Blog posts by Scott Reed

Supercharging Optimizely DXP Troubleshooting with the Azure Copilot Observability Agent

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:10:07 GMT

If you’ve logged into the Azure portal recently to check the Application Insights for your Optimizely DXP environment, you might have noticed a new toggle in the Logs UI labelled simply: "Agent." And as you create a new query, being prompted with help from the Observability Agent

Application Insights gives us many very useful tools, including recent updates such as Grafana dashboards that can help us view key information about our application. We technical specialists in the Optimizely DXP stack should be familiar with working within the investigate, monitoring, and usage areas.

However, one key pain point has been working with and remembering Kusto Query Language (KQL) but with recent updates in Application Insights and this default enabled on the Optimise DXP, this can now be a lot easier.

Instead of writing complex Kusto Query Language (KQL) to figure out why your modern Optimizely Commerce 15 checkout is dragging, or why your CMS 12 editors are experiencing slow load times, you can now ask plain-English questions.

In this post, we’ll explore how to leverage this AI agent specifically for web apps running on Optimizely DXP, focusing on the exact types of telemetry, anomalies, and performance metrics that matter most for modern CMS 12/13 and Commerce 14/15 solutions.

The Modern Optimizely DXP Telemetry Landscape

Before we talk to the AI, we need to understand the data. Optimizely DXP environments (Integration, Preproduction, Production) automatically wire up Application Insights. For applications running on modern .NET (like CMS 12/13 and Commerce 14/15), this captures:

Requests: Server-side ASP.NET Core page loads, Content Delivery API calls, and Optimizely Graph queries.
Dependencies: SQL Database queries, external API calls (payment gateways, ERPs), and internal Optimizely services.
Exceptions: Server-side errors and handled exceptions.
Custom Events: Business logic milestones captured via TelemetryClient.

Historically, correlating a spike in Exceptions with a slowdown in Dependencies required mastery of KQL join statements. Now, the Observability Agent handles the translation. Let's look at how this plays out across the platform.

Scenario 1: Debugging Commerce 14/15 Checkout and Asynchronous Operations

Optimizely Commerce 14 and 15 fully embrace asynchronous programming. A modern checkout process involves validating a serialised cart, recalculating promotions, calling an external tax API, communicating with a payment provider, and finally using SaveAsPurchaseOrderAsync() to convert the cart.

If conversion rates drop, the culprit is often a silent performance degradation in one of these external or asynchronous steps.

The Old Way (KQL)

To find the average duration of the order saving operation over the last 24 hours, you’d have to write:

dependencies
| where name contains "SaveAsPurchaseOrder" or name contains "IOrderRepository.SaveAsync"
| where timestamp > ago(24h)
| summarise AvgDuration = avg(duration), Count = count() by bin(timestamp, 1h)
| render timechart

The Copilot Way

Toggle the "Agent" switch to On and simply type:

"Show me a timechart of the average duration for dependency calls related to IOrderRepository.SaveAsync over the last 24 hours, grouped by hour."

What to Look For in Commerce 14/15:

When using the agent, focus your queries on the known bottlenecks of a modern e-commerce platform:

Cart Serialisation Latency: Commerce 14/15 stores active carts as JSON in the SerializableCart table. Ask the agent: "Are there any SQL dependencies related to the SerializableCart table taking longer than 500ms today compared to yesterday?"
Third-Party Payment Delays: "Show me the failure rate and average response time for external HTTP dependencies calling 'api.stripe.com' (or your payment provider) over the last 7 days."
Promotion Engine Overhead: "Did the average request duration of the /checkout API endpoint increase after our deployment at 2 PM today?"

You can also ask the agent to find root causes: "Why did checkout requests fail more frequently between 2 PM and 4 PM today?" The Copilot will analyse exceptions and dependency failures during that window and summarise the findings.

Scenario 2: Diagnosing CMS 12/13 Rendering and Headless Delivery

With CMS 12 and 13 running on ASP.NET Core, performance is incredibly fast out of the box. However, bottlenecks usually occur around custom block rendering, complex tag helpers, or heavy utilisation of Optimizely Graph and Content Delivery APIs in headless architectures.

Uncovering Headless and Search Bottlenecks

If your frontend Next.js application relies heavily on Optimizely Graph or Search & Navigation, a poorly optimised GraphQL query or .Filter() statement will cause cascading slowdowns.

Try prompting the Observability Agent with:

"Identify the top 5 slowest outgoing HTTP requests to our Optimizely Graph or Search endpoints over the last 3 days. What CMS pages or API routes were users requesting when these slow calls happened?"

The agent will automatically correlate the dependencies table with the requests table, saving you the hassle of writing complex cross-table joins.

Investigating ASP.NET Core Memory and Caching

CMS 12/13 utilises heavily optimised memory caching in .NET Core. If the cache is invalidated too frequently, you'll see a spike in SQL queries to the core CMS database.

"Has there been an unexpected spike in dependency calls to the core CMS SQL database in the last 12 hours compared to the previous week? If so, what are the most common SQL commands being executed?"

If an editor publishes a massive content change that clears a large portion of the cache, the Copilot can help you correlate that spike in database traffic directly to the time the editor hit "Publish."

Scenario 3: Post-Deployment Verification on DXP

Deploying modern .NET applications to Optimizely DXP involves swapping slots in Production. The moments immediately following a slot swap are critical. Instead of staring at a raw stream of logs, you can use the Copilot as an active monitor.

The Post-Deployment Checkup

After a deployment finishes, open the App Insights logs, activate the Agent, and ask:

"Summarise the health of the application over the last 60 minutes. Have any new exception types appeared that were not present in the 24 hours prior?"

The AI will parse the exceptions table, filter out the normal background noise, and highlight genuinely new errors—like a missed dependency injection in your Startup.cs or a misconfigured appsettings.json binding introduced by your latest Commerce 15 release.

If it finds something, you can follow up conversationally:

"For that new InvalidOperationException related to dependency injection, what was the exact stack trace?"

Best Practices for AI-Assisted Telemetry

While the Azure Copilot Observability Agent is a game-changer for Optimizely developers, it works best when you guide it properly:

Enrich Your Telemetry: Use ITelemetryInitializer in your CMS 12/13 codebase to inject custom properties. Add the CurrentLanguageBranch or CustomerGroup to every request. You can then ask the agent: "Are authenticated B2B users experiencing slower API response times than anonymous users?"
Track Custom Events: Log specific business events like TrackEvent("ItemAddedToCart") or TrackEvent("GraphQueryExecuted"). This allows you to ask the agent business-centric questions.
Be Specific with Timeframes: Vague questions yield vague answers. Always specify the time window (e.g., "between 10 AM and noon UTC yesterday").

Conclusion

The addition of the Azure Copilot Observability Agent to Application Insights drastically lowers the barrier to entry for deep telemetry analysis in modern Optimizely environments. By focusing your natural language queries on the specific architectural patterns of CMS 12/13 (like ASP.NET Core caching and Graph API calls) and Commerce 14/15 (like asynchronous cart processing), you can dramatically reduce your mean time to resolution (MTTR) and ensure a blazingly fast digital experience.

How can Niteco help you?

Niteco is the largest global certified Optimizely CMS and Commerce partner, and we are experts and specialists in the Optimizely agent platform. We have recently attended Opticon New York 2026 as a sponsored partner, and we'll be coming back next week to London. Come and find us at our stand, or by looking for our yellow trousers.

Optimizely

The largest global partner. Powered by technical excellence and innovation. Accelerated by AI.

400+

AI-trained experts

Certified by leading platforms like Optimizely, Microsoft, Contentful & Adobe.

2000+

Successful projects

We have vast experience from years of delivering digital platforms for clients in diverse sectors.

Optimizely MVPs

Largest team with OMVPs. Meaning the best & most experienced Optimizely minds will work with you.

As Optimizely's largest certified partner in Optimizely CMS, Commerce, and the agent platform, we can help you with any of your strategic initiatives globally around content, commerce, or your organisational AI.

If you would like help getting more out of your Optimizely DXP telemetry, get in touch with us at Niteco: https://niteco.com/contact-us/

Optimizely Agent Platform - October 2026 State of Play

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 10:45:21 GMT

Overview

A month ago I wrote up my takeaways from Opticon New York (Opticon New York & The Strategy on Upgrading to CMS 13 & Commerce 15). The headline was that Opal has grown up: the platform as a whole is now the Optimizely Agent Platform, and the AI chat you work with day to day is now Mark.

The trouble is that the pace of delivery has been relentless. The 2026 release notes alone run to well over an hour of reading, with something shipping almost every week, and features have been renamed, moved, merged and superseded along the way. If you are a solution architect or technical lead trying to answer the simple question "what does the platform actually do today, and how is it put together?", it is genuinely hard to get a clean picture.

So this post is my attempt at a state-of-play roundup as of early October 2026, broken down by the core building blocks of the platform, with a focus on the architecture, configuration and governance details that matter when you are designing real solutions. Wherever I can, I call out what changed and when using the official release notes, and I flag the places where the documentation is still catching up.

FYI, I know this is quite a long document, and it is mostly AI-generated, with my review added in. It should be a really good update for anyone who's used the platform, trying to keep up with all the changes. I'll probably do one of these every 6 months.

A note on sources. Everything here is based on the Agent Platform documentation, the 2026 and 2025 release notes, and Optimizely's Opticon announcements, as they stood on 5 October 2026. Screenshots marked as from the documentation are reproduced with permission. Things move fast, so always double-check the docs before you commit to a design.

Also https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VLziEiYH4mSGEkiC3VrGJOTP_pSIwF0-/view?usp=sharing is a version of this document as a nice infographic for easier digestion

TL;DR for architects

Area	Where we are today
Naming	Opal → Optimizely Agent Platform (effective 1 September 2026). Mark is the personified AI; Mark-1 / Mark AI is the post-trained model family; Mark-IQ is the context layer; Mark-Bench is the open-source benchmark. The docs still say "Opal" almost everywhere.
Models	Six inference levels (Quick → Code) mapped to Gemini or Claude models. Admins pick a default model provider per instance; specialised agents can override both provider and level. Mark's own post-trained models are announced as "coming soon".
Orchestration	Chat automatically delegates to sub-agents (Mini / Fast / Deep tiers) in isolated contexts, with parallel fan-out, no recursion and a per-turn dispatch budget.
Context	Skills (formerly Instructions), Brands, Memory, Personal files and RAG (CMP, Graph, and now your own artifacts).
Tools	System tools, connector tools, remote MCP servers (bring your own as of July) and custom tools via SDKs for TypeScript, Python and C#. A large CMS 13 (PaaS) tool set landed from May onwards.
Agents	Agent Directory (70+ prebuilt), Agent Library (curated launcher), specialised agents, workflow agents (now with Code steps, parallel loops, nested workflows, trigger priority and version history).
Autonomy	Virtual Teammates with their own Opti ID, memory and scheduled jobs, plus Team Messages as the collaboration layer.
Governance	Input guardrails, the Quality tab (Output Evaluation, Execution Guardrails, Execution Advisor), Safe URL Browsing, agent sharing/visibility, custom roles, exportable audit logs and version history.
Commercials	Credits pooled across products, fixed complexity bands since March 2026, 200 complimentary credits per instance per month until the end of 2026.

1. What's in a name? Opal, Agent Platform and Mark

Let's get the naming sorted first, because it is the single biggest source of confusion right now.

Optimizely's support centre now labels the category as "Agent Platform (previously Opal)" and states that the rename to Optimizely Agent Platform took effect on 1 September 2026, with Mark (for Marketing) as the personification of the platform. At Opticon the brand was split into four parts:

Name	What it is
Optimizely Agent Platform	The overall platform: agents, workflows, tools, skills, governance and the admin app.
Mark	The personified AI you talk to. In practice, this is what we used to call Opal Chat and the in-product assistant.
Mark AI / Mark-1	A family of post-trained, open-weight-based models built specifically for marketing tasks. Optimizely positions these as roughly 10x more cost-efficient than frontier models on the same marketing work. The press release states they are coming soon to all Agent Platform customers, so treat these as announced rather than generally available.
Mark-IQ	The data and context layer the models draw on, including your experimentation history and web analytics.
Mark-Bench	An open-source benchmark of 285 tasks across 15 marketing functions with more than 6,000 grading criteria.

On Mark-Bench, it is worth being precise about the numbers, because two sets are in circulation. The Opticon press release reports Agent Platform at a 67% all-pass rate against 60% for Claude Code, at half the cost, on default configurations. Optimizely's own Camp Opticon write-up quotes 58% versus 52% at 2.1x cheaper. Both come from Optimizely running its own benchmark, so if you are using them in a business case, cite which figure and the configuration behind it.

The docs are mid-migration

As of today (early October 2026) the documentation still uses "Optimizely Opal" in nearly every page title, the release notes are still called "Optimizely Opal release notes", and the product UI in the doc screenshots still says Opal. So you will see three names for the same thing depending on where you look. In this post I use Agent Platform for the platform and Mark (Opal Chat) for the chat experience, and I keep the documentation's feature names where they have not changed.

Other renames and retirements in 2026

The platform rename is not the only one. These are the changes I have seen trip people up:

When	What changed	Impact
14 Jan 2026	The Connections tab moved into Settings → Product Connections.	Old guides point to the wrong place.
14 Jan 2026	New tools and registries are disabled by default; admins must enable them.	New system tools will not appear in agents until switched on.
5 Feb 2026	Skills (then "Instructions") became inactive by default on creation.	You must toggle Active on.
24 Feb 2026	"Threads" and "conversations" standardised to chats.	Cosmetic, but affects training material.
18 Mar 2026	The creativity (temperature) setting was removed from specialised agents because newer models no longer support it.	Existing values are ignored, not errors.
7 May 2026	Instructions renamed to Skills. Existing instructions now live under Context → Skills, with no behaviour change.	The biggest terminology change before the rebrand.
7 May 2026	The 128-tool cap on dynamic tool lookups was removed.	Bigger tool catalogues are now practical.
4 Jun 2026	cms_geo_apply and cms_geo_analysis (CMS SaaS) were decommissioned, replaced by the general CMS content tools.	Update any agents or workflows that reference them.

