Portal Updates
Portal Development Roadmap
The Portal Development Roadmap is designed to preview upcoming, planned development for the Illinois Shines portal. Updates on the following planned activities will be provided in weekly Program announcements, and detailed below in the Portal Updates Blog in conjunction with software releases.
| Roadmap Update: December 19, 2026 | |
|---|---|
| QUARTER 4 2025 (October, November, December) | Subscriber Management Foundations Improved AV and Designee Company and User Structure
|
| QUARTER 1 2026 (January, February, March) | Subscriber Management Batch Fee Report |
| QUARTER 2 2026 (April, May, June) | Historical CS Subscriptions Address Validation Program Year 2026-27 Setup + New Long Term Plan Changes |
Community Solar Subscriber Management Portal Feature
The Program Administrator continues development of the Community Solar Subscription Management Feature for the Program Portal, which is slated for a March 2026 launch. This new feature will replace the current manual workbook process in SharePoint and will allow for improved subscriber data quality and the centralization of access. The new feature will give Approved Vendors (“AVs”) and Designees the ability to view and manage subscriptions, view unsubscribed Disclosure Forms, and import and export subscription data. Additionally, AVs will have the ability to manage project permissions and assign Designees to view/manage community solar projects. Click on each of the following sections for details on the development timelines:
Mid-January: AV Testing Session (Core Functionality)
The Program Administrator invited AVs and Designees, who participated in the 2025 AV/Designee Subscriber Management Working Group, to participate in a live demo and testing session, where AVs and Designees had the opportunity to provide feedback on the new feature.
February: Feature Enhancement Development
The Program Administrator will review the feedback from the AV Testing Session of the core functionality and consider potential enhancements to the Portal feature before official launch.
Mid-February: Final Subscriber Data Import
The Program Administrator will import current subscriber data into the Portal that passes all required data validation checks. Any subscription rows that do not pass required data validation checks will not be imported. The Program Administrator will communicate to AVs and Designees that have impacted records to explain the data issues and how the AV can resolve the issues by updating the subscriber data and importing the data after official feature launch.
Late-February: Subscriber Management Live Webinar
The Program will host a live webinar on February 26, 2026, from 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. CPT. The webinar will provide a live demo, recorded reference resource, and detail the feature’s development, benefits, and upcoming changes to subscriber data management processes. Please register with this link.
March: Official launch of the Community Solar Subscription Management Feature.
Feature goes live in Portal. SharePoint-based process is retired.
Post-Launch: Outstanding action items must be completed by AVs.
To support the transition and the full launch of the Feature, the Program Administrator will be requiring AVs to complete several action items prior to and after launch. Each action item is listed below with a short description of the request and expected timeline. The Program Administrator will reach out to all AVs in the coming weeks with any additional updates and requests to complete these outstanding action items.
Reviewing and confirming Designees by project: The week of February 2, 2026, the Program Administrator reached out to AVs to confirm current Designees by project by February 11, 2026. Generally, Disclosure Forms (“DFs”) and their associated subscriptions will only be able to be managed by the “owner” of the form, which will default to the AV and/or Designee named on the form when it was initially created. The Program Administrator will be able to transfer DFs to a new “owner” and will identify records where the current Designee does not match the Designee on the DF. For these mismatched records, AVs will need to consider requesting a DF transfer to make records editable based on the confirmed Designee associations.
Reviewing and curing data validation errors post launch: The Program Administrator will import subscriber data, which must meet required data validations, into the Portal prior to launch. Data records that fail any data validations will not be imported by the Program Administrator. These data validation errors have been identified in subscriber workbooks for remediation. The Program Administrator will identify any remaining records with data validation errors which will be omitted from the final data import. AVs will need to cure data validation issues and import the omitted subscriptions into the Portal after March 2026, once the feature is fully functional.
Setting up project delegation: After feature launch, AVs will be responsible for delegating Designees to manage Community Solar projects in the Portal. Delegating a Designee to manage a project will allow that Designee to view all subscription records for a project. However, personally identifiable information will be redacted from records where a Designee is not the “owner”.
Retiring SharePoint-based process: AVs will need to review the accuracy of subscription records and delegate Designees to all Part II Verified projects in the Portal after March 2026, once the feature is fully functional.
Stakeholder Support
To support the launch of the new Community Solar Subscriber Management Feature, a variety of resources will be provided to ensure AVs and Designees have adequate support for a smooth transition to the new features. Those support and resources are detailed below:
Live Webinar:
The Illinois Shines Program Administrator will host a live webinar showcasing a walkthrough of the new Portal feature and its functionalities on February 26, 2026, from 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. CPT. Please register with this link. This webinar will be recorded and uploaded to the Illinois Shines website.
Subscriber Management Training Guide:
The written guide detailing the functionalities of the new feature, FAQs, and troubleshooting scenarios will be published to the website.
Office Hours:
The Illinois Shines Program hosts weekly Office Hours run by the Strategy team. This will be a resource for AVs and Designees. Members of the Contracts team will also be present to provide specific support for Subscriber Management.
General Customer Support:
The Customer Support team will be readily available to provide support via phone and email.
The Illinois Shines Program Administrator looks forward to launching the new Community Solar Subscription Management Feature. Thank you for your continued collaboration and please reach out if you have questions or concerns.
Portal Updates Blog
The Program Administrator will use this space to provide ongoing portal updates on releases of features and functions (newly-available and planned); issue and bug reports, investigations, and resolutions; updates on data availability and reports; changes to portal materials/documents or appearance; new technical documentation and support; and more.
December 20, 2022
Features/FunctionalityThe Program Administrator and Agency appreciate the continued support and flexibility of Program participants as we continue development of the Program portal, add functionality, resolve bugs and issues, and otherwise optimize the system. In support of ongoing system maintenance, feature rollout, and bugfixes for the balance of 2022, the Program
November 18, 2022
Features/Functionality The display of the REC estimate tool has been changed to accommodate clearer election of either PV Watts or Custom Capacity, as of November 7, 2022 Issue Reports and Bug Fixes An issue leading to incorrect display of AV ID’s when selecting an Approved Vendor on a Disclosure Form
November 1, 2022
Uploading of Land Use Permits Where Applicable:Section 5.F of the Program Guidebook requires that ground-mounted systems larger than 250 kW AC must provide a land use permit from the AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction). If a land use permit is not applicable, the Approved Vendor must provide written confirmation from the
October 31, 2022
Functionality:Ability for Approved Vendors to submit Community Solar project applications will open on November 1, 2022, at 8:00 a.m. Central Prevailing Time. In support of the application opening, the Agency and Program Administrator have continued to share relevant information via Guidelines and Rationale documents, informational webinar, clarifications documents, portal help
October 27, 2022
Functionality:On October 27, 2022, the Program Administrator released a portal update enabling batching capability, which is being successfully used by AVs. Any AVs experiencing with challenges or questions should contact the Program Administrator; contact and Office Hours support information can be found below. In support of the batching release, stakeholders
October 25, 2022
Support:The Program Administrator has continued adding to the library of Portal Help Guides available at the Program website at: illinoisshines.com/portal-help/ On October 24, 2022, new versions of guides for “Part I Applications (DG and CS)” and “Batching” were added. The Program Administrator continues to provide Office Hours to answer questions,