Episerver features - November 2019
This release summary includes features added in updates 279 through 291 of the Episerver platform. Updates are cumulative, so the latest update always includes previous ones.
- Episerver CMS
- Episerver Commerce
- Episerver Campaign
- Episerver Find
- Episerver Personalization
- Episerver Forms
- Episerver add-ons
Episerver CMS
Developers
● The Episerver Azure NuGet package has been upgraded with support for latest WindowsAzure.Storage
End users
● UI improvements for search in the platform navigation
The new navigation broke PopupMenuItem functionality, as the items no longer opened in a new window. In general, window.open should be avoided as it is bad for accessibility and can have performance implications. Instead, you should set target="_blank" for action items in the new navigation to support opening in a new window. For this reason, PopupMenuItem should be obsoleted, and the use of UrlMenuItem with the Target property set should be promoted.
Episerver Commerce
Developers
A simple batch-saving API improves the performance of case validations for pubilshing catalog content.
End users
The Order and Cart Details screens have been redesigned to more closely resemble Commerce Manager and make it easier to use.
- On the Customer Management screen, a customer's profile provides access to his/her orders.
- An Orders item appears on the left menu.
- The customer order history is sorted by "Created Date" descending.
- Paging is supported.
- In the Products column, if the text is too long (around 120 characters), first show long product names then the remaining number of products in order.
When navigating in a single page application, the address bar matches the navigation. This provides multiple benefits, including the ability to use the back/forward browser commands to navigate in the CSR UI, and the ability to take the url to a specific view (for example, a link to an open cart), and send it to another user. That user can open the link to get to the cart.
When a user logs out, any interaction with the user interface is prevented until the credentials are validated again.
Support for updating Order management and Shipment statuses in the CSR user interface.
A new feature exports your product feed (catalog) to Episerver Perform incrementally. This scheduled job (Export product feed incrementally) keeps Episerver Personalization up-to-date with product changes without exporting the entire catalog.
On the Customer Service Representative screen, a customer support rep can change the market and/or currency of the cart or order.
This feature lets you tag tracking requests with a channel. A channel identifies the type of application or device that a site visitor uses. Standard values are "web" and "mobileweb".
- When searching for existing carts, you choose a market then search for customers who have a cart in that market.
- When creating a new cart, you choose a market.
- The Cart Details screen displays the market and default currency.
- Purchase orders include the market and default currency.
Support for the display and editing of custom fields for these objects: purchase orders, legacy cart, shipments and line items. Not supported yet: editing of fields in multiple languages, and file and image file data types.
Episerver Campaign
Developers
You can use the Episerver Campaign REST API to manage webhooks for the events clicks and opens.
You can use the Episerver Campaign REST API to retrieve recipients’ attributes.
Use the REST API POST method to create new confirmation mailings.
You can use the Episerver Campaign REST API to remove, search, and retrieve coupon blocks.
You can use the Episerver Campaign REST API to create and update click profiles, assign/unassign links, and retrieve a click profile's assigned links.
End users
Rollout of the new Deliverability Preview feature. No longer in Beta phase.
In Smart Campaigns, when setting a target group for a paragraph, you can sort the selected target groups to the top of the list.
If enabled by feature switch, customers with clients with multiple sending domains can use them for separate tracking domains.
You can use profile data from Profile Store in Campaign recipient lists.
- A new hamburger menu in the upper right of each widget on the Performance Dashboard lets you export a chart as a PNG, JPG, SVG, CSV or PDF file.
- New chart type "Mailing-based chart" was added to the Performance Dashboard. It works in the same way as "chart", but based on mailings instead of an indicated period of time. The mailing-based chart display options include: bar, line, and spline diagram.
Episerver Find
End users
Episerver Personalization
End users
Price ranges are now dynamic for all sites. The product prices in the catalog feed are split dynamically into three similarly-sized ranges: cheap, average, and expensive. Previously, this only worked for sites using the GBP currency. You can use the price range expression in Product recommendations and Email recommendations.
Personalization Portal > Recommendations > Campaigns > Recommendation rules
Episerver Campaign customers who supply pseudonymized IDs can add users to and remove users from target groups. Previously, this functionality was only available for customers who supplied email addresses.
Personalization Portal > Account > Site management > Products > Triggers
Personalization Portal > Triggers > Campaigns > ESP action
To avoid confusion, if a Personalization Portal user exports Mail campaigns to a CSV file, only relevant parameters are shown in the generated HTML. That is, the triggerfireID parameter is only added if trigger strategies are used, and the refcode parameter is only added if the strategy "Recommendations based on specific product refCodes" is used in the campaign.
Personalization Portal > Mail > Campaigns
Exported CSV file showing the value (in yellow) of the RecProductPageURL parameter. It only shows the part in red if the campaign uses a trigger strategy.
The Personalization Portal for Recommendations displays the following additional columns in the Product report: Impressions, CTR, and CTP.
Personalization Portal > Reports > Recommendations > Products
The CSV export functionality allows you to create a master CSV file containing the configuration of your campaigns. The configuration for multiple campaigns in the CSV file can be edited and then imported back into the Personalization Portal. See the Episerver User Guide - Exporting and importing Mail campaigns for more information.
Segments based on tracking events are available in visitor groups.
Episerver Forms
End users
Previously when saving data to storage, the returned result could be Guid.Empty, or the save action could fail. But Forms would always show that the submit was successful. Now, the output from SaveDataToStorageActor is checked and a message is displayed if the save action is not successful. Also, the SaveDataToStorageActorResult method has been made public.
● Episerver Forms has been upgraded to new CMS UI version and the new platform navigation and styling has been applied
Episerver add-ons
End users
Live Monitor has been upgraded to new CMS UI version and the new platform navigation and styling has been applied.
Previously, multiple form submissions in the same session updated the entity created on the first submission. Now you can change this behavior to create a new entity on every submission, similar to the way the Salesforce, Pardot, and Marketo connectors work. Use a drop-down box on the admin settings screen to choose the desired behavior.
Episerver User-Generated Content (UGC) has been upgraded to new CMS UI version and the new platform navigation and styling has been applied.
Change Approvals has been upgraded to new CMS UI version and the new platform navigation and styling has been applied.
Previously, if the submission of form data to a marketing automation connector to create/update an entity was unsuccessful, an error was logged but a success message was still displayed in the UI. Also, the form submission was recorded in the Episerver database. Now there is an option in the admin settings to choose a different behavior, such that the error is displayed in the UI, and the form submission is not recorded in the database.
● Live Monitor: Support for latest SignalR version (2.4.1) and for Commerce 13
Last updated: Dec 17, 2019