Release notes

December 2020

Version 25.12 on December 17th, 2020.

Release 25.12 contains no visible features but includes many improvements on performance and security.

November 2020

Version 25.11 on November 19th, 2020.

Templates

Take advantage of new email templates and instant messaging integration

Email clients and webmails are constantly updated, and so do we. We have revised the communication templates available on the platformto optimize the display inside the clients most used by your contacts.
An important update concerns sharing your content on instant messaging applications. These applications are among the most used to communicate and share news, discount deals or a purchase already made. We have therefore added the possibility for the contacts to share content on WhatsApp and Telegram, directly from the email you sent them.
This allows you to track shares on these channels. You can take advantage of this new information, for example, as an opportunity to increase the audience of a particular offer or to customize browsing experiences with interactive on-site messages to encourage purchases.
All the sharing icons, even those already present (e.g. Facebook, Linkedin) are now available in 4 different styles from which you can choose the one that best suits your communication.
Find the new templates already in your account, to use them create a new communication starting from the platform template.

Users

Enhance passwords security

To make your account even more secure, we have updated the validation rules for user passwords.
From today on, when creating a new password, the platform requires that it contains at least one specialcharacter among the following: ! " # $% & ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~.
Don't worry: until your password expires you can continue to log in with the previous one even if it doesn't contain any special character.

Web service

Faster access to web service logs

The new summary of web service calls, which you can find in Management > System > Web service > Summary, allows you to quickly and clearly check the daily number of calls made.
You may filter for start and end dates and the log will display web service calls by date, by user and by type of operation, with indication of the partial and final totals.

Scheduled tasks

Improvements for scheduled export of contacts

In a scheduled tasks "Automatic export of contacts" you can now choose the column of the related data table to export for the following field types: simple relationship and many-to-many relationship.

Scheduled tasks

More information for scheduled tasks

In the setting tab of the scheduled task, in the "General" tab, we have added useful information like the date and time of creation of the task, the user who created it, date and time of the last modification and user who last modified it.

October 2020

Version 25.10 on October 15th, 2020.

Automated flow

More information when you reactivate an automated flow with periodic nodes

In some cases you may need to pause an automated flow and then reactivate it, for example to make some changes to messages or conditions.
In case you have periodic nodes you'll be given the next execution date for each one when you are reactivating the automated flow. If you need to start one of these nodes immediately, you can access the flow settings, in the "Advanced" tab, and then the flow's "Status" page, and proceed to start the node immediately using the "Run Now" button.
Please note that periodic nodes are: Periodic filter, Contact event date, Contact anniversary.

FTP

Platform FTP space

We added a small feature that can be very useful in case your account's FTP space is used by many users.
If you create an FTP folder, instead of assigning permissions to each user, you can now copy permissions from an existing folder.
The copy operation duplicates the list of users for each type of permissions: access to the folder, list content, reading, writing.

Account

Login made more secure

We remind you that the two-step verification feature (Two-factor authentication) is available to make login to the platform even moresecure.
You can activate this feature per user, by accessing his edit page.
The activation is very simple, you can use any authentication App also free (for example Google Authenticator, Duo Mobile). In this way every time the user wants to access the platform, after login, he will be asked for a confirmation code that he can read on the authentication app.

App

New version for Microsoft Dynamics Connector

We have updated the connector between the platform and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM; if you already have the app installed in your account you will find the new 10.0 release.
Release highlights:

• Perform post-import actions
  At the end of an import process, you can set a function request belonging to another custom app installed on your account. This feature can be used to: import contacts, import a related entity, import campaign activity target groups. It can be useful, for example, to send an email or SMS message at the end of the target update.
• Support for virtual entities
  When importing a related entity into a data table of the account, you can now import Dynamics virtual entities (with data coming from an external data source).
• Import values for lists
  When importing entities, if you had a picklist (drop down menu), until yesterday you could only import IDs. Now, you can choose whether to import the ID or the label of the linked value, or even both.
• Export the engagement field
  We have made the platform's engagement field exportable; you can choose to export it on a dedicated picklist field on Dynamics, or as simple text.
• Expiring static audiences
  When you import a campaign activity from Dynamics and create a communication, you can also decide to create the static audience on the platform, synched with the Dynamics audience. Now, you can choose to make these audiences expire by giving them the same life time as the other static audiences in your account.