2. How the platform processes a request

Before going into features, it helps to understand the runtime model, because almost every feature plugs into one of its stages. Each prompt goes through roughly the following pipeline:

Prompt and intent extraction. Mark works out what you are actually asking for.
Skills. Relevant skills are selected and injected into the system prompt.
Contextual intelligence. Product data, content knowledge and workspace context are added.
Tool selection. The right tools and agents are chosen for the job.
Input generation and validation. Parameters are built and checked. If they are invalid, Mark asks you for clarification instead of calling the model, which saves credits.
LLM interaction. Foundation models are called through business accounts, and your data is not used for training.
Execute and refine. Tools and agents run, and the output is re-evaluated and iterated on.
Response. The result comes back, often as a canvas or an action card.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

The way the docs describe the relationship between the building blocks is still the best mental model:

Skills define how the AI behaves and uses tools.
Tools provide capabilities, such as reading data or taking action.
Specialised agents package tools and skills into one well-defined task.
Workflow agents chain agents together behind a trigger.
Virtual Teammates (new in August) sit on top as persistent, autonomous roles that own jobs over time.

3. Models and inference

This is the area that has changed most under the bonnet in 2026, and it has direct cost and quality implications.

Multi-model by design

The Agent Platform launched on Google Gemini and from 15 March 2026 Anthropic's Claude models (accessed via Google Vertex AI) joined the line-up, with Anthropic becoming a sub-processor under the Optimizely DPA. If you are working with a client's legal or procurement team, that is the notice to point them to. Optimizely also states that the choice of model does not change how credits are consumed.

On 24 June 2026 model provider selection arrived at both the instance level and the specialised-agent level. Admins now choose a Default Model Provider in Settings → Chat. The docs position Gemini as fast, cost-effective and good for creative writing, and Claude as stronger for complex tool orchestration and code generation. Specialised agents can override the instance default.

Inference levels

The inference level controls both the model and how much "thinking" it does before responding. Balanced is the default.

Inference level	Best for	Google model	Claude model
Quick	Simple, fast tasks	gemini-3.5-flash-lite (medium thinking)	claude-haiku-4-5 (medium thinking)
Standard	Everyday tasks without deep reasoning	gemini-3.8-flash (low thinking)	claude-sonnet-5 (no thinking)
Balanced (default)	Everyday tasks that benefit from reasoning	gemini-3.8-flash (medium thinking)	claude-sonnet-5 (high thinking)
Complex	Multi-step planning and analysis	gemini-3.8-flash (high thinking)	claude-sonnet-5 (x-high thinking)
Pro	Nuanced evaluation and strategy	gemini-3.1-pro (medium thinking)	claude-opus-5 (high thinking)
Code	Code, plus anything needing maximum reasoning	gemini-3.1-pro (high thinking)	claude-opus-5 (x-high thinking)

Model mapping as published in the Inference level documentation (updated 2 October 2026).

The mapping is managed by Optimizely and changes without any action on your side. Two recent examples: on 14 August the Complex and Code levels were upgraded to claude-opus-5, and on 13 September the Standard, Balanced and Complex levels moved to Gemini 3.8 Flash. Note that the current table shows Complex on claude-sonnet-5 with x-high thinking rather than Opus, so the August note appears to have been superseded. Treat the inference-level page as the source of truth, not the release notes.

Admins set the organisation-wide default for chat; agent creators set a level per specialised agent that overrides it.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Sub-agents (released 17 September)

This is one of the most architecturally interesting releases of the year, and it has gone a bit under the radar. When chat (or a specialised agent) hits a self-contained sub-task, it now hands it off to a sub-agent that runs in its own isolated context and returns only the final result. Intermediate tool calls and documents never enter your conversation.

The motivation is classic context engineering: avoiding context bloat (re-reading huge tool outputs every turn) and split attention (one model juggling unrelated objectives).

Tier	Inference level	Extended thinking	Typical use
Mini	Quick	No	Extraction, classification, reformatting
Fast (default)	Balanced	Yes	General delegation needing judgement
Deep	Pro	Yes, with a higher token budget	Sustained multi-step reasoning

The key technical behaviours:

Parallel fan-out. Independent sub-tasks are dispatched concurrently; dependent ones run in sequence.
Multi-turn continuation. A sub-agent can be resumed with its context intact.
No recursion. Delegation tools are stripped from sub-agents, so there are no unbounded chains.
Per-turn dispatch budget. Individual calls and fan-out slots share one cap per turn.
Instance default provider. Sub-agents never override the configured model provider.
Zero configuration. They are installed and managed by Optimizely, cannot be edited or deleted, and do not appear in the Agent Directory.

The practical gotcha is in your logs. One chat message can now produce several rows in Agent Activity Logs (search for "sub"), each with its own credit total, attributed to the user who started the chat, with the model provider shown as Instance Default. Rows sharing the same execution time indicate fan-out. If a client asks why one question produced five log entries, this is why, and Optimizely's position is that it is the same work routed more cheaply rather than extra work.

4. The chat experience (Mark / Opal Chat)

Chat is still where most users meet the platform. It is available in the global navigation across Optimizely One and at opal.optimizely.com. (likely to be changed soon)

What's new in chat in 2026

The chat has matured from a simple prompt box into a proper agent console. In rough chronological order:

January. CSV uploads, Markdown in the input box, a toggle for the history panel, and dark mode and font-size settings.
February. Upload of .xlsx and .docx files, and an immediate "thinking…" indicator.
March. Skill mentions (type / to apply a skill) and "save this as a skill" directly from a conversation.
April. Message queuing (keep typing while Mark works), pinned conversations, recency-sorted history and undo for pasted content.
May. Chat modes to match output depth to the task, action cards (rich, interactive inline components instead of plain text), chat pills (one-click starter prompts), memory, and multi-turn mode for specialised agents.
June. A live activity stream with inline tool status and "context pickup pills" showing what context was pulled in, Escape to stop a response, PowerPoint and Word generation (via the code_execution tool) and an image editor.
June 30. The Agent Library on the chat homepage and Personalize Opal, a pinned onboarding agent that walks new users through connecting tools and building skills.
July. Conversation compaction (automatic and manual checkpoints for long chats), editing sent messages, rotating contextual tips, Agent Builder and Skill Builder inside chat, and Safe URL Browsing.
September. RAG for artifacts, so chat can draw on your own canvases.

For architects, compaction and sub-agents together are the important pair: they are Optimizely's answer to long-running, tool-heavy conversations getting slower, dumber and more expensive over time.

Chat everywhere: in-product and third-party surfaces

Chat is embedded across the stack, and that list keeps growing:

CMS 13. The Optimizely.Cms.OpalChat adds Opal to the platform under verson 13.2.0 but 13.2.0 and onwards have Mark chat is built directly in to the CMS (requires DXP and Opti ID)
CMS 12 (since October 2025, requires DXP and Opti ID), CMS SaaS, Commerce Connect (since September 2025), Configured Commerce, PIM (January 2026), CMP, Web and Feature Experimentation, Personalization, Analytics, ODP and Product Recommendations (beta from May 2026).
Slack. Now a verified app in the Slack Marketplace (February 2026).
Microsoft Copilot and Google Agentspace / Gemini Enterprise, the latter using the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol for cross-vendor agent collaboration (both since September 2025).

5. The context layer: Skills, Brands, Memory, Personal files and RAG

If tools are what the platform can do, this layer is what it knows. It is also the part that has evolved the most conceptually this year, and it effectively forms the user-facing side of what Optimizely now calls Mark-IQ.

Skills (formerly Instructions)

Skills are the reusable rules, context and behavioural guidelines that shape output, such as brand voice, product taxonomies, personas, compliance language or output formats. They come in two scopes: organisation skills (admin-managed) and personal skills (user-managed, since 30 March).

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Each skill has a name, watchers, version history, an active flag, a /shortcut, a scope, a When to use activation trigger, the core skill body (rich text or Markdown), attached reference files, and a Where to use setting to scope it to a specific product instance.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

How selection actually works matters a lot when you are designing a skills library:

All active skills available to the user are gathered.
Tool-triggered skills are applied automatically whenever their tools are in play, with no further evaluation.
The remaining skills are judged by a relevancy model that reads your latest message, the conversation history and each skill's Keywords or phrases field.
Matched skills are added to the system prompt.

Two consequences are easy to miss. First, the relevancy model looks only at the When to use field and ignores the skill's name and body during selection. Second, it is deliberately inclusive: it would rather include a borderline skill than miss a relevant one, and it matches semantically. A skill about "marketing promotions" can fire for a prompt about strawberries on sale. The fix is to write tight activation criteria, using "ONLY use for…", explicit "Do NOT use for…" exclusions, synonyms for narrow concepts, and mutually exclusive boundaries between related skills. Leaving When to use blank makes a skill shortcut-only.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

The skills toolchain has also grown up considerably:

When	Change
5 Feb	Status column added; skills inactive by default
30 Mar	Personal skills; create skills from a chat; / skill mentions
14 Apr	Redesigned Activation Trigger section; better disambiguation when editing from chat
7 May	Instructions → Skills rename
26 May	File-explorer UI for skill files; PPTX/DOCX support in skills (with code execution)
27 May	Skills section in specialised agents, with a Choose skills picker to insert skills at exact points in a prompt
24 Jun	Skill watching; import/export across instances; scope switcher between personal and organisation; skill preview in the agent editor
30 Jun / 29 Jul	Skills builder GA, then Skill Builder inside chat

Brands (25 August) - Not fully out yet

Brands are a structured record of a brand's assets, colours, typefaces and usage rules, managed under Context → Brand. The clever bit architecturally is that publishing a brand turns it into a skill, so you get a single source of truth that image generation, decks, documents and social images all read from, instead of each feature holding its own copy. Brands move through Draft, Published and Default states, and an organisation can hold several brands with one default. Marketers can also bootstrap a brand on the fly when none exists.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

For multi-brand clients this is a significant change. Previously you had to emulate this with a pile of brand-voice skills.

Memory (7 May) and Personal files (21 September)

Memory and personal files are now one system, and the implementation will look very familiar to anyone who has worked with coding agents: it is file-based.

Personal files are a persistent, per-user document store under Context → Personal Files, with a browser-based editor for text and Markdown files.
Memory lives in that same store. FACTS.md holds short durable facts, named notes files hold broader context, and RECENTS.md is a running summary of recent conversations and agent activity that Mark maintains. MEMORY.md is generated by Mark and is read-only.
Memories are captured either automatically or on request ("remember that…").
When Enable personal context is turned on for a specialised agent, context files such as AGENTS.md and MEMORY.md are made available to the agent before it starts. You can restrict the agent to a working directory (for example /context/agents/support) rather than exposing the whole store.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

The distinction the docs draw is useful when you explain it to clients: skills capture how work gets done; memory captures who you are and what you are working on.

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

RAG has expanded in three steps this year:

7 May. RAG for CMP. Permission-aware semantic and keyword retrieval across campaigns, tasks, assets, work requests and briefs, exposed as rag_retrieve_from_cmp (structured) and rag_retrieve_from_cmp_as_csv (tabular). Alongside it came rag_retrieve_from_optimizely_graph for CMS and CMP content via Optimizely Graph.
24 June. Folder and path filtering for CMP assets, relevancy explanations for suggested assets, and EU-region RAG.
17 September. RAG for artifacts. Chat can now search your own canvases, respecting artifact permissions and including artifacts shared with you.

Retrieval, embedding and indexing all happen inside Optimizely's infrastructure, and every query respects the user's roles and permissions. Admins can turn RAG on or off for direct chat under Settings → RAG Configuration, but note that agents can use RAG regardless of that setting, which is important if you are relying on the toggle for governance.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

This is exactly where the CMS 13 upgrade story from my last post comes back in: Graph is the bridge that gets CMS and Commerce content into the agent platform's retrieval layer.

6. Tools: system, connector, remote MCP and custom

Tools are the actions. There are three families, and the year's big story is the arrival of MCP as a first-class citizen.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

The Tools area is now split into four tabs: Connectors (each user links their own third-party accounts), Tools, Registries and External Providers (remote MCP servers and auth providers). You can filter tools by type (Remote MCP or Opal Tools), control per registry whether tools are active and whether they are enabled in chat, and restore chat defaults. Note that agents started from chat can use a registry's tools even when that registry is disabled for chat.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

System tools for Optimizely products

Optimizely-maintained tools now cover practically every product. The ones that matter most for CMS and Commerce architects:

CMS 13 (PaaS), which arrived from 22 May:

Content types: paas_cms_list_content_types, paas_cms_get_content_type_details, paas_cms_create_content_type, paas_cms_update_content_type, paas_cms_delete_content_type
Property groups: paas_cms_list_property_groups, paas_cms_create_property_group
Content: paas_cms_get_content_data, paas_cms_update_content_item (creates a draft if no key is given), paas_cms_delete_content_item (moves to the waste basket), paas_cms_publish_content_item (immediate or scheduled), paas_cms_create_content_variation (locale variations)
Preview: paas_cms_get_content_preview_url, which lets the agent fetch and analyse rendered HTML
SEO and GEO: paas_cms_seo_analysis, paas_cms_seo_edit, paas_cms_geo_analysis, paas_cms_geo_apply (writes JSON-LD into a JsonLdTemplates property as a draft)
Display templates and media (29 July): paas_cms_list_display_templates, paas_cms_get_display_template, paas_cms_create_display_template, paas_cms_update_display_template, and paas_cms_upload_media (pulls a file from a public URL into CMS media)

Note that the GEO tools were removed from CMS SaaS in June but exist for CMS 13 PaaS. Do not assume parity between the two tool sets.

Optimizely Graph (CMS SaaS, CMS 12 and CMS 13): graph_content_type_schema, graph_content_graphql_executor and graph_content_search_tool (January), plus graph_pinned_result and graph_synonyms (14 August), so agents can now tune search relevance, not just query it.

Commerce: Commerce Connect became a product connection on 13 March, alongside the Product Promotion agent for Commerce Connect; Configured Commerce has system tools and a Restriction Group Creation agent; and Product Recommendations has a growing pr_* tool set for category, search, trend and algorithm performance reports and page management.

Beyond that there are tool sets for CMP (work requests, campaigns, milestones, structured content, asset updates), Experimentation and Personalization (including ten exp_ve_* Visual Editor DOM tools that power the AI variation development agent), Analytics, ODP, Campaign, PIM and Content Recommendations.

Connector tools and remote MCP

The connector catalogue exploded this year. Highlights include Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook, and from 18 September OneNote and sensitivity labels on OneDrive and SharePoint), Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar and Gmail), Google Ads, Google Search Console, GA4, LinkedIn Ads, OpenAI Ads, Adobe Analytics, Salesforce CRM, Amplitude, Mixpanel, WordPress, Zoom, Crunchbase and Figma.

