RELEASE NOTES R180 - scheduled for September 25th 2012

[mario_gudelj]

We are announcing a new Business Catalyst release, scheduled to go live on Tuesday, September 25th.

This release includes some great improvements to our module templates, new features for our email marketing system, admin interface improvements, a few infrastructure updates and lots of bug corrections.

Read through the following sections to get detailed information about this release:

• Features and enhancements
• Issues fixed by this release

You can jump to the corresponding section by clicking the above links.

Features and enhancements

Modules improvement

Starting with our September release, we have enabled users to use a html page or a static template as a module list template (layout) for all modules that are using templates today. The new addition allows partners to create different views for the same data for a personalize experience. To use this new functionality, just create a new module template and update your module properties by specifying the template to use.

Ex: {module_blogsitepost,2 template="/ModuleTemplates/Custom/MyTemplate.tpl"}

Note: although you can use any extension you feel comfortable with, we recommend using a .tpl extension for two reasons: help locate the template better and avoid having these templates being displayed in Page list.

Email marketing application improvements

This is release is packed with new features and enhancements to our email marketing system.

1. Dynamic modules in email campaign - you can include modules (a subset of 19 modules) in the Email Campaigns content; the system will render these modules right before the campaign is sent, making sure your customers always receive the latest content;
2. Fresh, new email templates - the release includes a set of new of new email templates that look much better; along with these new templates, the template selection page was re-done to show better thumbnails;
3. Improved recipients selection - we have improved the recipients wizard step, replacing the checkbox list with a smart search and select control; additionally, with this release you will be able to  select multiple lists (including Customer Reports) to exclude from your campaign.
4. Improved campaign status screen - before sending the campaign, you will now be able to view the exact number of recipients before sending the campaign (Note: reports and list requiring a long time to compute will be approximated); additionally, while the campaign is sending, we are displaying a meaningful status, that indicates that the campaign is being sent.
5. Email clients reporting - the campaign report screen has also been improved to include a report showing you the email clients used to read your campaigns.

Admin console improvements

We have updated our new admin user interface and replaced the insert module and insert tag panels with the new Business Catalyst toolbox almost everywhere. With the new toolbox we'll make it easier for partners and business owners to insert and customize module or tags into pages, templates or system emails. The toolbox user interface will opened by default for partners for faster access to tags and modules.

Other changes

• Some  FTP improvements (better error codes, performance, etc) and SFTP support
• DNS improvements (support for setting up Google Apps email out of the box, several bug fixes)
• When you change your email address on adobe.com, it syncs automatically with BC
• Various improvements of the caching engine for static assets

Issues fixed by May release

• Issue 2869695 - Fixed an issue that broke the comments submitted by visitors by placing <br> tags after a random number of characters;
• Issue 3317538 -     Fixed an issue preventing the social media modules from being reinitialized after pressing "Add to cart"
• Issue 3317105 -     Files with spaces in the name do not get invalidated properly on FTP/API delete
• Issue 3317478 -     Fixed an issue causing hardcoded http paths to generate security alerts when on https
• Issue 2567045 -     Fixed an issue with Product Purchased with Details data field
• Issue 2567131 -     Fixed an issue causing web app creation forms to generate  [No Name] duplicates
• Issue 3319245 -     Fixed the search function on Help & Support
• Issue 3320623 -     Fixed an issue causing decimal prices to be incorrectly saved when editing/creating an order in admin and having the site admin language set to a country language that uses "," as decimal separator instead of "."
• Issue 3325526 -     Fixed an issue causing the CRM Session verification to fail for session IDs that contain +
• Issue 3162093 - Fixed a problem [AdminV4] HTML files for campaigns can't be edited
• Issue 3009528 -     Updated multiline fields to allow line breaks
• Issue 3010606 -     Changed FTP blog layouts  listing  to properly handle cases of invalid layout group names
• Issue 3315646 -     Fixed an issue causing {tag_blogcategorylist}to not limit the number of results as set
• Issue 3316323 -     Small bug/improvement at offline payments on copy/pasting the PDF password
• Issue 2900590 -     Fixed an issue causing a correct web app item address to change to another one on some sites
• Issue 3319299 -     Fixed some performance problems causing Edit Web Apps Settings -> Autoresponder  interface to freeze
• Issue 3320422 -     "Free shipping" not validated when enforcing shipping validation
• Issue 2918069 -     Cannot save values properly for webapp items when the custom field uses comma separated checkbox list, and it has more then 265 characters for the list of values
• Issue 2925458 -     Web App edit form is adding "X_" to the existing classes inside the description field. Every edit will add another x_ ending up in something like class="x_x_x_classname"
• Issue 2567035 -     Can not list files in FTP when there are invalid characters or similar in the directory
• Issue 3313655 -     Import fails if the username column values are already in the CRM
• Issue 3315485 -     Varnish cache is not invalidated when overwriting files with %20 in the path
• Issue 3315372 -     When adding a new item in the admin the address fields is pre-populated

Known issues and limitations

• Product list layout outputs the products using an unordered list, requiring CSS for better formatting
• Favorites module does not support multiple templates (layouts)
• Module detail views do not support multiple templates (layouts)
• Recursive modules are not supported in email campaign preview
• Dreamweaver design view, ignores the custom template and always renders the tags from the default template (layout)

For more information about this, follow the release announcement on the Business Catalyst blog: Introducing our feature packed September release!

[Adam__Logo_Pogo_]

The dynamic modules in email marketing is a really powerful update... would love this to be extended so that customer assigned/submitted webapp items could also be listed, ie. usign the {module_webappscustomer... tag.

Cheers,

Adam.

[Liam Dilley]

Client submited stuff you can already do so as its web apps and items, if approved will show up. That you can do right now Adam.

The module you listed though is specific to show rendered for that person. Is that what you mean? As for most that wont work, EDM is for lots of people.

They get the email and because that modules is for that person if they not submitted items they wont see anything.

[Adam__Logo_Pogo_]

Yes, I want to show customer specific content relevant to that particular email recipient (and of course the customers on this mailing list would be relevant to that webapp content - I'm not just sending it out to everyone).

[Liam Dilley]

Question then, since certain things based on a secure login and login session so it is secure to show that content, sending it out not secure in an email to a person that is "supposed" to be the owner of that content...

Not secure or accurate any more Adam

So its something not really viable, especially considering the crack down on security BC and many other companies are making to website across the board.

[Adam__Logo_Pogo_]

It would certainly be accurate content for the intended recipient; and security may not be an issue depending on the application. Just becuase it's called a secure zone doesn't mean the content is a security concern - it's just a way of presenting personlised information in a much richer way.

Social Media services send summary emails to individual members with latests items they have posted or been involved in - this is the same principle.

My idea is a valid one with real world applications and I'm just trying to get ideas to BC for the continual improvement of the system. You do not need to question it or shoot it down, but it would be good to have your additional and positive ideas or alternatives to make the idea better and gain more notice by BC, instead of burying the idea in distracting comments.

[Liam Dilley]

I would not consider that very true at all. I never use securezones just to show personal information. Securezones are there to have secure content and many utlise it for that reason, not to just direct personal informaiton. That is kind of the lowest demonitor use for that.

But your post has given insight into your intended use, and BC is not really designed for that purpose. I defiantly do not want to see security and secure content having the posibility being opened up through this method, sorry.