Cristinel Anastasoaie
July release - New admin user interface updates, additional customer reports and bug fixes
We are announcing a new Business Catalyst release, scheduled to go live on Monday, July 2nd.
With this release, we have focused on improving the new user interface and make it ready for prime time, added additional reports and continued updating the new file manager. Additionally, we started to deliver on a series of fixes and product improvements that have been requested by our partners during the last few months.
Infrastructure updates
To ensure the highest security and performance levels for our services, we're applying a software update on all our database servers. For more details about the update, read our Business Catalyst Service Maintenance, June 2012 - Updated blog post.
Features and enhancements
New admin interface is now the default interface for new users
With this release, the new admin user interface will become the default interface for new users and customers, regardless of when the website has been created. To ensure a smooth transition to the new interface, we will continue to allow customers use the interface of their choice and the system will remember their selection the next time they login to admin.
Customers and secure zones report
Secure zones are a great way of creating membership websites which were lacking some basic reporting features that would have enabled customers to view detailed information about their subscribers or send them email campaigns related to their subscription.
With this release, we are enhancing our reporting system by allowing customers to create and save reports of customers and secure zone subscriptions. This report will automate many of the manual tasks a site owner has to do today to extract actionable reports for customers subscribed to secure zones. Additionally, once such a report is created it can be used in the email marketing system to send email campaigns to these customers.
For the next release we are looking into exposing the opt-in status so that customers can view their subscribers communication preferences and act based on this information.
Redirect system domain and URLs to default domain for better SEO performance
Starting with this release, we are allowing users to redirect system domains and URLs to the default site domain or corresponding URL using 301 redirects. This will help customers achieve better SEO performance and avoid duplicate content penalties from search engines. To enable this redirect, users will have to edit the system domain and check the Redirect to default domain check box.
With the July release, we are going to enable the same functionality for secure URL as well, with the exception of payment pages and POST requests, which will remain on the secure domain.
Note: when admin user is logged in admin using the system domain, the system will not redirect front-end pages while session is still active; user must log out of admin for the redirect to work.
User interface consistency for renamed modules
The new admin user interface has been updated to consistently use new names for these modules:
- Media downloads (former Literature)
- News (former Announcements)
- Events (former Bookings)
There are still two areas where the old naming is being used:
- Module & tag names (e.g. { module_announcement }, { tag_announcementurl_value })
- FTP folder names (e.g. /Layouts/Announcement)
These will take a significant engineering effort to update, as we need to support existing sites that could be already checked out to local file systems, or replicating existing sites. Together with some of the partners that are using this features intensively, we decided to leave these areas with the old naming for now, and redirect the engineering effort in two larger projects currently under way: handling partner enhancement requests and a better web apps engine.
Offline payment security improvements
The security of the current offline payment workflow has been improved in order to meet international security standards for offline payments:
- A new, additional “Offline payment password” must be set, and updated every 90 days
- Pass phrases are now unique to each order. You can no longer use the one pass phrase to access every secure PDF
This will help transactions be more secure and protect business owners from potential attacks. Here's a more detailed view of this feature.
Delete paid and Creative Cloud sites from the Admin Console
We moved the "Delete Site" functionality to the Admin Console of the website in order to help Creative Cloud users and beginners cancel an existing paid website that they don't need anymore. Here's a snapshot of this new feature.
Other changes
- Invite Partner user: starting with the release, partners can add other partners as site admins through the Site Details screen in the Partner Portal. This functionality has been moved from the User Management interface and it is enabling partners to collaborate on developing a site without impacting the site admin limit
- File Manager alpha: drag'n'drop can be used to move one file at a time between different folders
- File Manager alpha: expired sessions will prompt you to re-enter your password and resume your work on already opened files
- Billing Settings admin menu is hidden for all users of trial or Creative Cloud redeemed sites
- MetaWeblogAPI switch to https - Starting with this release, we will push a security update for the MetaWeblogAPI of Business Catalyst to disallow use of an unsecured connection (http) as that sends login credentials in plain text.
- Updated time zone for CRM entities: we have updated several CRM screens so that they display entities based on site's time zone instead of the Asia Pacific datacenter time. The following lists have been updated: Customers, Orders, Cases, Event Bookings, Opportunities and Modules>Comments
- Updated free trial sign-up: Free trial sign up with an existing Business Catalyst or Adobe ID user now creates an additional trial site and places it under the user's partner portal
Deprecated functionality
- CRM User Passwords will no longer be exposed through API and custom reports - with this release we are completing our security policy update for CRM passwords and will stop delivering CRM user passwords through API and Custom Reports. For more details about the security update, read our Important Security Policy Updates for CRM Users - Effective February 8th announcement
- Blog trackbacks, not present in new user interface, have been removed from the new sites templates as well. While existing trackbacks will continue to work, we recommend to remove them from your sites due to spam issues, and use instead social modules for significantly more effective content sharing
- Triangle Dreamweaver extension for versions CS3 and CS4 will stop functioning after July 30th. Please use these newer alternatives.