Remote MCP arrived in stages:

30 March. Remote MCP connector tools (starting with Atlassian and Conductor), with user-level authentication: the admin enables the server for the organisation, and each user authenticates their own account so actions carry their own identity and permissions.
7 May. Notion, Contentsquare, Contentful, Gamma, GitHub, Sanity and ClickUp.
29 July. Bring your own remote MCP server, plus HubSpot and ZoomInfo.
18 September. Braze and Fullstory, and Contentful Global and EU endpoints for data residency.

User-level authentication is the most important architectural point here. It gives you proper action attribution and per-user data scoping for third-party systems, rather than a single shared service account.

Custom tools

When nothing off the shelf fits, you build a custom tool. The contract is straightforward:

A tool manifest describing name, description, typed parameters, the execution endpoint and auth requirements.
A discovery endpoint (typically /discovery) that returns the manifest. If it is unreachable or malformed, the tools simply will not appear.
An execution endpoint, typically a POST with a JSON body returning JSON.
Authentication. Notably, the docs state that only Opti ID is supported for tool authentication at the moment, with other providers in the works.

Since 1 April, parameters support nested schemas (objects within objects, arrays of objects and enums), which makes richer integrations far less awkward. Tools are hosted either on Optimizely Connect Platform (OCP) or anywhere publicly reachable, and they are registered as a registry with a discovery URL that you can re-sync.

Official SDKs:

Language	Install	Notes
TypeScript / JavaScript	npm install @optimizely-opal/opal-tools-sdk	Express middleware, @tool() decorators, parameter validation, auth helpers
Python	pip install optimizely-opal.opal-tools-sdk (import as opal_tools_sdk)	FastAPI integration, auto /discovery
C# / .NET	See note below	ASP.NET Core integration, [Tool] and [RequiresAuth] attributes, DI support

A small but real gotcha for .NET teams: the docs currently show the install command as Install-Package OptimizelyOpal.OpalToolsSDK, but link to a NuGet listing named Optimizely.Opal.Tools. Check NuGet for the current package ID before you pin it in a project.

7. Agents

The four kinds of agent

Type	Who builds it	What it is
Agent Directory agents	Optimizely	Prebuilt, installable agents. There are now 70+ listed in the credits reference alone. Since 25 August they auto-update when Optimizely publishes a new version (on by default).
Agent Library	Optimizely (curated)	A browsable launcher on the chat homepage with more than 45 agents runnable in one click, without installation (30 June).
Specialised agents	You	One well-defined task, with your prompt template, tools, skills, variables, model provider and inference level.
Workflow agents	You	Multi-step automations of triggers, logic and agents. Still described in the docs as private GA and not available on all instances.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Directory agents worth knowing as a CMS or Commerce architect

The Directory has shifted from generic content helpers towards agents that act directly on the platform:

CMS 13 (PaaS): Content Model Creation, Page Builder, Content Analysis, GEO Schema Optimization and SEO Metadata Implementation. The Content Analysis agent produces a Markdown instruction set for a content type that the Page Builder agent then uses, which is a neat pattern for on-model content generation.
CMS SaaS equivalents, plus Content Refresh Analysis and FAQ Creation.
Commerce: Product Promotion (Commerce Connect) and Restriction Group Creation (Configured Commerce).
Experimentation: Experiment Conflict Checker, Backlog Prioritization (PIE scoring), Value Estimator, Program Overview, Program Health Review, Feature Experimentation Governance, and the Feature Flag Implementation agent, which outputs a portable SKILL.md for implementing a flag in your codebase. That is a nice nod towards developer agent tooling.
AI search and AEO: GEO Auditor, the Conductor AEO Gap Finder, AI Brand Visibility and Competitive Share of Voice agents, Profound Citation Gap Analysis, and Agent Visibility Analytics Insights.

Specialised agents: what's new

The agent editor has quietly become quite sophisticated over 2026:

Versioning with view, restore and branch-from-version (January).
Prompt template shortcuts for inserting variables, tools and skills inline; case-insensitive, unique variables; array/list inputs (May).
Example shots in the prompt template (February) and preferred output examples.
JSON export and import for moving agents between instances (April).
Multi-turn interaction mode in chat (May). Note that specialised agents always run single-turn inside workflows.
Model provider and inference level per agent (June).
Sharing and visibility (30 June): private, named people or the whole organisation, with view, run, edit and delete permission levels. New agents default to private where the feature is enabled, and it is not available on all tiers.
Agent Builder in chat (29 July), so agents can be created and iterated on conversationally.
Personal context and working directory settings (September).
A 60-minute timeout (since November 2025) to stop runaway executions burning credits.

Workflow agents: what's new

Workflow agents are made up of triggers (chat, schedule, webhook and email), logic (conditions, loops and code) and agents.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

This has been the busiest area for releases:

When	Change
Jan	Add a trigger first when building
Mar	Builder-first creation flow; multi-branch conditions in a single node; email trigger improvements
Apr	Webhook trigger redesign with product instance selection and default CMP auth headers; parameter generation logs; helper messages for chat triggers; JSON download and copy; case-sensitive conditions
May	Workflow import/export; loop validation; schedule start time and no end date
Jun	Execution-log export to CSV/Excel with date ranges
29 Jul	Nested workflows; static versus predicted parameters (lock a variable or let the LLM fill it); Agent Update Warning before editing an agent used by a workflow; Version History for workflows; a new Execution Status Taxonomy
17 Sep	Code step (Python, JavaScript or Bash, with no external service needed); Run iterations in parallel on loops; trigger priority (Standard versus Background) so batch runs do not delay interactive ones

The Code step is a big deal. Previously, any deterministic transformation, such as parsing, maths or reshaping JSON between agents, meant either burning an LLM call or standing up a custom tool. Now it can live inline in the workflow. Together with nested workflows and static parameters, workflow agents are becoming a reasonable low-code orchestration layer rather than just a chain of prompts.

A credit note: a workflow's cost is the sum of the specialised agents it invokes, with no overhead for the workflow itself.

8. Virtual Teammates and Team Messages

This was the headline Opticon launch, released on 25 August (Not availible to everyone yet, especially partners)

What a Virtual Teammate is

A Virtual Teammate is a persistent AI worker built from the same components you already have, namely tools, agents and workflows, and jobs (workflows it runs on its own, on a schedule or on events), wrapped in a persistent identity with memory, a persona and a defined role. The distinction from an agent is continuity: an agent runs when you invoke it, whereas a teammate keeps working, holds context, improves from feedback and collaborates with other teammates.

The launch roster:

Chief of Staff: daily and weekly briefs, meeting prep and recaps, and competitive intelligence.
Marketing Analyst: scheduled, decision-ready GA4 reports.
SEO & AI Search Analyst: reasons across Search Console, GA4, Conductor and AI Visibility Analytics.
CRO Manager: monitors behaviour, analyses competitor UX and stages experiment configurations in Optimizely.
Personalization Strategist: builds and runs personalisation campaigns end to end.

Identity and access: the architect's checklist

This is the bit to get right in any implementation:

Each teammate gets its own Opti ID account (its own login and email, flagged as a virtual user). It shows up alongside people and fits into existing access and audit processes, and its usage is tracked separately from human usage.
It does not consume a product seat.
It gets only the access you grant it, with nothing inherited automatically from the person who hired it.
Inside Optimizely products it acts as itself. Outside Optimizely it acts through accounts a human connects on its behalf, usually the person who hired it. It cannot authorise third-party connections on its own.
For CMS 13 and CMS SaaS there is an extra step: after granting the teammate a role in the Opti ID Admin Center, you must also add it to the relevant content under Settings → Set Access Rights in CMS, with only the rights its jobs need.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

That last point is another reason Opti ID is non-negotiable in CMS 13: Virtual Teammates are first-class principals in the identity layer, so the same governance you apply to people applies to them.

Autonomy controls

By default a teammate drafts and proposes, and a human approves via Team Messages. As confidence builds you can allow specific actions to run automatically within boundaries you set, and you configure its persona, values, who it may talk to, and which tools it can read, write or run. Admins enable teammates for the organisation and can pause or deactivate them; users and agent builders hire and configure their own. You can even switch identity to work in the platform as the teammate.

Team Messages

Team Messages is the real-time collaboration layer for people, teammates and agents, offering direct messages, group chats and channels, with sharing of files, agents and artifacts, mentions and persistent history. It follows you across products (an unread badge appears on the IM icon in CMP, Experimentation and elsewhere), and teammates also join meetings and share transcript summaries in Teams and Slack.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Alongside it sit the Tracker and Notifications (in-app tray, Notification Center, browser notifications since May, and skill-update and guardrail notification categories since June).

9. Quality, safety and governance

If Virtual Teammates are the accelerator, this is the brake, and it is what makes autonomous operation defensible to a client's risk team.

Input guardrails (29 July)

You define rules in plain language about what users may ask, and the platform trains a classifier to enforce them. This is useful for keeping usage on-topic and compliant without hand-maintaining block lists.

The Quality tab for specialised agents (1 June)

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

The Quality tab gives you three mechanisms:

Output Evaluation. An AI judge scores every run against up to 10 criteria, a baseline score between 75% and 95% (in 5% steps) and up to five examples. This builds on the preferred-output examples from December 2025 and the ability (January 2026) to promote past runs to evals.
Execution Guardrails. These learn what "normal" looks like for an agent and progress through Learning → Watching → Enforcing as successful runs accumulate. You control sensitivity and whether flagged runs are stopped automatically.
Execution Advisor. This has no configuration screen; it acts on what the other two detect. It recovers flagged runs with corrective guidance, retries failed tool calls with adjusted input, and reviews sensitive tool calls (email, publish, delete) with inline Approved or Blocked verdicts.

Each run therefore carries two independent verdicts, an Evaluation Score and a Guardrail Status, and a run can pass one and fail the other. The docs suggest starting with Output Evaluation and adding guardrails once behaviour has stabilised, which matches how I would roll it out.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Safe URL Browsing (29 July)

Every URL is screened before the platform browses it. Standard (always on) checks Google Web Risk for malware, social engineering and unwanted software. Advanced (opt-in per instance under Settings → Chat) adds a Cloudflare Radar deep scan in parallel, which can add up to 30 seconds of latency for URLs Cloudflare has not seen recently. Only http and https are accepted, redirect targets are screened too (which closes the open-redirect bypass), and links in emails processed by email triggers are also checked. Blocked requests return no partial content, only the threat category.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

If a client's firewall blocks the platform from scanning their sites, there is a published allowlist of separate non-EU and EU egress IPs, last updated on 22 July. Check the admin guide for the current list rather than copying it from old project documentation.

Roles, auditability and change control

Roles: Opal Administrator, Agent Builder (new on 24 February, for people who build agents without being admins) and Opal User, plus custom roles in the Opti ID Admin Center.
Audit: Created By, Triggered By and Modified By on agents and skills; credit usage per run in logs; execution-log export with date ranges for specialised and workflow agents; and the Execution Status Taxonomy (July).
Change control: version history for specialised agents, skills and workflows; watchers on skills and agents; and the Agent Update Warning before editing an agent a workflow depends on.
Human in the loop for side effects: for example, send_email shows a confirmation "island" in chat (since December 2025), and Execution Advisor can gate sensitive tool calls.
Kill switch: generative AI can be turned off for an organisation in the Opti ID Admin Center. Be aware that turning it off means contacting Optimizely Support to re-enable it.

10. Artifacts and canvases

Outputs have also grown well beyond chat text:

Canvas (December 2025) is the working surface for documents, HTML, React/Next.js, CSV and PowerPoint content, with downloads in the relevant formats (February), an "Edit in canvas" button, a raw Markdown mode (May) and space-level sharing permissions with view, edit and manage access (June).
The Artifacts page (May) is a single searchable home for everything you have created, with sharing and, since September, RAG over artifacts.
PowerPoint and Word creation and editing (June), when the code_execution tool is enabled, now on-brand by default thanks to Brands.
The image editor (June) offers element detection and selection, brush transforms, batch edits and smart aspect ratios. (below)
Limitless 1:1 Personalization (June) generates landing pages per target account or segment, which is the capability I covered from the keynote last month.

11. Administration, data residency and credits

Administration essentials

The setup order has not changed: connect your product instances first under Settings → Product Connections. If an instance is not connected, it cannot use the platform's features.

Source: Optimizely Agent Platform documentation

Other settings to know about are the default model provider and inference level, RAG in chat, Advanced URL safety, and the email domain used for outbound email. Be careful with the email domain: it is a single subdomain prefix per instance, and it cannot be changed once set. Users without Opti ID can also be enabled (see "Enable Opal for non-Opti ID users" in the docs).

Data residency

The platform is hosted in the US and the EU, with the region chosen on your order form. Everyone uses the same URL, and routing to your region happens behind the scenes. Customer inputs and outputs are stored long-term in North America or the EU (Belgium), with no per-country selection. However, prompt processing goes through global model endpoints for availability and performance, so a prompt may be processed in any region, although the LLM does not retain it and the output returns to your region. EU app hosting arrived on 4 June and EU RAG on 24 June. If a client has strict residency requirements, that processing nuance is the one to raise early.

Credits and cost

Credits are pooled across all eligible Optimizely products.
Since 1 March 2026, usage falls into fixed complexity bands for predictability.
Every instance gets 200 complimentary credits per month from 1 October 2025 until 31 December 2026. This is worth noting for 2027 budgeting.
There are no per-user credit limits. You control spend by controlling who has access.
Usage is visible in the Opti ID Usage and billing dashboards, with monthly notifications, and in the redesigned Opal Agent Usage dashboard (30 June), which shows executions, credits, top agents and users, and weekly active users.

Complexity band	Average credits per invocation
Chat and basic agents	2
XS	10
S	30
M	70
L	130
XL	200

To give a sense of scale from the published per-agent figures: SEO Metadata Implementation for CMS 13 averages 120–200 credits, GEO Schema Optimization 40–60, Content Model Creation 30–80 and the Conductor AEO Gap Finder 180–200.

Who pays depends on the trigger: for chat and in-product invocations it is the invoking user, but for schedule, webhook and email triggers it is the user who created the trigger. Keep that in mind when you design shared automations. In practice, you probably want a dedicated owner (or, increasingly, a Virtual Teammate) owning scheduled workflows, so usage reporting stays meaningful.