September 2020

Version 25.09 on September 10th, 2020.

Users

Two-step verification

By accessing a user's profile, you can enable two-step verification (Two-factor authentication) to make login to the platform even more secure.
Activation is very simple, you can use any authentication app, even free, that you find available on your App store, for example GoogleAuthenticator, Duo Mobile.
In this way, every time the user accesses the platform, after logging in, they will be asked for a confirmation code that they can read on the authentication app.

SMS

Improvements to sending SMS messages (also in the US)

We have improved support for sending SMS messages, and expanded the compatibility to new providers.
We have also added the ability to send SMS messages using a number with an United States country code. As this country code was formatted differently, it wasn’t usable until now.

Transactional messages

Skip the queue

If you need to send a transactional message from web service, you can make sure that it does not end up in the queue of other messages, using the new "nospool" option.
It can be useful, for example, if there are SMS which must be received immediately by the contact, such as when sending a PIN code that they must immediately received.

Web service

Export web service logs

If you use the platform web service, you can now export call details.
To do so, access the detailed web service logs, choose from the actions whether to export to either a text or Excel file, and then choose the fields you need.

July 2020

Version 25.07 on July 30th, 2020.

Contacts

New system audience: All contacts

When you enter the map or the audience list of a database, you will find the new "All contacts" system audience. It includes all contacts regardless of their status, hence it will contain contacts who are subscribed, waiting, suspended or unsubscribed.
You can create dynamic audiences as children of the "All Contacts" audience, and when you want to send a communication, the platform will automatically choose only the active contacts.
For example, if some contacts unsubscribe from the communication after you have sent it, you will be able to find the unsubscribed contacts by filtering them by status.

SMS

SMS shortlinks with courtesy page

We have made some changes to the management of shortlinks for tracking SMS messages, focusing on the web domain page.
For each web domain, you can choose the option "Enable this domain for SMS tracking", if you select it all links in the SMS will be turned into shortlinks and counted in your reports. If you have more than one domain enabled for shortlinks, you’ll be able to choose which one to use as default.
Moreover, we have added management of the courtesy page for expired SMS shortlinks; if you like, you can specify an internal platform page, or an external one which the contact will see if they click after expiration.
In every journey or single communication you can still decide whether or not to activate the option for shortlinks, if so you can choose which web domain to use among those you have enabled. If you do not make a specific choice, the domain you have set as default will be used.

Transactional communications

Funnel for transactional communications

In the journey report, you will find a new "Transactionals" entry in the context menu on the right.
You can use this new report to analyze the dedicated funnel, where emails sent using transactional communications are counted. Just below, you will find the list of last changed emails with its bar graph, built with their KPIs.
We have not made any changes to individual transactional communication reports, which you can always reach from the dedicated report list.

Automated flows

Change the status of contacts with the automated flow

We have changed the “Unsubscribe contact" node into "Update contact status". This allows setting many more actions, such as suspending contacts that perform a certain action, or changing the status from unconfirmed to subscribed for contacts who click on a certain link.
If you had used unsubscription nodes in your automated flows, they have been automatically converted for you. So, you will see the new node type when you log in, but it will perform exactly the same action you had set, so you don’t need to make any changes.

Web

Anchors in web pages

It is now possible to insert anchors in the platform's internal web pages, or inside survey pages. You can then add fragments to links, so that your contacts reach the specific spot in the page identified by the ancor.

Send

Send communications in Arabic

Some versions of Microsoft Outlook have problems when sending emails in Arabic, because they do not align the characters of the subject to the right.
As of today, sending to Arabic-speaking contacts is also more stable and aligned with all versions of Outlook.

Survey

Surveys: choose which questions to see in the reports

We have added the "Display this field in reports" parameter to the "Advanced" tab of survey questions.
Therefore, if there are questions whose answers you don't need to see, for example because you only used them as support, you can deselect this option and the answers will be automatically hidden in reports and lists.

User activities

More detailed user activities log

We have added the displaying of the session ID in the users activities account log. A small implementation to make every single user's changes and activities more traceable in those accounts that are used by many different users.