- Separate menu visibility setting has been dropped from the new admin user interface and replaced with a more granular permission system that also control the menu visibility. More details about the new permissions system on our February release notes blog post
Issues fixed by May release
- Updated caching engine to refresh cache when resizing images under 52 KB
- Added single sign-on between Creative Could and Business Catalyst
- Dreamweaver: the free partner site for standard and premium partners appears in sites listing
- Issue 3085538 - Fixed an issue that caused a blank page to be displayed when trying to download a literature item that does not have a physical file on the disk
- Issue 3186843 - Fixed an issue that was causing changes to the template to not propagate to the pages
- Issue 3188096 - fixed an incorrect logic in template caching mechanism causing preventing users from seeing the changes in the template
- Issue 3189902 - Updated the system limit recipients list to remove the email only users
- Issue 3192349 - Removed search/new case from old PP support
- Issue 3192268 - Updated the "Syndicate this Blog RSS" option tooltip from the Blog details page to specify that only new blog post will be added to the feed once the setting is activated
- Issue 3201622 - Fixed a Creative Cloud integration problem forcing users to purchase an website when they still had available entitlement sites
- Issue 3199468 - Fixed an issue preventing new business owner users that on sites created by free partners to post cases
- Issue 3120761 - Fixed a bug causing 'An error occurred' message to be displayed when trying to add a Hyperlink in a Message from a Case
- Issue 2991429 - Fixed a bug causing deleted field in a Web Form from a Template site to be carried on a new site when replicating sites from a template site
- Different internationalization small bugs for French and Japanese
Business Catalyst new admin interface updates
- Removed Advertising Group permission from user roles permission selection screen
- Updated permissions to stop requiring Administer system permission for creating email accounts
- Changed the corresponding permissions for import screens so that users can import entities if they have permissions to edit or delete
- Updated the CRM>Customers>Customer Detail>Subscriptions screen stop displaying an "ERROR: You do not have any catalogs. Please create one." error message when site has no catalogs
- Updated the generate the XML feed screen behavior to display the resulting URL clearly and allow users to copy and paste it
- Updated invite user email content to include links to the site admin so that invited users can use the email to retrieve the admin URL
- Fixed a push site live issue resulting in a crash when used by admin users that were also partners
- Updated the edit web app item screen to have a single default action
- Fixed an issue causing a Java Script error when trying to open link manager from within radTree link picker
- Fixed an issue preventing users from resending the invitation email for an email account right after adding it as admin user
- Fixed an issue causing the "Lost your password" link to open the "Retrieve Password" dialog with in the old interface when used in a "Sign-In" dialog triggered by 401 exception
- Added e-commerce & website reports in the recent items menu
- Fixed an issue causing the CRM search results to be displayed over the search field
- Fixed an issue preventing users from adding catalogs using the quick actions menu, right after adding another catalog
- Fixed an issue preventing users from adding web apps using the quick actions menu, right after adding another web app
- Fixed an issue preventing users from creating or updating blog posts when the interface language wasn't set to English
- Removed delete action for system and secure domains
- Updated email campaign wizard to open the email preview in the new browser window
- Updated an error message displayed in the domain management user interfaces when trying to add a domain that exists on another site
- Added workflow approval process link in page details
- Removed sales quota from forecast report
- Updated "Add Domain" link behavior in webBasics sites to display the "Push Site Live" button when trying to add a domain on a trial site
- Updated the new File Manager to prevent users from removing the "{tag_pagecontent}" from a template; starting with this release, the system will display an warning and will not save the template
- Fixed a bug preventing the system from saving a web app when users were selecting a template and moved to the next step
- Fixed a a bug causing web app fields to not be saved when creating a new web app
- Fixed an issue causing the left navigation menu to break when switching between the File Manager and the admin dashboard
- Fixed a bug in the client site validation in the "My Details" screen that was generating a Java Script error
- Fixed the scrolling in email marketing reports on the Mac OSX/Safari configuration
- Fixed an issue causing the link manager to stop working when loaded in a pop-up window
- Fixed an icon rendering issue on the recent items menu
- Fixed several issues generating Java Script errors when managing users and email accounts
- Fixed an issue in the File Manager making the "[See Details]" buttons to open the image manager in the old admin interface
- Fixed an issue on Internet Explorer causing the admin interface to remain in a loading state after downloading the import template
- Fixed an issue causing quick actions menu to stop working when trying to add a page after editing and saving a page
- Fixed an issue making the breadcrumb info to change in the current displayed page after subsequent clicks on a selected web app entry in the menu
- Updated the Websites Report interface to correct a design issue
- Updated the Customer Reports>New Customer Report>Fields interface behavior to stop forcing users to select a data field when trying to go back to report type selection step
- Fixed a bug generating a error when trying to insert an image with the Image Manager when editing a page
- Fixed an issue in website reports causing an error when trying to export as PDF
- Added the "Upgrade" button for sites under consolidated billing
- Updated error messages for TOU management, billing management, sign-in dialogs, API errors
- Fixed an issue causing the system to send the password recovery email when pressing ENTER in the "Edit Admin" user screen
- Fixed a Java Script error preventing users to access the File Manager
- Fixed a rendering issue with the File Manager on Internet Explorer 9
- Updated File Manager to allow customers upload files in site root
- Increased the indentation depth level to enable file list indenting to work for level 4+ folders; we should increase the depth level of indentation
- Fixed several issues causing interface to freeze or crash after moving files or folders
What's next
- Setting page and template properties from new File Manager (mockups)
- Consistent Save & related action buttons in the new user interface (mockups)
- Redirect secure domain to default domain
- Other smaller improvements including use of absolute links in the email marketing editor, display email address in events subscribers list, random display web app items by category
For up to date and more detailed information about near term improvements, join us in one of our June Partner Townhall meetings.
Thank you,
Cristinel Anastasoaie
Adobe Business Catalyst Product Manager