Percussion CMS Version 4.3 Release Notes

Percussion 4.3 is now available to all customers on the Downloads page. 

Note: Page Optimizer customers will be required to enter their Page Optimizer license through the Licensing Gadget once they have upgraded to 4.3. 

Announcing Retirement of 32-bit support

As of February 2015, Percussion will no longer release 32-bit versions of the Percussion CMS.  Customers should plan to move their installation to a 64-bit instance. This is being done to ensure that hardware is not the source of performance issues for customers. 

Enhancements

Page Optimizer: Keywords

For customers using the Page Optimizer module, you can now enter up to 20 keywords (1, 2 or 3 word phrases) that you can use to analyze your pages. Using the Keywords Dashboard Gadget, an administrative user can set up the keywords to be used by the organization. Then when editing the page, the Content contributor can scan page content for keyword density to ensure optimal use of keywords. Page Optimizer will identify whether the targeted keywords are being used appropriately on the page.  Both over- and under-utilization are identified.  

In addition to targeted keywords, Page Optimizer will show the user which words and phrases are most commonly used on the page.  This helps the content contributor understand if they are inadvertently stressing the "wrong" word or phase. For example, if I were writing a blog post on Content Management as a component of the Marketer's toolbox, but I inadvertently used the phase "Marketing Automation" more than Content Management, to a search engine that page would appear to be about Marketing Automation.

Page Optimizer also alerts contributors when keywords are not included in page elements like page title, meta-description, or heading. Since these are the key places that search engines look to determine the content of the page, it is important to use keywords in these areas.  

Page Optimizer Overview

Single Sign-On

Percussion CMS now supports SAML authentication in support of Single-Sign-On (SSO). If an organization has an identify provider service in place, they can configure an Apache and Shibboleth proxy to provide single-sign-on into the Percussion CMS. Please note, this is an authentication service only, not an authorization service. 

How to Configure Single Sign On to Percussion CMS

New APIs

Percussion has create two new Public APIs that are currently in beta. If you are interested in being part of the beta process, please contact Customer Success.

Two new REST APIs have been created to allow developers to create objects and content within the Percussion CMS. This can be used as a migration technique or it can be used as a means of integrating with a third party application such as a product inventory repository.  

Create Folder and Section API

This REST API allows developers to create folders and sections within the Percussion CMS.  

Create Page with Assets API

This REST API allows developers to create pages containing assets within the Percussion CMS. These assets would be local assets wihtin the page. 

SQL Server 2012

Percussion CMS now supports installation using SQL Server 2012 SP2 as the database. 

Server 2012

Percussion CMS now supports installation using Microsoft Server 2012 R2 as the operating system.  Server 2012 requires additional configuration on the server before beginning the installation such as explicitly granting read/write permissions on the file structure and opening ports used by the CMS. These steps have been highlighted in the installation instructions for Windows.  

Customer Incidents

The following customer incidents were addressed in 4.3:

  • Improved performance of indexing 
  • Fixed issue where specific images could not be imported into CM1
  • Issue in FTP publishing where publishing requests would not close, causing performance degradation

Known Issues

The issues below were reported too late to be able to be fixed in 4.3. These are under investigation and will be addressed in a future release:

  • IE10/11 are showing a warning message on login that they are unsupported browsers.  These are supported browsers and the message is showing in error.