# Allocation review, a new Inbox, and affinity groups

> Monthly allocation reviews now run on deadlines, reviewers, and reminders, anyone in your organization can create and join teams, and the Inbox has a full redesign.

- Shipped: September 25, 2026 (2026-09-25)
- Tags: Allocation review, Teams, Inbox
- Permalink: https://usecrouton.com/changelog/september-2026-allocation-review-teams-inbox

This week we rebuilt the monthly allocation review cycle around deadlines,
reviewers, and reminders. We also made org view teams more flexible to better support people ops use cases
and gave the Inbox a full redesign.

## Allocation review: deadlines, reviewers, and reminders

![The Coverage tab of Crouton's allocation review for September 2026, showing 0 of 77 people published and 11 days left before the October 5 close, with each team listed above its reviewers and a Remind 5 teams button](https://usecrouton.com/changelog/allocation-review-coverage.png)

Each month is now its own review cycle with a clear deadline, due by default on
the 5th of the following month.

- **Deadlines and month lock.** Admins can change any month’s deadline from
  Allocation review → Settings, and lock a month once it’s done so its reviews
  become read-only.
- **Reviewers.** Every team has reviewers: the people responsible for its
  review. They default to the team’s leads, and admins can assign anyone in your
  organization from Coverage.
- **Reminders.** Crouton reminds reviewers who haven’t published yet by email
  and Slack, automatically on a schedule you choose or by hand from Coverage.

![The Settings tab of allocation review, with an October 5 review deadline and a Lock September 2026 button, reminder toggles for Send automatically, Email, and Slack, and a reminder message using month, team name, and deadline placeholders](https://usecrouton.com/changelog/allocation-review-settings.png)

_Settings: set the deadline, lock the month, and decide how reminders go out._

## A redesigned Inbox

![The redesigned Crouton Inbox, with Open, Muted, and Resolved tabs, search, type and sort filters, a list of items on the left, and a selected team report on the right with Mute, Resolve item, and Open team actions](https://usecrouton.com/changelog/inbox.png)

The Inbox has a new layout with items listed on the left and the selected item’s full
details on the right.

- Search the Inbox, filter by type (badge requests, profile reports, team
  reports, assignments, and list alerts), and sort by newest or oldest
- Each item shows tailored actions like Resolve, Mute, Recheck, Send
  reminder, or a link straight to the appropriate page to address it

## Affinity Groups

We've given org view teams more customization options that enable affinity groups: groups of common interests that your employees can manage.
Org view admins can now let everyone create and manage teams. With this setting enabled, anyone in your
organization can:

- Add new groups to the org view
- Change the icon/name of existing groups
- Join or leave groups self-serve

![An Affinity Groups org view in Crouton, open from the sidebar](https://usecrouton.com/changelog/open-team-page.png)

Enable this setting by navigating to an org view's settings and enabling **allow anyone to manage teams**

## Data sources in My organization

Data sources now live in My organization → Data sources. This page shows your
connected sources and the ones available to connect, like Ashby, Rippling, and more.

You can also sync people, reporting lines, and teams from your identity
provider’s SCIM directory. Crouton maps each person’s manager, division, and
department to reporting lines, teams, and sub-teams.

![The Data sources tab in My organization, with a connected HRIS marked Healthy and a list of sources available to connect, including Ashby, Rippling, SSO, and SCIM](https://usecrouton.com/changelog/data-sources.png)

_Connected and available data sources in one place, now including SCIM._

## Next

- [All changes](https://usecrouton.com/changelog.md)
- [Home](https://usecrouton.com/index.md)