12. 2026 at a glance

Month	Headline releases
Jan	Specialised agent versioning; prompt template shortcuts; Graph tools; CMS SaaS content tools; Experimentation and Personalization system tools; PIM chat; tools disabled by default
Feb	Agent Builder role and custom roles; Slack Marketplace app; canvas downloads; example shots; Visual Editor, CMP and Analytics tool sets
Mar	Claude models join (15 March); fixed-band credits (1 March); Commerce Connect product connection; personal skills; user-level auth for connectors; first remote MCP connectors; credit usage in logs
Apr	Agent JSON import/export; message queuing; nested parameter schemas for custom tools; CMS 13 Opal Chat NuGet; Idea Builder
May	Instructions → Skills; memory; Artifacts page; notifications; chat modes, action cards and chat pills; RAG for CMP and Graph; CMS 13 content tools; more remote MCP servers
Jun	Quality tab; EU hosting and EU RAG; model provider selection; skill import/export; PPTX/DOCX generation; image editor; Agent Library; agent sharing and visibility; Limitless 1:1 Personalization; Teams and Outlook tools
Jul	Agent Builder and Skill Builder in chat; input guardrails; Safe URL Browsing; conversation compaction; nested workflows; workflow version history; bring-your-own remote MCP; CMS 13 display template and media tools
Aug	Virtual Teammates; Team Messages; Brands; Directory auto-update; Graph synonyms and pinned results; CMS 13 Page Builder and Content Analysis agents
Sep	Rename to Agent Platform and Mark; Mark-1, Mark-IQ and Mark-Bench announced; sub-agents; RAG for artifacts; workflow Code step, parallel loops and trigger priority; personal files; LinkedIn and OpenAI Ads connectors; Braze and Fullstory MCP

For context, at the start of the 2025 release notes Opal was essentially a chat assistant embedded in individual products. The platform pieces, namely specialised agents, workflow agents, the Agent Directory, system tools and custom tools, only arrived on 9 September 2025. Everything in the table above has been built in the thirteen months since.

13. What this means for solution architects

Pulling this together, these are the points I would take into any design conversation right now:

Upgrade the foundations first. Opti ID (identity for humans and teammates), Graph (retrieval, search tuning and agent access to content) and product connections are the prerequisites for nearly everything above. This is the practical reason the CMS 13 and Commerce 15 upgrade is a strategic decision, not just a version bump.
Treat skills as code. With import/export, versioning, watchers and a selection model that only reads When to use, a skills library deserves the same discipline as any shared configuration: naming conventions, scoped activation criteria with explicit exclusions, review, and promotion between instances.
Decide your integration pattern deliberately. For each external system, the choice is now between an existing connector, a vendor's remote MCP server, your own remote MCP server, or a custom tool (on OCP or self-hosted). User-level auth on MCP and connectors gives better attribution; custom tools currently authenticate with Opti ID only.
Put deterministic logic in deterministic places. Use workflow Code steps and static parameters for anything that does not need an LLM, and keep specialised agents small and single-purpose.
Design for cost visibility. Choose the inference level per agent rather than defaulting everything to Pro, expect sub-agent rows in logs, and be deliberate about who owns scheduled and webhook triggers, since they pay.
Layer governance before autonomy. Input guardrails, Output Evaluation, then Execution Guardrails, and only then let Virtual Teammates act without approval, scoping their Opti ID roles and CMS access rights to exactly what their jobs need.
Use the docs carefully. They are excellent but moving fast: naming is mid-migration, workflow agents are still flagged as private GA, release notes can be superseded by reference pages (as with the inference mapping), and at least one SDK package ID is inconsistent. When it matters, verify in your own instance.

Summary

Twelve months ago, Opal was a promising chat assistant with a brand-new agent builder. Today the Optimizely Agent Platform has a multi-model runtime with managed sub-agent delegation, a layered context system (skills, brands, memory, files and RAG), an open tool ecosystem built around MCP, low-code workflows with real code execution, autonomous Virtual Teammates with their own identities, and a governance stack to keep it all in check. Mark is the friendly face on top, and Mark's own post-trained models are next.

For those of us designing solutions on Optimizely, the platform is no longer an add-on to CMS or Commerce. It is becoming the operational layer that sits across them, and the quality of what it can do depends directly on how well the underlying platform is connected through Opti ID, Graph and the product connections.

If you would like help shaping your agent platform strategy, building custom tools and MCP integrations, or getting onto CMS 13 and Commerce 15 so you can use all of this, get in touch with us at Niteco: https://niteco.com/contact-us/

Key references

Agent Platform documentation: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs
2026 release notes: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/release-notes
2025 release notes: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/release-notes/2025-agent-platform-release-notes
Inference level and model mapping: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/inference-level
Sub-agents overview: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/sub-agents-overview
Skills overview: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/skills-overview
Tools overview: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/tools-overview
Create custom tools (SDKs): https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/create-custom-tools
Virtual Teammates overview: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/virtual-teammates-overview
Quality tab overview: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/quality-tab-overview
Credits: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/agent-platform-credits
Administrator guide: https://docs.optimizely.com/agent-platform/docs/get-started-with-agent-platform-for-administrators
Mark models and Mark-Bench press release (1 September 2026): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/optimizely-introduces-purpose-built-ai-models-for-marketing-that-deliver-frontier-level-quality-at-a-fraction-of-the-cost-302865074.html
My Opticon New York write-up: https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/scott-reed/dates/2026/9/opticon-new-york--the-strategy-on-upgrading-to-cms-13-/

Optimizely Graph - Provisioning, User Management & Developer Instances

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:15:39 GMT

Upgrading to Optimizely CMS 13 marks a major architectural shift as Optimizely Graph takes over as the central query and delivery engine, retiring the legacy Search & Navigation system. Delivering these enterprise solutions at Niteco frequently reveals a common hurdle: the initial confusion surrounding user access. Graph utilizes a new beta management interface, and before developers or content teams can even see it in their product dropdown, explicit permissions must be configured within the Opti ID Admin Center.

Provisioning an instance

If you are on the SaaS product, you already have an instance of Optimizely Graph created for you, so you can skip this step. If you are moving to PaaS CMS13, you first need to make sure you have an instance.

This is first achieved by navigating into your DXP management portal for your project

Access https://paasportal.episerver.net/
Select the project you want to enable Graph for
Switch to the API tab
Click on Enable Graph Service (note that if you had a pre-CMS13 instance, it may be showing a "Prepare for CMS 13" which will provision you another instance that you can use during the CMS13 project in parallel to the CMS12 version)

This should then enable the Graph service, which shouldn't take too long. It will tell you it's done and provide you with all of the access keys straight away that you can use for integration, preproduction, and production (don't worry about having to note these down straight away. Unlike some other API credentials, these can always be viewed)

Once this is done, you can provision user access.

Provisioning User Access via Opti ID

Optimizely Graph leverages Opti ID for authentication, meaning access is completely governed by the Admin Center. By default, a new Graph instance will not automatically appear for all users in the product dropdown in the Optimizely Home. To unblock a team, access must be manually assigned through the admin portal (this needs to be done by someone with admin access in the admin center via https://home.optimizely.com/)

This can be done two ways:

Navigating to a user directly and adding the product (search user, click, add product access)
Going through the products tab and importing a user or a CSV

I'm going to explain the latter.

Navigate to the Products tab
Click on Graph (you should then see all of the instances)
Click any instance that you want to add users to
You'll see all of the users that are currently in that instance. In the top right-hand corner, click on Invite User. (Also, handily, here you can import a CSV if you have multiple users, which makes it a lot easier. You can download the format when you click on Import users with CSV)
When adding a user, add their email, and then under product access select Add Product Access, it will prepopulate this instance and just give them the required permission level, such as Administrator.
Complete this and save it, and then the user will have access.

Users who are given access should get an email invite, and then they will see Graph inside their dropdown of products at https://home.optimizely.com/.

Navigating the Search Management Portal

The Graph management system is currently in a BETA—officially known as the Search Management portal—provides centralized oversight for your search implementation. The left-hand navigation is categorized into distinct operational areas.

Health & Monitoring: Contains the Search Overview and Performance dashboards for tracking metrics like total queries and click-through rates.
Search Tools: Provides editorial control over the search experience through features like Pinned Results and Synonyms.
Developer: Houses the Development Accounts section for managing isolated testing instances.

Generating Developer Accounts for Sandbox Testing

A critical feature for engineering teams building headless implementations or testing complex Graph queries is the ability to spin up isolated sandbox environments. These self-service development instances ensure that experimental queries and prototype integrations do not impact production data. These temporary accounts support up to 50 queries per second and automatically expire 90 days after creation.

Within the Search Management portal, navigate to the Developer heading in the sidebar and select Development Accounts.
Fill out the required provisioning fields: Developer First Name, Developer Last Name, Developer Email, and the target hosting Region. The email address provided here will be granted administrator access to the new instance.
Click Create Developer Instance and wait for the provisioning process to complete.
The system will display a one-time credentials screen containing the Instance Name, Instance ID, Portal URL, AppKey, Secret, and a read-only Single key.

These credentials are only displayed once upon creation. It is imperative to copy and store them securely in a password manager immediately, as they cannot be retrieved once the window is closed. With these keys secured, developers can connect their local CMS 13 environments directly to the temporary Graph instance and begin querying.

WebMCP providing understandable actions to agents in Optimizely

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:11:49 GMT

WebMCP is coming to Optimizely: a strategic view for CMS and Commerce teams

At Opticon 2026 in New York, Alex Atzberger framed Optimizely's strategy around three experiences: the marketer experience, the customer experience, and the agent experience. The first two are familiar territory. The third is the one that changes how we plan a site, and WebMCP is the most concrete piece of it.

The premise is simple. Your site now has two audiences. Humans arrive through search, ads and email, and interact with the interface you designed for them. AI agents arrive on a customer's behalf, running in that customer's browser, and try to complete the same tasks through the same interface. Today they do that badly. They read the screen, guess which button does what, and break the moment a designer moves something. The result is a slow, unreliable experience that the brand has no control over and no visibility into.

WebMCP is the proposed fix, and the shift it represents is worth understanding before the implementation detail arrives.

And what's more it was announced that WebMCP support will be coming automatically to the platform, so similar to how we can help fix AEO and GEO issues, agents and the DXP platform will give you features to be able to add this to your website!

What WebMCP?

Instead of leaving an agent to work out what your interface does, the site tells it.

A page can publish a short, structured list of the actions it supports: search the catalogue, choose a size, book an appointment, request a brochure, check an order, start a return. Each action has a name, a description, and a defined set of inputs. The agent picks from that menu rather than guessing, and the action runs in the customer's own browser window, visibly, so the person can see what is happening and step in.

That last part matters commercially. The action executes inside your site, in your session, under your rules. Your brand, your pricing logic, your validation and your design decisions all stay intact. This is the opposite of the alternative future, where agents scrape your content, complete tasks in an interface you do not own, and reduce your brand to a data source.

WebMCP is a proposed web standard being incubated at the W3C, led largely by engineers from Google and Microsoft. It is the browser-side counterpart to the server-side integrations many teams have already started building. Optimizely shipped a server-side MCP server for Experimentation earlier in 2026, which lets an agent work with your experimentation programme on behalf of an authorised user. WebMCP addresses the other side of the equation: not your team's tools, but your customers' journeys on your live site.

Where the standard actually is

Set expectations carefully, because this is early.

Chrome and Edge both have developer trials running. Brave and ChatGPT's desktop app have shipped early support. Firefox and Apple are engaged in the standards process but have not committed to implementing it, and the specification is still changing. Nobody should be building a business case on WebMCP delivering measurable revenue this quarter.

What it does justify is a place on the roadmap and a set of preparatory decisions, most of which have value whether or not the standard lands as expected. That is the useful framing for a client conversation: this is not a bet on one specification, it is groundwork for agent-mediated traffic that is already arriving. Optimizely reported agent-related traffic growing around 6% month over month in its own data.

What Optimizely showed, and what is still unclear

Optimizely previewed WebMCP as part of the agent experience story at Opticon 2026, alongside agent-facing measurement: AI citations, brand mentions, share of voice, and which pages are receiving machine rather than human requests. The stated direction is that these capabilities become part of the platform rather than a per-project custom build.

What has not been published in detail, at the time of writing, is the shape of that delivery: which products get it first, whether it surfaces through Forms and Visual Builder or through developer tooling, and on what timeline. If you are planning around specifics, get them from your Optimizely contact rather than from conference coverage, including this article.

Where this is useful on a content site

The strategic question is not "how do we support agents". It is "which actions on our site are worth an agent completing reliably". That list is usually shorter and more obvious than people expect.

On a content-led site, the strongest candidates are the interactions that already have a clear structure and a clear business value attached:

Enquiry and lead capture. Brochure requests, contact forms, event registration, quote requests. These are the highest-intent actions on most sites and the ones most damaged by friction.
Booking and appointments. Complex date and time selection is exactly where agents struggle and where drop-off is highest for humans too.
Search and filtered discovery. A faceted listing is a set of choices you have expressed as an interface. The underlying capability is easy for an agent to use well.
Multi-step journeys. Applications, eligibility checks, configurators. Anywhere a visitor currently works through several screens to reach an answer.
Account self-service. Change a detail, download a document, check a status.

Quinnipiac University, which runs around 17 sites on Optimizely, pointed at precisely this class of task at Opticon: booking a campus visit, requesting information. Nothing exotic. Just the things people came to the site to do.

There is a second-order effect worth raising with content teams. Nazanin Ramezani made the point at Opticon that as generating channel variations gets easier, managing the source content repository becomes the harder part of the job. The same logic applies to actions. If your taxonomy is thin and your product data is inconsistent, the descriptions of your actions will be vague, and vague descriptions get used incorrectly or ignored. Content and data quality stop being a hygiene issue and become a performance issue.

Where this is useful on a B2C storefront such as Customized Commerce

For consumer commerce on Customized Commerce, the value concentrates in three places.

Getting the right product into the basket. Consumer catalogues are option-heavy, and the valid combinations are messy. The navy is out of stock in a 12; the longer leg length only comes in three colours. An agent reading two dependent dropdowns will get this wrong some of the time, and it will get it wrong quietly, putting the wrong item into a basket the shopper then buys. Your product data already holds the correct answer. Letting the site resolve an option request, rather than letting an agent infer it, turns the most likely failure into a point of difference. On a fashion, homeware or consumer electronics site, this is the single most valuable action to get right.

Repeat and low-consideration purchases. Reordering consumables, refilling a subscription, adding to a wishlist, registering interest in an out-of-stock line. These are the journeys where the customer has no interest whatsoever in your interface and every interest in the outcome. They are also, conveniently, low risk.