App

New version for Prestashop connector

Version 3.0 of the Prestashop App brings several changes and new features. Some of the main changes are:

• Management of e-commerce sites with differentiated VAT rates
  If your virtual store includes various products with differentiated rates, you can enable the "Enable differentiated VAT rates by product" option found in the Global Configuration screen. The VAT rate will be imported directly from your Prestashop product catalog, and amounts will be automatically calculated accordingly.
• New templates
  The communication templates available with the Prestashop connector have been "redesigned", made easier to use and optimized for new email and webmail clients.
• Connection status under control
  In the global configuration screen, we have added the connection status, so you don't have to click further to check if the connection is set up and working properly.
• Unsubscription, how it works
  We have updated and integrated the section of the documentation relating to unsubscription. It is important to understand this well, also to be sure not to send unsolicited email to contacts.
• Field mapping
  We have added an option to decide, for each individual field, what should be done in case an error is generated: do not import / update the contact, import / update the contact while only leaving blank the field that returned an error, update the contact but without changing the value of the field that returned the error.
• Last import status
  In the synchronization status page, you can now also see the details of your last import.

App

New version for Magento connector

The new 10.0 version makes the connector officially compatible with the Magento 2.3.4 release of Magento. In addition:

• Unsubscription with List-unsubscribe
  You can decide whether contacts unsubscribing from communications sent by the platform should only be unsubscribed from the account databasesor also from Magento.Now, this choice can also be made even if your contacts unsubscribe through the list-unsubscribe feature, without needing to click the communication.
• ID URL or talking URL
  With version 2.0, Magento changed the talking URL parameter from URL path to URL key.This new version supports both variants, so for both Magento 1.0 and 2.0 releases, you can choose whether to have the URL with the product ID or the talking URL with the product name. If you would like to change this, go to the global configuration page and change the option “Do not use search engine optimized links".

June 2020

Version 25.06 on June 25th, 2020.

Media

Multiple selection of media

You can use the new multiple media selection feature to delete multiple media items at once. Selection has been enabled for all media lists: global media, by journey, by newsletter and by survey.

Users

User roles

We have renamed User profiles to Roles.Roles define the set of permissions for a user, the features they can access and the mode they can access these features.In the user management page, each user will be listed along with their role.
Please note that, in addition to the seven system roles, you can create custom roles to more accurately reflect the permissions your users will actually need.

App

New version of Microsoft Dynamics Connector

We have updated the connector between the platform and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM; if you already have the app installed in your account you will find the new 9.0 release.
This version supports the new MS Dynamics Web Service (Web API) which aims to replace the previous one, which Microsoft will soon deprecate. Even though we do not know when this endpoint will be discontinued, we have made our connector ready to support the new web APIs.
If your Dynamics installation supports the Web APIs, we recommend you enable the option to use them from the app's global configuration page.
To learn more, you can ask your Dynamics representative and read the updated app documentation.
Another important improvement concerne importing entities. We have added an option that allows you to select all fields in the entity to be imported, without having to select them individually.We have then added the ability to name data table columns, thus being able to rename them without having to accept the default system name.
Please note that our platform also provides connector apps for the Salesforce and vtenext CRMs.

May 2020

Version 25.05 on May 21th, 2020.

Users

Track emails sent to users

From now on, the platform will also track events related to notification emails sent to users.
The Management > Transactional messages > To users screen, which contained the list of messages and their details, will also show the sending date and time, as well as opens and clicks, in the "History of message events".
This can be useful, for example, to verify whether confirmation emails have been received and clicked.

App

New vtenext connector is available

We have developed the new vtenext connector app, which connects our platform with your vtenext CRM.
You can synchronize your contacts bidirectionally, and add them directly to the platform’s static audience.
You will be able to send communications using the platform and, with the webpages we have already filled in and prepared for you, you will be able to manage contact preferences on each channels or their complete subscription, finding all information synced on vtenext.
You’ll find the main KPIs, as well as all statistical information, collected by the platform on the contact, all inside your vtenext CRM.
Please note that our platform also provides apps for connecting Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce CRMs.

April 2020

Version 25.04 on April 23th, 2020.

