Optimizely Release Notes - October, November & December 2021

January 10, 2022
by
David Korff

Highlights include repeat orders and extended notes within Order Management, inline Block CMS enhancements, and optimizations to Search & Navigation.

Development

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

Upgraded marketing automation connectors to .NET 5

Fixed in: EPiServer.MarketingAutomationIntegration... [ID: MAI-1893]

The Optimizely team has upgraded several of the marketing automation connectors to support the new .NET 5 version of Optimizely. The following connectors are currently ready for upgrade:

  • Acoustic (Silverpop)
  • Delivra
  • Eloqua
  • Marketo
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud (ExactTarget)

The following connectors are in progress and will be released in the near future:

  • HubSpot
  • Pardot

You can learn more about Optimizely and its transition to .NET 5 here: https://world.optimizely.com/net5/

Order Management improvements

The Optimizely team continues to make improvements to the order management screens within Optimizely Commerce Cloud.

Cart History now available within Order Management

Release in: EPiServer.Commerce 14.1.0 [ID: COM-13359]

The Contact Details screen now includes a way to view your customer's past carts.

Delete Cart within Order Management

Release in: EPiServer.Commerce 14.1.0 [ID: COM-13839]

Your team now has the ability to select one or more carts to be deleted within the Order Management screens. While scheduled jobs can handle deleting carts every 30 days, customer service representatives can manage deleting carts manually now.

CMS user interface updates

The Optimizely team has included, in its most recent set of releases, several interface improvements to the Experience Editor.

Define custom metadata for media types without using attributes

Released in: EPiServer.CMS.Core 12.2.0 [ID: CMS-20058]

Optimizely has introduced the ability to define custom metadata for media types without using attributes. This allows for simplifying the custom metadata process and for better delivery on headless instances.

Metadata defined with attributes should be handled as before, but metadata defined through the API should be stored in the database. When resolving these values, the information in the database should be used primarily. If no database values exist for these fields, they will be resolved using the attributes as before. The metadata includes properties from the ImageDescriptorAttribute and MediaDescriptionAttribute.

Improved experience for locating blocks

Fixed in: EPiServer.CMS.UI 12.1.0 [ID: CMS-19912]

An Edit command for a selected item in ContentReference selector has been added to remove extra steps from navigating to that item. If the selected item is a block, it also has a Quick Edit command. The command is available even if the ContentReference property is readonly.

Improved user experience for content type restriction
Release in: EPiServer.CMS.UI 12.1.0 [ID: CMS-19909]

Now ContentReference and ContentArea properties now have the ability to display the available content types or exceptions. This is a feature that is similar to ContentReferenceList properties.

Content manager experience. Content areas that you can only put certain things in, there was no clear way to tell what could and couldn't go in the content area. Clarifies up front that you are using the correct content types you can build in a specific area.

Updates to the "Open in" texts for Edit link

Release in: EPiServer.CMS.UI 12.0.3 [ID: CMS-19018]

Change texts in the dropdown "Open in":

  • From "Open the link in a new window" to "Open in a new tab or window".
  • From"Open the link in the whole window" to "Open in the full body of the window".