Post-purchase self-service. Order tracking, delivery changes, returns and exchanges. High volume, low margin for error, and a direct line to both customer service cost and repeat purchase rate.

Running these actions inside the shopper's own session is what makes them viable. The session already knows the market and currency, the signed-in customer, the delivery preferences, the current basket and the promotions applied to it. An external integration has to reconstruct all of that before it can answer a question as ordinary as "what does this cost me, delivered, by Friday?". Keeping the action on your site means it simply answers.

Where to start

Three things are worth doing in the next quarter, none of which depend on the specification settling.

Inventory your actions. List the things customers actually come to your site to do, and rank them by business value. If an action cannot be described clearly and briefly, that tells you something about the journey rather than about WebMCP.
Audit the data underneath the top three. Product options, availability, taxonomy, form routing. This is the work that determines whether agent-assisted journeys succeed, and it improves the human experience in the meantime.
Decide how you will recognise agent traffic. Before it grows large enough to distort your reporting and your testing programme.

The technology here will not be the hard part. The hard part is the same thing every Opticon takeaway eventually circles back to: knowing which actions matter, having data structured well enough to describe them, and having governance robust enough to let something other than a human trigger them. None of that is blocked on a specification reaching maturity. It can start now.

When we have more information about the specifics of the Optimizely implementation, I'll provide another article. Until then, I wanted this article to highlight where Optimizely is going around the agent experience and the new WebMCP technology.

Opticon New York & The Strategy on Upgrading to CMS 13 & Commerce 15

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:25:20 GMT

Overview

Well, another exciting Opticon in New York City wrapped up last week and it was certainly one of the most fun and exciting ones I've been to,

Niteco was there in force with our whole leadership and delivery team for UK and USA and it was a blast!

As part of my takeaways from Opticon, I'm going to break it down into two sections:

All the key announcements and what it means for your company and organisation
A bit more about the strategy around CMS13 and Commerce15 upgrades

Opticon Takeaways

Obviously, as expected, this year, one of the biggest pieces of excitement following the launch of Opal a year ago is everything that has been achieved and delivered on that platform and the amazing heights that the platform has grown to in the last year.

Opal is now a fully agentic platform and had a rename

Opal has now expanded in masses of capabilities in its agentic structure, workflows, and the addition of new features at Opticon. As part of this, there was a rename in how we talk about this

The platform as a whole is now the Optimizely agent platform
The specific marketing operational models (that are post trained) and agent experience are specifically now called Mark (Mark - Eting :p)

Virtual Teamates allow automomous operation

Although we have had workflows for a little while now that can be scheduled or triggered, Virtual Teamates now bring a layer of autonomous operation as an AI specific teammate that can do specific operations and work with the team https://www.optimizely.com/solutions/virtual-teammates

Teamates have an Opti ID identity, making them a unique member of the team
They have user memory to allow all the activities they are working on to be remembered the same way as any user
Teammates have specific profiles with resume style skills that explain they goals such as SEO & AI Search Analyst or Chief of Staff
Teammates are optimised for the AI operations they do, which means using Mark's post-training models. This is faster, more effective, and cheaper!
Teammates are autonomous and can interact on their own and can collaborate using chat with other agents and humans in the platform and with connected systems like Microsoft Teams and Slack

Marketing Benchmark

While many AI models out there have specific benchmarking profiles that allow models to be tested and validated (which is a continuous source of how different frontier models are graded when they are released), there has been no benchmark system for marketing-specific models.

Therefore, Optimizely has created one and has open sourced it so it can be used with any other marketing AI models. They are using this to grade their own system of their post-trained models and can show that not only is it 10 to 20 times cheaper for the marketing models they are better that their tasks

There are 285 tasks, 6,523 criteria. Optimizely Agent Platform scored 67% vs. Claude Code's 60%, at 2x efficiency.

Optimization and personalization updates

Optimizely covered more around continuous optimisation and one-to-one limitless personalization.

With the new agentic experience in filters, dynamic landing pages can be created based upon any request, allowing true one-to-one, limitless personalization and newer self-improving digital experiences will allow personalization to continually optimise itself based upon a loop of optimisation processes with built-in guardrails allow true optimized automation.

AI is not a cost cutter. It is a growth strategy

One of the key takeaways from Alex here was that we should look at these AI tools as a way of providing growth and reducing areas of friction for our human employees. By taking away painstaking and laborious tasks from employees and providing them to AI, we should be opening those employees up to empower their ability to drive growth and creativity in their areas of expertise. Allow the humans to be the ones driving creativity and driving new ideas, and take away the stuff that they dislike doing, the stuff that's monotonous, and give that to AI.

Instead of seeing AI as a way of reducing human employees or cutting costs, we look at it as a way of freeing up those employees to do things that they can do to make the company better.

Support growth instead of reducing costs.

Optimizely CMS 13 + Commerce 15: A platform upgrade for connectivity

It has not been that long since we had the big CMS 12 and Commerce 14 releases, which were so much of a major re-platform (as they moved from .NET Framework to .NET Core) that they required large amounts of investment in doing upgrades. They had masses of technical changes that needed to be actioned based upon whether plugins still existed, whether the technology still existed, or whether we needed to strategically change how the solutions were worked. This large amount of investment has had customers questioning whether they need to move to CMS 13 and Commerce 15, and if the level of investment is going to be the same cost.

No, it isn't

CMS13 and Commerce15 are still on the same fundamental technology, now supporting .NET 10. This means that a lot of the challenges that we faced when it comes to an upgrade (because we had a large technology change) are not the same ones we will be facing when it comes to an upgrade.

What CMS 13 and Commerce 15 do include is a couple of key pieces of technology that are integrated with the platforms that have changed.

Opti ID - Opti ID is a single sign-on solution through Optimizely's own identity platform built on Okta, which then allows you to use your own identity platforms, such as Entra, to identify individual users. Opti ID is a framework upgrade that is required for CMS 13 because it connects that single identity across all Optimizely products, such as Graph, CMS, Commerce, CMP, and, most importantly, the Optimizely agent platform.
Optimizely Graph - Search and navigation is an old platform by now and has many architectural, performance, and technological issues that have been solved with Optimizely Graph. However, the key part of Optimizely Graph is that this platform allows the indexing of all of your CMS and commerce content, and even external content, into one single source of truth. This source of truth can be integrated not only through backend keys but through frontend keys, when it comes to frontend hosting (such as the Optimizely frontend hosting, Vercel or Netlify), but also to any other connected system, such as a chatbot or AI. This is a key piece of technology for connectivity.
Optimizely Agent Platform (Mark) - With Opti ID and Graph connected, we can get the CMS properly, fully integrated with context and knowledge of the user and all of the data into the Optimizely agent platform (which allows us to have complex agent-based workflows across CMS, commerce, and CMP). Now, with the new Virtual Teamates, 1 to 1 personalization and complicated workflows, we can automate aspects of website optimisation around GEO/AEO experimentation and delivering fresh content personalised to the individual user
Optimizely Connect Platform - With direct native integration into the Optimizely Connect platform, we can now connect CMS13 directly into other external data sources and workflows so that the platforms can integrate seamlessly without needing development effort. And with Graph here, we have all of the data to connect these systems together as effortlessly as possible.
Optimizely DAM - With Graph being the fundamental connectivity system, we can now have the Optimizely DAM, the CMS, and the Optimizely Agent platform all connected together. With the new pricing model from Optimizely, we can also move content assets that used to be in Azure Blob Storage over to the Optimizely DAM, which is included for any CMS13 customer, saving licence costs.

Why CMS 13 and Commerce 15 are a strategy for your organisation

As we have mentioned here, these products that we're integrating, which are the core heart of an upgrade, are there to be able to drive connectivity and integration for your system. You can now see that the content management system is not just a siloed place for content for your website. Now that it's connected via graph, through the agent platform, through the connect platform, through the DAM, it can be directly integrated across the workflow of your marketing organisation.

It is now a central place to connect all of your strategy around your website, to connect your agentic vision, and integrate with any of your systems that you need it to be able to provide a forward strategy for 2026 and beyond.

Here at Niteco, we have invested in the last number of years in providing AI-driven accelerators to take you from CMS 11 to 12 and 12 to 13, and from Commerce 13 to 14 and 14 to 15. We have delivered over 500 upgraded websites with our expertise through our AI delivery and upgrade teams and our specialist solution architects. We can help you drive your path to upgrade faster, providing your business with the tools it needs without needing to wait for the delivery. Our automated processes, validation, and testing processes can drive this delivery in weeks rather than quarters, contact us today to help with your staregy and upgrade delivery https://niteco.com/contact-us/

Overview

As you can see, Optimizely has been pushing the boundaries on their agentic platform throughout the last year and is providing many, many new features. The velocity of feature deliveries has gone up over double what was delivered in 2025, to what's been delivered in 2026. With the addition of Virtual Teamates, limitless personalization, autonomous optimisation, and the upgrades that we can deliver into CMS 13 and Commerce 15, we are truly connecting Optimizely into the best platform for marketers. Where the operation of both human creativity and agentic comes together to provide the best opportunity for your organisation and its future. And on top of everything they've delivered by providing an open-source framework for grading marketing models, Optimizely are showing their continued investment and drive into making their platform the best in the world as an AI agentic platform for marketers.

For help realising this workflow or providing streamlined, super-fast upgrades, contact Niteco, and we can help you with your digital strategy and accelerating fast, optimised upgrades.

https://niteco.com/contact-us/

Optimizely London developer meetup 2026: a round up

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:50:58 GMT

Well, what can I say?

Last night we wrapped up! Yet another London Developer Meetup, hosted at the superb Lightwell venue

And this is also a celebration of my 10th year of co-hosting/hosting this meetup, something that has been very dear to my heart because of my love of the Optimizely community. It's always been the greatest of pleasures to organise these and help people get together, because the people I've met, the friends I've made, and the conversations we've had over a couple of beers have always made everything seem more vibrant and exciting and have really made my life so much better. Thank you to everyone who's been to any of these and connected with me. You're all amazing.

So the night, we had a great packed line up of talks

So we kicked off with a bit of an intro and a retro from myself and Mark, talking a little bit about where we were ten years ago and sharing a number of photos!

As a really touching point, our Niteco UK/US leader and friend Mark Welland (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwelland/) arranged a couple of videos to celebrate my 10 years from Patrick Lam https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickpclam/ Nicola Ayan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaayan/) and the big dog and CEO of Optimizely Alex Atzberger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aatzberger/)

these are all such lovely videos, and it was really, really kind of everyone to put together such touching thoughts. It really meant the world to me.

And then we had all of the talks. Every single one of the talks was well thought out, well presented, and engaging, and I want to thank every single one of the speakers. Rather than recap it all here, you can actually view the recorded and live streamed output masterfully created by my good friend Jacob Pretorius (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobpretorius/) here

and also a big thank you to Techspace and the amazing food spread that they put on. We've been coming here a number of years, and it really is a great venue. Also, thank you so much to Satata (https://www.linkedin.com/in/satatasatez/). Patrick and Shamim (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamim605/) for helping organise this and a big thank you to every one of the speakers today.

Mark Evard - https://www.linkedin.com/in/everard/ and thank you so much for all the kind words.
Guilherme Menezes - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guilherme-menezes-0521a715a/
Minesh Shah - https://www.linkedin.com/in/minesh-shah-dev/
Graham Carr - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrgraham/
Simon Chapman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgchapman/
Andrew Markham - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markham-andrew/

Thanks everyone for attending, and I look forward to next year.

Optimizely London Dev Meetup 2026

Fri, 15 May 2026 08:02:56 GMT

Well, everyone, it's that time of the year again, and we have another London Developer meet up coming for this summer. The date is set for the 2nd of July, and we're back at the Lightwell in London https://www.techspace.co/locations/worship-street/events

This year marks a whole 10 years of either helping or directly planning the London developer meet up for Optimizely. It has been the greatest of pleasures to help support the community, and I've made so many great friends in this time. I hope you can all come down to London to celebrate with me this year and celebrate what a great community we have.

This year, we have speakers from a range of MVPs. We have Optimizely coming, and hopefully Cloudflare as well, to talk about AI within the Cloudflare platform.

The register link will be up soon, and I will update this blog post, but for now please mark this on your calendar. If you're interested in contributing at this dev meetup, please contact me on Slack.

Supercharging Optimizely Forms: Introducing Dynamic Email Routing & Conditional Submissions

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:46:11 GMT

Supercharging Optimizely Forms: Introducing Dynamic Email Routing & Conditional Submissions

Optimizely Forms is a powerhouse for gathering user data, but as implementations grow in complexity, we often run into a common limitation with the built-in "Send email after form submission" actor: it's a bit static.

In a typical enterprise scenario, you don't just want one email going to one place. You might need to route a lead to the "Sales" team if they select a specific department, or perhaps you only want an email sent if the user ticks a "Request Callback" box.

To solve this, I’ve released an open-source package: ScottReed.Optimizely.Forms.DynamicEmailRouting. It’s a custom post-submission actor for CMS 12 that brings dynamic routing and complex conditional logic directly into the Forms UI.

The Problem: The "One-Size-Fits-All" Email

The default email actor is great for simple notifications. However, once you need logic like "If Department is 'Support', send to support@company.com" or "Only send this internal alert if 'Priority' is 'Critical'", you're usually forced to write custom code for every specific form or clutter the CMS with multiple overlapping actors.

The Solution: Dynamic Email Routing

This package extends the core functionality of the built-in email actor but adds two powerful layers: Email Routing and Conditional Logic.

1. Dynamic Email Routing

Instead of a single hardcoded "To" address, you can now define a mapping table. You select a form field, define a value to match, and specify the recipient. If no match is found, it gracefully falls back to the primary "To" address.

2. Conditional Logic (AND/OR)

Sometimes you don't want an email sent at all unless specific criteria are met. The actor allows you to add multiple conditions using "is" and "is not" operators. You can toggle between "Match ALL" (AND) or "Match ANY" (OR) logic.

Technical Implementation: Under the Hood

For the developers curious about how this is built, the package leverages several Optimizely extension points to ensure a "native" feel.

The Actor & Model

The core logic resides in DynamicEmailRoutingActor, which inherits from SendEmailAfterSubmissionActor. This is crucial because it allows us to reuse the existing EmailTemplateActorModel features—like the rich text editor, the "Insert Placeholder" dropdown, and the standard From/Subject fields—without reinventing the wheel.

