Episerver Release Notes - July

August 13, 2019
by
David Korff, David Fewless

Check out July's top releases and updates to Epi's Profile Store for stronger personalization capabilities, Commerce, the re-released CMS UI refresh, and a sneak peek at a pre-released block enhancements feature.

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.

Multiple Feature Releases for Episerver Profile Store

Fixed in: EPiServer.Profiles.Client 1.9.0

The Profile Store is Episerver’s customer data platform (CDP) for storing information, such as visitor profile data, behavior, and social interaction, and making it available to other Episerver products. By doing so, Epi users can leverage visitor data to further tailor personalized and omnichannel marketing efforts.

The most recent release updated several features to report stronger visitor analytics:

  • Report track events within a timeframe [ID: PROF-3744]: Filter events (such as page views, placing an order or clicking an email link) within a specific timeframe to report on visitor interactions and engagement.
  • Track visitor groups with .NET class [ID: PROF-4175]: By being able to now call a method in a class, there will be more flexibility in how and when you track visitor groups.
  • Filter visitor groups in Insight [ID: PROF-4174]: See how personalized content performed for a defined visitor group.
  • Get profile updates between two dates [ID: PROF-3745]: See how engaged users are within a specific timeframe. Updates made within that time can better inform what to implement in future personalization solutions.

Take payment methods via CSR UI (Beta)

Fixed in: EPiServer.Commerce13.4.0 [ID: COM-8101]

Currently in beta, customer service representatives can expect to have more control over payment methods for carts and orders. CSRs will have the ability to list carts and orders and convert a cart to a purchase order. Unfortunately, this will not include payment methods that redirect to a third-party vendor page such as PayPal or AfterPay. The CSR UI will show a change in the shipment status once the payment is completed.

Several obsolete legacy APIs for improved maintainability

Fixed in: EPiServer.Commerce 13.5.0 [ID: COM-8647]

The new release of Episerver Commerce in update 273 has obsoleted at least 20 APIs to improve maintainability in upcoming major releases of Commerce. Because it’s in a minor point release, it won’t affect existing sites but serves as a warning for what may require attention and change in the future. Based on your site’s dependency of the following APIs, we suggest auditing your Epi stack:

  • Mediachase.Commerce.Catalog.Data.CatalogDataHelper
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Catalog.Data.CatalogLogAdmin
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Catalog.Data.ContentGuidAdmin
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Catalog.Managers.CatalogLogManager
  • Mediachase.Commerce.CommerceContext.CommerceContextImpl
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Core.Common.eCUD_ChangeState
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Core.Common.IValidationResult
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Engine.Template.Providers.XslTemplateProvider
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Engine.Template.TemplateProviderCollection
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Engine.Template.TemplateProviderSection
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Engine.Template.TemplateService
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Reporting.ReportingPermissions
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Security.Configuration.RoleDefinitionElement
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Security.Configuration.RoleElementCollection
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Security.CurrentUserService
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Shared.Check
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Shared.XmlSerializerSectionHandler
  • Mediachase.Commerce.Storage.DataOperation
  • Mediachase.Commerce.DefaultRequiredMetaFields
  • Mediachase.Commerce.ICommerceContext

Re-released (and working) CMS UI refresh

Fixed in: EPiServer.CMS.UI 11.21.1 [ID: CMS-13766]

Ah, yes! Epi’s CMS UI has received its finishing touches to its navigation and modern styling. The new navigation is functionally different, but outside of that, changes are purely eye candy. In lieu of the issues they had in the first release, you may want to be careful deploying this update. Code changes will be required if you’d prefer an add-on to use the new navigation menu.

Preview of the new Epi CMS navigation menu (Source: Episerver)

Pre-released sneak peek: block enhancements

Released in: EPiServer.Labs.BlockEnhancements 0.1.0 [Update 271]

Episerver Labs releases are pre-released add-ons shared with the developer community to try and give feedback on. The latest tease gives a preview into where the lives of Epi content editors’ could get a whole lot easier. The intent is to edit, preview, and publish blocks without the need to change context. This block enhancements feature includes:

·      Publishing content with local blocks

·      Inline block editing

·      Showing block status on content area

·      Inline publishing

·      Content draft view

Learn more about what each feature looks like and how it works.  

It’s critical to note that this release is not official nor is it supported by Episerver. While Epi hopes teams try it out for themselves, please expect functionality to possibly change significantly, the update to be discontinued, and no support. If your team does decide to take it for a spin, Episerver encourages feedback to better inform upcoming releases and features.