versa) in a single action. For students, tracking their total submitted hours for each opportunity is straightforward within their Opportunities table. Parents, meanwhile, can track their student’s progress with a new total-hours column.
Last but not least, we opened up clearer access to all WBL hours data within schools and districts in one consolidated Student Hours page. This is complete with sorting, filtering, and export options to support compliance and reporting requirements.
As we continue to make updates to our WBL module, administrators should refer to our Support page for details.
Course Planner for middle school
A student’s path toward postsecondary success starts in those formative middle school years, when they can start forming intentional planning habits and making thoughtful choices about their courses. That’s why Xello launched Course Planner for Middle School: To help younger students develop age-appropriate career exploration while encouraging a smoother transition to high school. Introducing long-term consistency with postsecondary planning in younger grades develops students’ ability to self-reflect, explore options, and stay accountable to their plan in high school and beyond.
After enabling Course Planner for grades 6-7, educators can easily add middle school courses (without prerequisite rules), create custom middle school diplomas, and access standard reporting tools. Middle school students can plan their middle school courses only (not high school), and view past courses.
To explore whether Middle School Course Planner is a good fit for your school, and to get the ball rolling for the next school year, reach out to your success manager.
Simplifying information collection from students
Last fall, Xello introduced a new feature to simplify the way students, educators, and advisors share files. Now, users can upload files directly through Surveys, saving time and keeping everything in one place. No more chasing files over email or shared drives: Gather all files together securely inside the tools educators already use.
The simplified workflows, along with the boost in compliance that comes from capturing all required proof for reporting or funding requirements are all in one spot. For students, the big benefits come from keeping all files organized and accessible, so nothing falls through the cracks.
With every relevant file at their fingertips, students are empowered to take greater ownership of their plans by tracking progress and providing evidence for their accomplishments. Whether they’re uploading FAFSA confirmations, consent forms, proof of participation, acceptance letters, or pay stubs, students have a go-to spot for every document they’ll need.
What’s coming soon?
Xello is working on some big launches that will help counselors, educators, and students communicate and report more effectively. Let’s take a closer look at what you can expect in the coming months:
Advising Redesign
Coming soon is Advising Assistant, an AI-powered workspace that helps educators create more meaningful, personalized conversations with students. The system will be designed to reduce the administrative pressure on educators so they can focus more on the student, not paperwork.
Email Notifications for grades 6-12
Juniors and seniors will start receiving automated email reminders (to their school emails) about college application deadlines, submission status, and upcoming events, helping them stay organized and on track.
Email delivery for juniors and seniors is the first phase of a broader notification system, with additional channels and grade levels coming later.
Reports Hub
We’re consolidating reporting tools into a single, cohesive system, so educators have a more user-friendly method for finding and applying student progress data. With Reports Hub, educators can streamline their reporting workflows to spend less time searching for reports and more time using data to guide student success.
Looking ahead together
At Xello, we’re motivated by the day-to-day experiences of educators in the field, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve educator workflows and meaningful student support. As we look towards the second stretch of the school year, we’re committed to continued listening and learning from the schools and districts we serve, helping facilitate another year of helpful product updates.
At this mid-year check-in point, take some time to explore our past and upcoming updates to see how they might support your school’s goals, and reach out to your success manager with any questions.