The UI (Dojo & Protected Modules)

To provide a seamless editor experience, the package uses the Protected Module pattern. On build, the client-side resources (Dojo editors and language files) are zipped into a protected module folder.

I’ve implemented three custom Dojo editors:

EmailRoutingEditor.js: Handles the dynamic table for routing.
ConditionMatchEditor.js: A simple dropdown for logic selection.
ConditionsEditor.js: Manages the conditional rules.

Localization

All labels and the actor name are localized via XML files embedded within the module, ensuring it fits perfectly into the Optimizely UI language settings.

Getting Started

Installation is a standard NuGet affair. Because it uses an IConfigurableModule for auto-registration, there's zero configuration required in your Startup.cs.

Install via NuGet:

https://nuget.optimizely.com/packages/scottreed.optimizely.forms.dynamicemailrouting/

dotnet add package ScottReed.Optimizely.Forms.DynamicEmailRouting

Configuration:

Ensure your SMTP is configured in appsettings.json (the actor uses the standard Optimizely SMTP client).
In the CMS, add the Dynamic email routing actor to your Form Container.
Define your routes and conditions.

[Image Placeholder: Selecting the Dynamic Email Routing actor in the Form Settings tab]

Extensibility

The project is built with extensibility in mind. If you need more complex operators (like "contains" or "starts with"), you can easily extend the EvaluateConditions logic in the actor or contribute to the repository!

Wrap Up

By moving this logic into the CMS UI, we empower editors to manage complex workflows themselves without needing a deployment for every routing change.

You can find the full source code, documentation, and a test Alloy site on GitHub: 👉 scottreed/Optimizely-Dynamic-Form-Submission

I’d love to hear your feedback or see your PRs!

Reducing Web Experimentation MAU Using the REST API

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:27:28 GMT

Overview

Optimizely Web Experimentation counts an MAU based upon the script snippet rendering for evauluation of web experiement. Therefore when you globally install a snippet in a website you can be counting MAUs with pages that don't need to be counted. There could also be some page types that don't need web ex as there will never be an experiement on it. See https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410284235789-Monitor-monthly-active-users-MAUs for imformation around this consumption.

It's suggested in the article to not render the script or opt out using the following script

<script>
  window["optimizely"] = window["optimizely"] || [];
  window["optimizely"].push({
   "type": "optOut",
   "isOptOut": true
  });
</script>
<script src=”https://cdn.optimizely.com/js/{project_id].js”></script>

However how do we know!

I'm Scott Reed, a solution architect at Niteco https://niteco.com/. In this blog post, I'll set out a POC I've created to test resolving this decision.

Solution

The REST API for web experimentation can return active experiments for a specific project using a user bearer token https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/web-experimentation/reference/list_experiments

Therefore it's possible for us to plug in logic to know if a domain/subpage has an active experiment.

As a proof of concept (I have not used in a real project yet) I have created https://github.com/scottreed/Optimizely-Web-Experimentation-Evaluator/

This project is a POC around evaulating Optimizely Web Experimentation via the REST API using the bearer token for a web experimentaion user.

Web experimentation Counts its monthly active users based upon a script being just rendered into the page to evaluate if an experiment needs to be run. This means that whenever you render a web experimentation snippet, even if there is no need to run it, it will evaluate and for an unique user count as an MAU.

This can increase costs as you're counting users that don't need to run this is especially important with multi-site where you might not be running experiments on specific sections of pages or subsites.

Project Overview

This is a standard project with the following

.NET 8.0
ASP.NET Core 8.0
Optimizely SDK
Minimal API
In Memory Cache

Features

The project has the following features

Return a list of experiments from the web experimentation REST API based upon the past in status flags.
Filtering the list of experiments based upon multiple path criteria (e.g., a sub-path or the route of the website).
A Boolean in the ExperimentFilterService service to allow returning experiments if they have no URL matching criteria.
In-memory caching of experiments so they don't need to be constantly re-evaluated with a 15-minute window.
A minimal API that matches the webhook JSON Post format. This webhook can be configured in the settings for a project and notifies you when a project has a change. This minimal API will clear the cache based upon the project ID.

To note on the above image, I set it to return archived projects as well because I needed to do some testing. However, when running this project, it would be better to adjust it to be just active and running projects.

Conclusion

Using this we can actively know from backend code if we need not render (or opt) the web experiementation script. This way we can specifically stop MAU counting and reduce cost to ONLY what's needed!

To note this is just the evaulator so if you need to override this and still render (for tracking / audience criteria or other features) you can adapt this.

As this is just a POC and a thought idea let me know if you have an concer

Connecting the Dots Between Research and Specification to Implementation using NotebookLM

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:49:36 GMT

Overview

As part of my day to day role as a solution architect I overlap with many clients, partners, solutions and technologies. I am often documenting meetings, requirements, technical solutions and having to provide my team information for the sprint work to action the required goals for the client. Also in my case the development team is in Vietnam and non english native speakers.

There's a lot of challenges I face

Having accurate documentation that is easy query, adapt and output in anyway I want
Creating great output for the teams that overcome questions and technical or language barriers
Maintaining information over multiple meetings and across different sources

I have created a video using NotebookLM of this blog post after publishing to show how it can easily create video outputs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3IbCCQ-XA4

Enter NotebookLM, the Google AI research tool with amazing features

Think of NotebookLM not just as a note-taking app, but as a dynamic knowledge management system powered by the latest in AI. It's designed to take all your scattered information, understand it, and then help you synthesize it into something truly useful. Here are some of its core features that will make your dev heart flutter:

Source Connectivity on Steroids: Forget copy-pasting entire articles or losing track of where that crucial snippet came from. NotebookLM lets you upload various sources – PDFs, Google Docs, even web pages – and treats them as a unified knowledge base. Imagine having all your project's architectural diagrams, API documentation, and sprint retrospective notes in one searchable, interconnected space. No more "where did I see that again?" moments. This is a game-changer for solution architects like me, who need to cross-reference multiple documents to ensure design consistency and avoid technical debt.
AI-Powered Summarization & Key Takeaways: This is where the magic truly happens. Once your sources are loaded, NotebookLM can instantly generate summaries, extract key concepts, and even answer specific questions based on the content of your sources. Need a quick overview of the authentication flow discussed in three different design documents? Ask NotebookLM. Want to know the estimated effort for a particular feature based on your team's past sprint reviews? It can do that too. This feature is invaluable for developers trying to quickly grasp the essence of complex systems or for solution architects presenting high-level overviews to stakeholders.
Intelligent Q&A and Brainstorming: Ever wish you could just talk to your documentation? Now you can! NotebookLM allows you to ask natural language questions about your sources. It's like having a rubber duck debugging session, but with an AI that actually understands your project's context. Beyond answering direct questions, it can also act as a brainstorming partner, helping you generate new ideas, explore different approaches, or even draft initial code snippets based on your project's specifications. Imagine asking, "Given these API specs, what are some potential error handling strategies?" and getting intelligent, context-aware suggestions.
"Ask Your Sources" – The Ultimate Debugging Buddy: Picture this: you're debugging a tricky issue, and you're pretty sure the answer is buried deep within a technical spec or a previous incident report. Instead of endless scrolling and searching, simply ask NotebookLM, "What are the known limitations of the UserService regarding concurrent requests?" It will scan all your connected sources and pinpoint the relevant information, saving you precious hours of head-scratching. This is where NotebookLM truly shines as a productivity booster for every developer.
Multiple Outputs Allowing Many Ways To Absort: The sources fed in in to a Notebook can be outputted in many ways. Want an Audio output for a podcast or a video overview on any specific topic that can easily be created with Veo 3 giving flavour to the videos. Want to create a Mind map, a report, flashcard or quiz and you can do all this. It really allows you to output the documentation any way you like, empowering different ways of learning
Notebooks for Every Occasion: Organize your knowledge into distinct notebooks for different projects, features, or even personal learning. This keeps everything tidy and ensures that your AI assistant is always focused on the relevant context. As a solution architect, I can create separate notebooks for each project, encompassing everything from initial discovery to deployment strategies, ensuring all information is readily accessible and logically grouped.
Seamless Integration (with Google Workspace): If your team lives in Google Docs, you're in luck! NotebookLM integrates seamlessly, allowing you to easily pull in your existing documents and leverage your current collaborative workflows. This reduces friction and makes adoption a breeze.

How NotebookLM Benefits Your Learning and Investigation

I have been using NotebookLM to collate information on projects, technologies and integration in to a single source of truth that I can query and output in many different source.

In a very real example I have used a very cool extension called NotebookLM Web Importer https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/notebooklm-web-importer/ijdefdijdmghafocfmmdojfghnpelnfn?hl=en to do the following for my own learning

Import all of Jon Jones Optimizely YouTube videos in to a NotebookLM for querying and exploration
Import each of the Optimizely document sections in to a NotebookLM for querying
Importing integration meetings from Integration overlap meetings a client has started using to generate formatted Requirements in text and video

For example here is the CMS 12 documentation

This then allows me to query the information via Mind maps, videos and queries outputs as it's own AI chatbot.

or many other types of output

This is a really amazing tool and the fact it can do this from URLs, Documents, YouTube Videos and notes is amazing.

It also allows you take outputs from the chat and convert them in to notes or create your own notes then even reference them back as sources creating a great feedback loop.

How NotebookLM Benefits Your Development Team (and Makes Your Solution Architect Happy!)

This also translates in to creating better documentation for the team you can copy in to DevOps, Jira or your solution of choice with rich mind maps, audio podcasts, video allowing faster and easier adoption of information.

Faster Onboarding for New Devs: New team members can quickly get up to speed by having all project documentation, design decisions, and common FAQs consolidated and easily digestible through NotebookLM's summarization and Q&A features.
Reduced Context Switching: Spend less time hunting for information across different tools and platforms. With NotebookLM, your critical knowledge is centralized, allowing you to stay focused on coding and problem-solving.
Improved Design Cohesion & Reduced Rework: Solution architects can ensure that development teams are consistently referencing the latest approved designs and technical specifications. NotebookLM can highlight discrepancies or areas needing clarification, leading to more robust and aligned solutions from the get-go.
Smarter Decision-Making: By quickly accessing and synthesizing information from various sources, teams can make more informed decisions, whether it's choosing a new technology, refining an architectural pattern, or resolving a critical bug.
Empowered Developers: Give your developers the tools to self-serve information, reducing reliance on senior team members for basic queries and freeing up valuable time for more complex problem-solving.
A Solution Architect's Dream: For us solution architects, NotebookLM is like having an extra brain. It helps us quickly synthesize complex information from multiple stakeholders, validate architectural decisions against existing documentation, and communicate design rationales more effectively. Imagine being able to instantly pull up all the discussions around a specific design constraint before a review meeting!

Optimizely Setup and Extension

By using NotebookLM Web Importer for bulk URLs and Gemini to parse and extract links from the Docs pages I've connected the following.

CMS 12 Documentation

Bulk import the following URLs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/getting-started
https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/33309043090189
https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/25432213670413
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/hipaa-enabled-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/learning-path
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/developer-prerequisites
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/what-is-a-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/technology-stack
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/pluggable-ui
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/alloy-demonstration-templates
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/installing-and-upgrading
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/initial-configuration
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-model-and-views
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-and-editing-content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/media-support
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-tree-and-routing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/listings-and-navigation
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/security-checklist
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/deployment-learning-path
https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/19965302094989-User-interface
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/set-up-a-development-environment
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/learn-basic-editing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-starter-project
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/documentation-videos
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/set-up-cms-12
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/system-requirements-for-optimizely
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/installing-optimizely-net-5
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/nuget-package-families-in-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/resolving-nuget-dependency-conflicts-in-project-sdk-packagereference-model
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/upgrade-to-cms-12
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/breaking-changes-in-content-cloud-cms-12
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/why-upgrade-to-content-cloud-cms-12
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/upgrade-assistant
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/upgrade-to-cms-core-12170
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuration
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-cmsui
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-dataaccess-and-dynamicdatastore
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-moduleconfig
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/changing-edit-and-admin-view-urls
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/link-validation
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/initialization
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-an-initialization-module
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/dependency-injection
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/deploying-content-cloud
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/planning-deployments
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/deployment-scenarios
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/managing-cloud-licenses
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/deploying-to-azure-webapps
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/deploying-to-windows-servers
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/setting-up-multiple-sites
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/installing-database-schema
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/automatic-schema-updates
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-delivery-network-cdn-configuration
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/database-mode
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-your-email-server
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/create-a-docker-file
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/storing-utc-date-and-time-in-the-database-legacy
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/host-a-frontend-with-optimizely
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/develop-the-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/blob-storage-and-providers
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configure-a-custom-blob-provider
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/how-to-add-azure-blob-provider-to-your-net-core-application
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/caching
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/object-caching
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/read-only-object-cache
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/monitoring-memorycache
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/client-resources
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/dynamic-data-store
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-dynamic-data-store
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/indexing-properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/mapping-stores
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/supporting-linq
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/identity-and-date-and-time-management
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/event-management
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/developing-an-event-provider
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/how-to-add-azure-event-provider-to-your-net-core-application
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/event-management-api
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/file-providers
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/globalization
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/globalization-scenarios
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/localizing-the-user-interface
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-a-custom-localization-provider
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/localization-service-1
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/localization-service
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/determining-languages
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/add-a-custom-language
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/activity-logging
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/logging-options
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/logging
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/routing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/partial-routing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/example-of-news-partial-routing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/blob-routing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/internationalized-resource-identifiers-iris
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/scheduled-jobs
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/search
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/searching-and-filtering
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/adding-search-providers
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/searching-for-pages-based-on-page-type
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/security
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-security-policy
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/cookie-usage
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/integrate-azure-ad-using-openid-connect
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/aspnetidentity
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/mixed-mode-authentication
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/permissions-to-functions
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/decoupled-setup
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/virtual-roles
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/filter-javascript-from-properties-and-files
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/synchronization
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/using-notifications
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/usage-examples
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/user-interface
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/adding-a-module-initializer
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/command-pattern
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/global-toolbar-commands-plug-in
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/plugging-in-commands
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/command-builders
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-cms-user-interface
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-shell-modules
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/context-sensitive-components
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-react-component
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-component
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/debugging-cms-ui
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/describing-content-in-the-ui
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/dialogs
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/introduction-to-dojo
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/drag-and-drop
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/editing-objects
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/ui-wrapper-types
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configuring-the-default-editor-wrapper
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/enabling-headless-content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/extending-the-navigation
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/using-menu-providers
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/upgrading-navigation
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/adding-and-configuring-menu-items
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/how-to-highlight-parent-menu-items
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/extending-the-tasks-pane-with-custom-queries
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/message-service-pool
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/plug-in-areas
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/plugging-in-a-gadget
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/publish-and-subscribe-messaging-system
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/service-locator
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/shell-profile
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/store-architecture
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/views
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-view
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/modifying-a-view-through-configuration
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-component-1
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-container
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/replacing-a-component-globally
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/hiding-or-controlling-access-to-a-component
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/plugging-in-components-into-a-view
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/websocket-support
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/develop-content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-types
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-templates
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-versions
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-approvals
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/selecting-content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/multilingual-content
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/grouping-content-types-and-properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/icontentrepository-and-datafactory
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/persisting-icontent-instances
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/validating-object-instances
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/attributes
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/resolving-current-content-context
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/refactoring-content-type-classes
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-a-page-programmatically
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/edit-hints-in-mvc
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/inline-edit-settings
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/built-in-property-types
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/property-attributes
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/generic-propertylist
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/property-value-list
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-metadata-properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/custom-properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/writing-custom-attributes
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/restricting-content-types-in-properties
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/single-or-multiple-list-options
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/built-in-auto-suggestion-editor
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/using-a-block-as-a-property
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/editing
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/on-page-editing-with-client-side-rendering
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/creating-an-editor-widget
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/registering-a-custom-editor
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/assets-and-media
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/media-types-and-templates
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/working-with-media
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/content-assets-and-folders
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/custom-editing-preview-for-media
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-marketing-platform/docs/cmp-dam-asset-picker
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/cmp-dam-in-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/cmp-dam-in-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/cmp-content-repository
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-marketing-platform/docs/dam-assets-migration-using-the-api
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/configured-commerce-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/install-configured-commerce-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/manage-website-elements-with-configured-commerce-and-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/odp-cms-1
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/odp-cms
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/architecture
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/dxp-overview
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/install-and-configure-optimizely-graph-on-your-site
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/synchronize-from-optimizely-content-management-system
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/event-driven-synchronization
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/scheduled-synchronization
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/conventions-api
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/smooth-rebuild
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/enable-and-disable-website-languages
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/paas-cms-core-openid
https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/upgrade-to-cms-12

