Percussion CMS Version 4.4 Release Notes
Percussion CMS Version 4.4 is now available to all customers on the Downloads page.
Note: Page Optimizer customers that are upgrading from Version 4.2 will be required to enter their Page Optimizer license through the Licensing Gadget once they have upgraded.
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
Content Contributor Homepage
To provide a simpler experience for content contributors, Percussion CMS now has new home page that focuses exclusively on the tasks that users in this role perform. The goal is to provide a focused experience for these users, minimizing the friction in creating and editing content.
Recent Content
Upon logging into the application, the content contributor is brought to the My Recent page. This page lists the most recent twenty items that the user has opened. It includes both pages and assets. At a glance the user can see the file name and title of the page or asset, making it easier to identify. The list also displays the type, the status, last published date, last changed date and last modified by.
By hovering over each item in the list, the user is shown an action bar as well as a preview window that displays additional information about the page or asset. This includes a thumbnail (for pages), the scheduled publish date, and the scheduled removal date. The goal of this information is to minimize the effort for the content contributor to open the item that they intended.
My Bookmarks
The My Bookmarks tab mirrors the design of My Recent tab. The same fields are displayed in the list, along with the same action bar and preview window. For those users that are responsible for managing several section landing pages (all of which are named 'index.htm'), this makes it much easier to identify and open the correct file.
Search enhancements
Search has been enhanced for the content contributor by combining the keyword search that appears in the Finder address bar with the structured search that exists in the Pages by Status gadget. The user has the option for a simple keyword search, but can also expand the selection criteria to select by file name, last modified by, workflow, and status. For pages, users can further search by site and template. For assets, users can search by asset type.
Search results are returned in the same list format as the My Recent and My Bookmarks tabs with the same action bars and preview windows.
Content Library (Finder)
If users are unable to find the item they are looking for using search, they still have access to the full library of content. By clicking on the Browse Library button, they are shown a full screen version of the Finder/library. This provides the user more real estate to browse the library to find the appropriate page or asset.
Add Content Wizard
The Content Wizard guides the user through the process of creating new content -- either blog posts, pages or assets. Rather than the user needing to first select the correct location in the finder before creating a page or asset, the user can now select "Add New" and be guided to create the content in the correct location.
The Add Content Wizard is "configuration aware" meaning that certain options are displayed or not depending on your site configuration. If a blog has not been created, then the "blog post" option will not be available in the wizard. If more than one site has been created then users will be prompted to select a site when saving a page. Otherwise, they do not see this field.
Since most content contributors only use a few templates, asset types or file locations, the system learns these and presents them in the process of adding content. For example, when a user goes to create a page, he or she is presented a short list of "Recent templates" based on templates they have used and a short list of "Recent folders" based on which folders they have saved content. Upon upgrading to 4.4, these lists will initially be empty, but over time they will become populated, making it easier for the user to create content.
Set Home Page
For customers that are upgrading, the homepage of users will be unchanged. You can set the homepage for any given role within the Workflow management page. Although this is described as the content contributor home page, it can be just as useful for anyone responsible for creating, editing or managing content.
Social Promotion
Social Promotion assists organizations in the process of optimizing their content for social promotion and provides the ability for content contributors to submit social posts to the Social Media Manager who coordinates social postings by the organization.
Social Networks
Social Promotion provides the ability to post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Administrative users have the ability to configure the social accounts of the organization. When users create a social posting, they will be prompted to select the accounts they wish to post to.
Hashtags
If an organization wishes that social postings use a consistent set of hashtags, these can be set up by an administrative user. Then as the content contributor is creating their posts, they can select hasbtags to include.
Configuration settings
Administrative users will also need to set the time zone that is used for the basis of scheduling posts as well as the root URL of the site.
Contributor Wizard
As the user is creating content, he or she can schedule the content for social promotion. For example, a content contributor could be writing a blog post to be published on Monday morning. As he is writing the blog post, he can also create a tweet and a LinkedIn status update to be scheduled immediately after the blog is published. The wizard helps the user construct the social posting by reading meta-data of the page and making content suggestions. The wizard then shows the user what the posting will look like on the various social media networks. Once the user finalizes the posting, the wizard inserts the appropriate meta-tags into the head of the page to ensure that the social networks will display the content as formatted.
Social Media Manager
The Social Media Manager allows the organization's social media power user to manage the various social postings created by content contributors. The social media manager can use the social media credentials of the organization to log in to http://social.percussion.com and view the list of social media postings created by content contributors. The user can then edit, schedule, or delete the different posts. In addition, this user can create new posts to provide a centralized location for managing all social media activities.
Page Optimizer
The UI for Page Optimizer has been modified to make it more prominent for content contributors. We have removed the menu item to launch Page Optimizer and instead inserted it as a button on the menu bar. The goal is to make this more prominent for content contributors.
New APIs
Percussion has create new Public APIs that are now generally available. The 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 within the page.
Customer Incidents
The following customer incidents were addressed in 4.4:
- FTP misconfigured credentials - when a user goes to publish using FTP, the system will now check that the FTP credentials are correct before beginning the publishing job, and inform the user if they are not valid.
- IE10/11 showing warning message - The system no longer display a message that IE10/11 are unsupported browsers
Known Issues
The issues below were reported too late to be able to be fixed in 4.4. These are under investigation and will be addressed in a future release:
- There are display issues when viewing the Percussion CMS with IE11 on Windows 8.