CJP

Communication Journey Platform

We are continuing our terminology updating.
Groups become Audiences.“Groups” is a generic word, which can be used in various contexts; for example, the platform already features groups of journeys. More specifically, Audience means the target audience of our communication activities.
Flows for contacts become service page flows. Just as we have service pages, all flows for contacts (subscription, unsubscription, profile editing...) have also been renamed to service page flows.

Survey

Surveys, go to page

The buttons on surveys allowed you to go to the first, next or previous page. Now, the navigation actions allow you to move the user filling out to any of the pages of the survey, even changing the navigation route based on given replies.

Contacts

Faster contact import

We have made some improvements to the contact import, in order to improve the performance of this feature.
The change from the previous release is significant for those accounts that have extremely large contact databases.

March 2020

Version 25.03 on March 19th, 2020.

Journey

Journey

Campaigns become journeys. A journey (campaign) is the container for all the assets you need to implement your marketing strategies: communications, surveys, web pages, on site messages, automated flows ... These tools allow you to communicate throughout your customers’ entire lifecycle, starting from acquisition campaigns.
Reports become Insights. We have changed the “Reports” item on the main menu to “Insights”: reports are not solitary elements, but give relevance to the data when looked at as a whole.
Waiting contacts become unconfirmed contacts.Contacts who start the subscription flow, usually from a link or small form on your site, will be in a state that we now call “Unconfirmed”. At the end of the process, after confirmation, they become Subscribed contacts.
The workflow becomes automated flow. We have renamed our workflows to automated flows, as our platform allows creation of very complex, articulate flows with many ramifications.

Logo

New logo, new login screen

MagNews changes logo, and the platform is updated.
We have a brand new login page, a small touch of creativity to let you know that we never stop.
Your credentials haven’t changed, just login and continue from where you left off. Keep up the good work!

Communication

Links check

We have updated the functionality that allows you to check if the links you have inserted in a communication are correct, before actually sending it.
With this new implementation, we can also tell you if links containing placeholders are working correctly (e.g. [contact:idContact]).

Communications inherit conditional subjects

If you frequently use conditional subjects, from now on you can set your conditions directly in your journey’s setup screen: they will be inherited by new communications.
As with the other journey setup options, you can still decide to change this individually for each communication; in this case you can modify the conditions, or not use the conditional subject at all.

Simply SMTP

Improvements for Simply SMTP

An interesting new feature for Simply SMTP users is the ability to insert the x-mn-webdomain header, to indicate the web domain to use when tracking messages.
This allows you to send email messages and use several webdomains, you are no more limited to use only one single domain.

February 2020

Version 25.02 on February 20th, 2020.

Survey and on site messages

Hidden fields in surveys and on site messages

We have updated the system templates for surveys and on site messages, introducing a new option for fields of type text, numeric, textbox and checkbox fields.
You can hide the field, so that it is not visible to your contacts who fill out the form or on site message. This feature can be useful if you need a field in which to record a value or save a calculated value.

Contact fields

Dedicated database space for contact fields

We have added an advanced feature that allows you to create a table for a contact field, therefore using more space within the SQL database dedicated to your account.
The main case in which you would use this is when periodically importing a large number of contacts from an external database.
When creating a field you can choose to create a dedicated table where its values will be stored. In this way you optimize access to this data, particularly when using filters. Be careful though, this may reduce the performance of other features that involve multiple contact fields simultaneously, such as sending email messages.
We therefore recommend that you consult our help desk in advance to see if this feature may be suitable for your specific case.

January 2020

Version 25.01 on January 23rd, 2020.

Database

Master database becomes global database

We have renamed the master database to global database, a more appropriate name for the container that holds all contacts from other databases.
Just as you find the global libraries that contain all the media and content for your account, you also find the global database that contains all the account contacts.

On site messages

Web displays become on site messages

We have renamed the web displays to on site messages, a more appropriate name for the functionality of this channel.
On site messages are messages you can "display" on certain pages of your website. With our platform you can show your visitors: pop-ups, inline forms and banners.

Users

Platform users: minor interface changes

Until now, platform users were identified by just one field, the “name”. From now on, you can specify each user’s name and surname separately, and you also have the company field available if you need it.
The names of users already present have been "separated" using an automatic algorithm. If you wish, you can check the result from the list of users in your account and update the information if necessary.