Episerver Release Notes - April 2020

May 12, 2020
by
David Korff, David Fewless

Episerver's April 2020 release notes cover additional personalization strategies, enabling customer service representatives to process refunds, and making form elements accessible.

Development

Episerver’s continuous release cycle provides new features and bug fixes on a bi-weekly cadence. Each month, C2 will aggregate and highlight some of the bigger updates to Epi software. To learn more, or if you have specific questions, you can contact The C2 Group, an Episerver Gold Partner, here.

General performance improvements

Fixed in: EPiServer.Find

Find was previously using “dynamic types” in their code. This would cause the server to run the JIT compiler (just-in-time) while the site is running so that it can evaluate the dynamic expressions. On smaller sites, this may not be as obvious. For larger sites with heavier traffic, the impact of the JIT compilation firing over and over caused to see noticeable slowdowns. Episerver modified their code to remove usage of dynamic code and has made an overall positive impact on CPU and memory usage.

Segment visitors using historical, previously tracked events

Fixed in: EPiServer.Profiles.Client 1.15.0 [ID: PROF-6456]

Teams can now use previously tracked events to segment site visitors. For example, if you have contact information collected from a dormant landing page on your site, you can create a segment from that audience to market additional or recommended content or products to.

This is just one example of how teams can use historical data from Profile Store paired with Visitor Intelligence (formerly Insights) to further enable specific marketing strategies. To take advantage of this and other personalization tools, you’ll need the proper license to these products. If you’re interested, contact C2 to learn more or get started.

Process refunds for customers using Return Authorization

Fixed in: EPiServer.Commerce 13.18.0 [ID: COM-10073]

To provide more immediate service, customer service representatives can now manage return authorizations and issue a refund directly to customers in a few simple steps. Using the BETA Order Management tab in Commerce, CSRs can choose between refunding the total amount or a different value based on how much of the order was returned. While it is still in beta, we are excited for this CSR tool to be officially released soon. It will be a great addition to Episerver’s robust toolset.

Form Sample elements updated for more accessible experience

Fixed in: EPiServer.Forms.Samples3.6.0 [ID: AFORM-2497]

Episerver has done its due diligence in updating Form Sample elements to validate against WCAG 2.0 level AA guidelines so that screen readers and other tools can properly utilize them. Accessibility isn’t just a social responsibility, it’s an opportunity to deliver great experiences to everyone. Incorporating accessibility into your web strategy can provide many other underlying benefits including increased conversions, improved customer experience and search ranking, and more. If you could use assistance in making your site more accessible for all, contact us today.