Commerce Conect Documentation

Bulk import the following URLs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/system-overview

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/breaking-changes-for-commerce-14

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/getting-started

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/setting-up-your-development-environment

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/creating-your-project

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/adding-e-commerce-functionality

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/recommendations-for-commerce-projects

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/caching

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/events

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/globalization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/initialization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/logging

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metadata-plus

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/routing

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/scheduled-jobs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/workflows-and-activities

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/set-up-opal-ai

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/dashboard-overview

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/business-foundation

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/object-configuration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/generating-typed-business-foundation-classes

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/sql-meta-model

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/extending-meta-models

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/exporting-and-importing-meta-models

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/working-with-sql-records

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/working-with-entity-objects

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/filtering-and-sorting

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/business-meta-model

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metaclassmanager-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metaclass-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metaenum-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metafield-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metafieldbuilder-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/metatype-class

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/meta-class-references

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalogs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/guidelines-for-working-with-catalogs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/importing-catalog-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/multi-site-for-catalogs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-content

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/product-variants

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/bundles-and-packages

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/dynamic-packages

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/url-segment-and-seo-uri

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/categorizations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/related-entries

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-events

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/commerce-rendering-templates

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-content-provider

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/properties

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/publish-content-version-setting

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/lowest-price-in-a-period-of-time

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/translate-content-with-optimizely-opal

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/assets-and-media

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/asset-url-resolver

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/asset-importer

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/product-associations-relations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/event-driven-catalog-indexing

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-product-search

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/low-level-apis

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-object-model

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/catalog-dto-and-object-models

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/meta-classes-and-meta-fields

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/configuration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/option-configuration-classes

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/feature-specific-commerce-configurations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/user-interface-configuration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/customers

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/customer-object-model-and-database-diagrams

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/customer-groups

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/organization-models

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/deployment

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/deploying-commerce-to-azure-web-apps

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/single-server-deployment

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/performance-optimization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/automatic-schema-updates

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/marketing

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/new_promotions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/promotions-engine

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/custom-promotions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/hiding-promotion-types

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/exclude-products-from-promotions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/promotion-exclusions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/coupons

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/custom-facets-in-the-marketing-overview

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/markets

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/countries-and-regions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/currencies

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/multi-market-examples

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/orders

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/multi-site-for-orders

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/order-system-overview

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/order-manipulation

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/order-processing

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/extend-components

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/extend-search-result-display

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/extending-order-classes

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/extending-order-status

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/changing-default-implementation

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/rounding-totals-for-currencies

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/order-events

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/recording-order-activities

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/shopping-carts

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/serializable-carts

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/searching-for-orders-using-ordercontext

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/searching-for-orders-using-abstractions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/using-the-return-order-form

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-intro

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-line-item-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-shipping-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-tax-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-order-form-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-order-group-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-return-line-item-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-return-order-form-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/calculating-orders-return-purchase-order-calculator

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/payments

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/payment-gateways

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/payment-plugins

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/set-up-payment-service

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/authorizetokenex-installation-and-configuration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/bolt-installation

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/personalization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/recommendations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/installing-and-configuring-the-native-integration-package

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/exporting-your-catalog-to-episerver-perform

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/activating-widgets

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/tracking-and-recommendations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/an-api-overview

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/server-side-api-integration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/client-side-api-integration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/improvements-with-tracking

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/customizing-exported-product-information

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/pricing

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/pricetype-examples

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/pricing-examples

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/reports

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/collect-data-for-reports

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/collecting-subscription-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/search

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/configuring-optimizely-find-search-provider

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/creating-a-search-provider

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/customizing-search

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/configuring-facets-and-filters

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/find-integration

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/indexing-catalog-content

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/filtering-catalog-content

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/overriding-default-conventions

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/disabling-product-update-events

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/raise-price-and-inventory-event-updates

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/indexing-variants-in-a-product-document

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/indexing-poco-objects-instead-of-catalogcontentbase

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/exclude-market-filter-from-filter-for-visitor

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/controlling-automatic-indexing-when-content-changes

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/security

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/authorization-and-authentication

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/support-for-openid-connect-in-customized-commerce

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/shipping

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/shipping-methods

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/shipping-gateways-and-providers

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/multi-shipment-examples

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/transaction-tracking

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/warehouses-and-inventories

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/inventory-requests

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/database-changes-for-inventory-service

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/warehouses-and-inventories-examples

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/multi-warehouse-implementations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/optimizely-graph-for-commerce-connect

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/commerce-connect-14-odp

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/commerce-connect/docs/commerce-connect-campaign

DXP Documentation

Bulk import the following URLs

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/dxp-overview

https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/39443611409037

https://www.google.com/search?q=https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/hipaa-enabled-cms

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/cms-platform-plus

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/requirements

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/getting-started-with-dxp

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/cloud-accelerator-package

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/development-considerations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/environments

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/performance-considerations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/cookie-usage

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/delivery-assurance-concepts

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/failover

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/login-options

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/v1.0.0-CMS-SaaS/docs/host-a-front-end-with-optimizely

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/headless-optimizely

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/environment-configurations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/multisite-development

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/cdn-recommendations

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/bring-your-own-cloudflare-zone

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/image-resizing-using-cdn

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/configure-cache-headers

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/consumption-metrics

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/logging

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-management-system/docs/logging-options

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/custom-database-tables

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/custom-maintenance-page

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/configuring-the-email-server

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/session-state

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/warming-up-sites

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/customize-health-checks

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-and-seo

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/accessing-azure-information

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/troubleshooting

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/application-performance-management

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/vpn-connections

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploying

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/smooth-deploy

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/creating-a-new-cms-site-and-deploying

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploying-an-existing-cms-site

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/creating-a-new-commerce-site-and-deploying

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploying-an-existing-commerce-site

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/going-live

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deployment-api

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploy-using-code-packages

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploy-using-source-environment

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deploy-using-powershell

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/code-package-format

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/internal-namespaces

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/authentication

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/storage-containers

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/export-database

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/self-service-for-dxp

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-foundation-demo-sites

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/creating-an-optimizely-cloud-account

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/content-authoring

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/dxp-self-deployment-guide

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/manage-app-settings

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/content-synchronization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/purging-cdn-cache

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/restarting-a-web-app

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/export-the-database-to-bacpac-file

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-platform-security

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/user-interface-security

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/web-application-firewall

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/restricting-environment-access

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/gdpr-guidelines

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/asking-for-consent

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/using-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/collecting-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/storing-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/fetching-and-updating-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/deleting-data

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/data-breaches

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/product-specific-gdpr-guidelines

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-content-cloud

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-commerce-cloud

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-campaign

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-search-navigation

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-personalization

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-forms

https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/optimizely-community-api

Conclusion

Using NotebookLM creates an amazing space for combining all of the information together and joining the dots. It allows output that you can consume as videos, audio (which allows for a podcast style custom learning), mid maps and note outputs. It really revolutionises learning and combining information and by plugging this in to development teams as well it creates a powerful place for many different activies either research, task planning or anything else.

Optimizely London Dev Meetup 10th July 2025

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 09:21:16 GMT

Overview & Agenda

As 2025 rolled around this year it was time for another one of our much beloved developer meetups in London.

This year, I took us back to the Lightwell in London https://www.techspace.co/locations/worship-street/events as last year's dev meetup had been so successful. So with eager eyes and much excitement Niteco UK took to London to host this years events.

A a great bonus this year we had a great UK Niteco team roster with the additions of Jill George as our Senior Sales and Client Director in the UK and Polly Walton joining as Director of Growth and Innovation (and Platinum OMVP) along side Mark, Jacob and Myself.

For the lineup we had a range of amazing speakers from agency's and OMVPs and Optimizely

18:30 – 18:50 :: Minesh Shah (Netcel) - Frontend Hosting With Optimizely
18:55 - 19:15 :: Tom Bramley (Optimizely) - Content Manager, AI translations, Opal and CMS 13
19:20 - 19:40 :: Scott Reed (Niteco) - Application Insights, Refining Data and View Logs
20:10 - 20:30 :: Andrew Markham (UNRVLD) - Introduction to the new Opti Connect Platform
20:35 - 20:55 :: Jacob Pretorius (Niteco) – Edge Logs
21:00 - 21:20 :: Daniel Halse (Netcel) - Graph Integration with Configured Commerce
21:25 - 21:45 :: Jeremey Brown (UNRVLD) - Laying the Foundation: PaaS CMS for Greenfield Projects

Here is my round up of the different talks which can be reviewed @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg and thanks to the excellent Jacob Pretorius who is not only an OMVP but a master of video recording and kindly recorded all the sessions for us :-) !!!

Minesh Shah (Netcel) - Frontend Hosting With Optimizely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=76s

Minesh from Netcel is a long time speaker, OMVP and friend and as per usual kicking us off with an exciting talk on another new beta/platform feature. For this talk we would be delving in to the new Optimizely Frontend Beta offered as a new hosting option to the head when working with Optimizely.

Key takeaways from this talk for me were

https://www.optimizely.com/beta/ the place to get all the latest cutting edge features
Optimizely now provides an Azure based hosting platform for the CMS hosting as apposed to needing services like Vecel or Netlify therefore keeping the service all within Optimizely
The same great features such as the PaaS portal and WAF/CDN with Cloudflare come as part of it
Deploy using the same Deployment API we use for CMS 12
Does not compile the solution just deploys the packaged code

Tom Bramley (Optimizely) - Content Manager, AI translations, Opal and CMS 13

From Optimizely for a second year in a row we had the amazing Tom Bramley joining this year to talk all things CMS and AI. I was very excited for some of these updates especially around CMS 13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=1248s

Visual Builder will be even better that expected and is coming early 2026 with a pre released in Q4 with full documentation
Opal will have a range of new features for CMS PaaS content creation with more information coming soon
New graph improvements to match some of the missing Search and Navigation functions which is very cool
Embedded DAM for SaaS and for PaaS will become the future replacing the standard Asset system
Content Manager allows management of content outside of just page structures with a robust editing platform. Very much feels like the labs addon https://github.com/episerver/episerver-labs-content-manager-docs coming to the main product
Frontend Beta and Optimizely Connect Platform are exciting new featues (covered in other talks in this blog)

Below are core details on the public available CMS 13 release as it was discussed in Tom's talk!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gKlHbnapUNQFuQYZgwgE6lhg54GMLHjI/view?usp=sharing

Scott Reed (Niteco): Application Insights, Refining Data and View Logs

For my talk I wanted to go over the core features of Application Insights and how to debug issues to allow developers to fully make use of their toolbox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=2329s

My core aims on this talk are that developers should understand application insights and it's core parts.

Application Map for dependency and error investigation
Performance, Failure, Metrics and KQL for investigating sources of errors and performance problems
Missing features and things I'd like

For investigating errors and service problems follow https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/scott-reed/dates/2025/4/identifying-spike-requests-and-issues-in-application-insights/ which covers the points discussed in my talk and below is my full presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1STQvBxWjkiQzRQQwDEOcRA7Njae9MBs6/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114149295479135606577&rtpof=true&sd=true

Andrew Markham (UNRVLD) - Introduction to the new Opti Connect Platform

We welcomed back multiple speaker and long time friend Andy back today to talk about the new Opti Connect Platform. This feature is basically the apps feature from ODP split out and enhanced with new features to allow for seamless CMS integration with other platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=3624s

This is a very exciting feature for me and comes with a number of cool areas I want to explore more

Free and paid tiers (paid has a database for data storage and private apps)
Realtime sync mode or database driven scheduler service powers the platform
Many apps being built or the ability to create private apps for your client/organization
Direct integrations for SaaS CMS and PaaS to allow external content in the CMS

Jacob Pretorius (Niteco) – Edge Logs

My friend and fellow Niteco OMVP Jacob today was covering all things Edge Logs, allowing us to take use of the amazing data we have from Cloudflare and another beta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=5157s

The Edge logs feature is a very powerful dataset from Cloudflare and really helps us to see where challenges, bots and decisions were made by cloudflare and the traffic stats of real users vs non real. Using Grafana we can pull all of this information down and create rich and power dashboards so we can explore it and see exactly what we need. Sign up here https://www.optimizely.com/beta-signup/

Below is Jacob's full presentation for your viewing and download below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OulYCNskMwCeEWe5uK2yw3iONyvgjb5N/view?usp=sharing

And his blog on the subject here https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/jacob-pretorius/dates/2025/4/visualise-cloudflare-edge-logs-with-grafana/

Daniel Halse (Netcel): CMS 12 / Graph Integration with Configured Commerce

Today for Daniel's talk he covered connecting CMS 12 and Configured commerce together so that clients get the great and amazing features of CMS 12 editing with the robust and powerful B2B commerce features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=5807s

Key thoughts for me on this are

We can connect these products to give the best of both worlds
Routing is not easy in spire and need some creating development to get it working
Graph is great for powering the integration between products
Spire is limited in CMS capibilities
Security locks down a number of features due to restrictions in the platform around code and packages for Spire

Jeremy Brown (UNRVLD): PaaS CMS Foundation for Greenfield Projects

Jeremy joined us for the first time giving a great talk on the fundamentals of creating a CMS 12 project from scratch and the core areas to be aware of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqtleljncDg&t=6988s

Implement core properties for your common page types for best practices such as SEO/GEO/Graph
Use the off the shelf open source nuget packages to save a lot of time
Understand core configuration such as redirects, security and sign on options such as Opti ID
Be familar with the DXP configuration and go live process for CMS 12

Conclusion

We have a great speaker set this year covering a range of topics and as per usual it was all about community and coming together to make Optimizely the best platform it can be. Find more about how great our community was from my friend and boss Mark Welland (Executive Vice President of Niteco) here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/optimizely-developer-meet-up-non-techies-mark-welland-fp0ie/?trackingId=GrCWnv%2BHRs6wPgYBW8Ku9Q%3D%3D

Identifying Spike Requests and Issues in Application Insights

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:29:19 GMT

Sometimes within the DXP we see specific Azure App Instances having request spikes causing performance degredation and we need to investigate. I find the performance tab often lacking to narrow down to the specifics of what I want to look at, so this helps me get to the bottom of things easily

Here's some of my easy steps to figure these out

Step 1: Identify Instance

Open Application Insights and navigate to the Monitoring -> Metrics area and set the following filters

Metric: Log-based metrics, Server response time, Avg aggregation

Split by: Cloud role instance

Set the time range (IN UTC) to when the issue occured and keep narrowing it in until you have a 30 minute or so window

Make a note of the affending instance that's causing the issue, in our case 2a9f3a38c4ac and the 10 minute time range (IN UTC) when the issue occured

Step 2: Extract High Performance Bucket Requests

Navigate to the Monitoring -> Logs area and set the following KQL, replacing the INSTANCE with your noted instance. Also in the run area set the time frame in UTC to the 10 minute range noted above

union isfuzzy=true requests
| where cloud_RoleInstance in ("INSTANCE")
| order by duration desc
| take 100
| project timestamp, id, name, url, duration, performanceBucket

This will give you a list you can export to CSV of high requests

Step 3: Viewing Request Details

Now navigate to Investigate -> Transaction Search

Set the filter Event Types = Request and in the search copy and of the id values from our list and search. You can then open the request and drill in to dependency issues or profiler traces, in our case to see a slow Find query

Let me know if you have other easier or fun ways to drill in to these types of issues.

Frontend hosting for PaaS & SaaS CMS

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 07:56:29 GMT

Just announced on the DXP, we FINALLY have a front end hosting solution coming as part of the DXP for modern decoupled solutions in both the PaaS and SaaS space

Supporting

Enterprise search engine
CDN
WAP
Managed service support

See https://www.optimizely.com/beta/

Save The Date - London 2025 Summer Meetup

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Following last years very succesful meetup in London July 2024 https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/scott-reed/dates/2024/7/optimizely-london-dev-meetup-11th-july-2024/ we are returning to the Lightwell venue for the 2025 event.

The agenda is TBD but save the date and time

10th July 2025 : 6pm until 10pm
Food and Drink
Talks to be deterimined (reach out to me on LinkedIn or slack if you'd like to talk)

Hope you all can make it

CMS 12 DXP Migrations - Time Zones

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 09:47:58 GMT

When it comes to migrating a project from CMS 11 and .NET Framework on the DXP to CMS 12 and .NET Core one thing you need to be aware of is the infrastructure.

On CMS 11 .NET Framework we are running on direct Windows WebApps in Azure

Whereas on CMS 12 .NET Core we are running on Docker contained Lixux WebApps

One of the issues we've faced on this during migrations that something to be aware of is the website timezone value which might be set on directly in the settings for the WebApps on the DXP when running under CMS 11. For example for sites we've had running in USA

This can cause an issue as when going through the project migration process in the DXP to migrate a project over the new infrastructure running in Docker is set to run under UTC and thefore if you have an C# calls to ToLocalTime() in your code you make get different values on this in the new infrastructure.

Luckily however there's an easy way to solve this, you can add a setting in to the "App Settings" area of your new project to tell the Docker container what timezone to run under,

Example values supported are as follows (Should support any that Docker supports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)

Time Zone Identifier
GMT
Pacific/Apia
HST
AST
America/Los_Angeles
America/Phoenix
America/Mazatlan
America/Denver
America/Belize
America/Chicago
America/Mexico_City
America/Regina
America/Bogota
America/New_York
America/Indianapolis
America/Halifax
America/Caracas
America/Santiago
America/St_Johns
America/Sao_Paulo
America/Buenos_Aires
America/Godthab
Atlantic/South_Georgia
Atlantic/Azores
Atlantic/Cape_Verde
Africa/Casablanca
Europe/Dublin
Europe/Berlin
Europe/Belgrade
Europe/Paris
Europe/Warsaw
ECT
Europe/Athens
Europe/Minsk
Europe/Bucharest
Africa/Cairo
Africa/Harare
Europe/Helsinki
Asia/Jerusalem
Asia/Baghdad
Asia/Kuwait
Europe/Moscow
Africa/Nairobi
Asia/Tehran
Asia/Muscat
Asia/Baku
Asia/Kabul
Asia/Yekaterinburg
Asia/Karachi
Asia/Calcutta
Asia/Katmandu
Asia/Almaty
Asia/Dhaka
Asia/Colombo
Asia/Rangoon
Asia/Bangkok
Asia/Krasnoyarsk
Asia/Hong_Kong
Asia/Irkutsk
Asia/Kuala_Lumpur
Australia/Perth
Asia/Taipei
Asia/Tokyo
Asia/Seoul
Asia/Yakutsk
Australia/Adelaide
Australia/Darwin
Australia/Brisbane
Australia/Sydney
Pacific/Guam
Australia/Hobart
Asia/Vladivostok
Pacific/Noumea
Pacific/Auckland
Pacific/Fiji
Pacific/Tongatapu

Optimizely London Dev Meetup 11th July 2024

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 15:36:57 GMT

On 11th July 2024 in London Niteco and Netcel along with Optimizely ran the London Developer meetup.

There was an great agenda of talks that we put on and everyone had a great amount of fun.

I'm not going to go through it all as Graham has already created a cracking summary here https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/allthingsopti/dates/2024/7/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-optimizely-developer---london-meetup-2024/ but here is all the talk material for anyone who wants to see it.

Tips and Tricks for CMS12/Commerce 14 - https://world.optimizely.com/globalassets/community/meetups/london/dev-meet-2024---upgrades.pptx
Get started with Visual Builder - Live demo only!
Guide to SaaS CMS and Hybrid Headless - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cFsPUdIVFY
Creating AddOns for PaaS CMS - https://world.optimizely.com/globalassets/community/meetups/london/creating-addons-for-optimizely.pptx
Azure AI Speech Integration with Optimizely CMS - https://world.optimizely.com/globalassets/community/meetups/london/azure-ai-speech-integration-with-optimizely-cms.pptx
Opal in PaaS Commerce + New Stuff - https://world.optimizely.com/globalassets/community/meetups/london/optimizely_commerce-connect_roadmap_3q24.pdf
Implementing Optimizely flags through Vercel - https://world.optimizely.com/globalassets/community/meetups/london/dom_opti_vercel_toolbar_flags.pdf

It was a pleasure to host this one and was one of the best we've had I think in a long while, hope to see you next year or at the North event :-)

New ODP Connector For Customized Commerce

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:59:45 GMT

When you have both Customized Commerce and the ODP one core aim is to connect the data to the platform so that it can be used within the ODP for functions such as campaigns, reports and real time segmentation.

Although the ODP has a powerful API that allows you to interact with it, the standard approach in Optimizely has been to connect it using the ODP App for Commerce Cloud

This connector pulls Products, Customers and Orders in to the ODP using the Service API package which needs installing in to your commerce solution. It then pulls the data at a frequency from Commerce in to the ODP platform at a specifically set regular interval. However this comes with a number of issues

Problems with high volume of data in larger solutions
Problems with combatibility with different versions of Service API
Reliance on Optimizely managing it as an application for features and scheduler
Import interval slow for use with real time segments
Lack of ease to control syncing of custom attributes for customers/products

Alternate options have been to use custom code or third parter connectors to directly interact with the ODP via the API stack, however in Commere 14.13.1 there now comes an offical connector https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/customized-commerce/docs/integrate-commerce-and-odp

This connector has the following features

Runs as a scheduled job which you can control the timings of
Can push products, customers and orders
Support for Products and Customer custom attributes by the us of an ICustomerCustomFieldsHandler / IProductCustomFieldsHandler (see the link for code example)

This is the first version and will be enhanced I'm sure but now give us a better option for offically connecting Customized Commerce and the ODP!

DXP Beta Features & Cloudflare Edge Image Resizing

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 09:52:36 GMT

Overview

We all love access to the latest and greatest features on the Optimizely DXP platform, as by using the cutting edge we can create faster Optimizely experiences that provide a better customer experience to end users! Optimizely has a lot of great features as part of the DXP and is continuing to innovate by providing new features and opening up areas of the DXP more and more for our use.

Recently it's very exciting to the see a beta signup page some to Optimizely https://www.optimizely.com/beta that allows us to see beta features in progress and sign up to for use on our own projects, such as just to name a few key ones

Edge Image Resizing
ODP real time segmentation
GA 4 Web Experimentation Reporting
Vendor Manged Invetory for Configured Commerce (B2B)
Opti ID Single Sign On across all the Optimizely provided products

However I'd like to call out one specifically I'm very excitied about on this list

Cloudflare Edge Image Resizing

In the modern world we are serving websites across many different devices such as mobile, tablet and desktop and it's been common for some time for developers to be using responsive design and CSS to provide optimized delivery of the content. As part of that as we also want to serve the images at the right size with the smallest physical size and request footprint to users loading on every different device profile.

For some time now a common solution would be to install a package such as ImageResizer, ImageSharp or build your own (which has been even more needed with changes in CMS 12 with .NET 6)

However, this gives us a few downsides

Building and maintenance of the library or updating it due to bugs
Potential issues that may exist in the library
CPU overhead of the webapps/server running the image resizing code on Azure
Increase in blob storage assets if caching resized version which can cause environment restoring to be a hassle

Cloudflare Edge Image Resizing https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/image-resizing/ gives us a solution to this as it's a feature long provided in Cloudflare which can resizie images to WebP and AVIF formats on cloudflares edge platform based upon the parameters defined in the URL.

This allows us to offload the resizing processing and the caching off the images through to cloudflare eliminating the pain points in using a .NET library. Image configurations https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/image-resizing/url-format/ can be defined by passing the OPTIONs part of the URL allowing the height, width and quality to be set.

On the DXP right now this can be enabled by signing up on the beta page and once given access this will be enabled for the DXP. This means that for any environments such as preproduction and production with custom hostnames (as direct dxcloud domains bypass the CDN) the images will be resized.

This should be a simple development activity to replace by steps such as

Removing your resizer package
Creating an application service that can rewrite image URLs in the desired format
Deploying to prep for testing

You can also test once enabled by directly navigating to the URL in the browser!

Picture Renderer

A quick update (01-07-2022) that the Picture Rendered by Erik Henningson has been updated to support cloudflare image resizing https://github.com/ErikHen/PictureRenderer.Optimizely so this gives anyone a head start with using this feature for picture element based image resizing

Hopefully this has been useful! Thanks all!

Fixing Optimizely Content Syncing/Caching Issues on the DXP pre CMS.Core 12.13.0

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 13:53:47 GMT

Hi all,

With our recent deployments to the DXP for .NET 6 projects (one a new build and one an upgrade) our clients had raised issues where there were seeing different data for the same items within the CMS. For one of our clients on Optimizely Commerce they were seeing 1 variant on a product and a different editor was seeing 3 variants.

This was a big issue and raised the problem that not only would this be affecting users, end customer would be seeing the different data.

We managed to replicate this by faking the users ARRAffinity value so we could see that this was related to specific instances.

On an investgation by support this has raised that there was a scaling bug on the caching system fixed on bug https://world.optimizely.com/support/bug-list/bug/CMS-26486

As this is a fairly critical issue I wanted to highlight this and strongly suggest customers on the DXP to upgrade to a minimum version of 12.13.0 (12.13.1 See below) as we are doing for our client.

Thanks!!

Update to this: Quan Mai pointed out some other fixes recently which means we should be upgrading to 13.13.1 https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/Quan-Mai/Dates/2023/3/upgrade-to-episerver-cms-core-12-13-1-as-soon-as-you-can/

Restoring Help Text For Description in Latest Optimizely CMS

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 18:04:48 GMT

It's been a well known CSS hack for a while to force the showing of the description text for a property in to the editor view rather than a hover as per these articles

https://buildoptimizely.com/episerver/optimizely-cms-12-help-text-and-expanded-input-text-boxes/

https://talk.alfnilsson.se/2014/12/18/display-help-text-in-on-page-editing/

However in a recent version of CMS this broke due to updated UI around the all properties view.

With the following replacement CSS this will restore a similar features

div.dijitTabPaneWrapper div:has(div.oui-pop--over) {
    display: block !important;
}


div.dijitTabPaneWrapper div.click-area {
    display: none !important;
}

div.dijitTabPaneWrapper div.oui-pop--over {
    border: none !important;
    max-width: 600px;
    font-style: italic;
    color: red;
}

With this applied you'll get an interface that looks like this

This is working in Chrome and Edge and will restore the inline text and remove the popup icon, only for the main properties area.

I've highlighted it red but feel free to modify.

As per the previous guides this needs to be placed in a CSS file such as this editmode.css

And then registered in a module.config in the application root (not wwwroot) such as

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<module>
	<clientResources>
		<add name="epi-cms.widgets.base" path="Styles/editmode.css" resourceType="Style"/>
	</clientResources>
</module>