REC+ Infrastructure

• Website recommendations UPDATE
  You can now dismiss recommendations that do not apply immediately to help you focus on ones that you need to action.
• REC+ app store
  We have added a significant new feature set for ecommerce sites - read more
  Start exploring the entire app store.

Forms & CMS

• Forms dry run mode
  Dry run mode allows full debugging info to be shown as well as suppresses emails during this process.Useful for developers.
  Give it a try in Admin > Form builder > Enable dry run mode.
• New form layout for floating placeholder display.
  This optional new display moves form labels into the fields and then as the user enters into the field the label reduces in size and moves to float above the field nicely
• Another new form layout for a dual column design
  Split your form into 2 sections and enable multi column support to have the sections sit side by side.
• Show in header notifications?
  This allows you to include or exclude whether form replies are included in Admin Notifications in the top navigation bar.
• Referrer page added to form replies
  Form replies include the page from which a user filled out a form, this is very useful where you have the same form shown on multiple pages.
• Draft blog posts shown at the top
  Admin blog manager now shows drafts above live posts to serve as a useful reminder that they need to be completed.
• Added "map" and "youtube" content block types
  Allowing you to easily add maps based on an entered address, or youtube video embed simply by pasting the url of the video.
  Available both through the template layout files and through Admin > Content Blocks > Add/Edit > Types > map & youtube
• User manager now shows counts of total, active and subscribed account as well as new sorting options
  This improves overall visibility of the volumes of users you have on your site. Read more on how these are calculated.
• Template system can now filter to show just the files you're working on in a template by hiding shadow files.
  Shadow files are the ones shown from parent templates, these illustrate the layers the template system uses to build the site, but when working on a set of new changes this new feature can be handy to reveal which files you have worked on, hiding away the shadow files from the parent templates. 
  Admin > Templates > Active template > Toggle shadows.
  Also now on hover of template file names it will show the full path including the parent folder.

Ecommerce

• In-cart deals
  Utilising coupons you can now display deals to users in the cart, this tempts users to buy more by progressively offering discounts as the order value and/or quantities increase.
  Read more here.
• Show associated products in cart
  Following from the in-cart deals feature, you can also show through associated products directly in the cart (based on the products already in the cart using the associated products program), helping you cross sell products that users can easily buy to qualify for the deal(s). 
  Read more here.
• "On hold" state for orders
  This allows you to categorise specific order statuses on your site into an 'on hold' state that fits between 'in progress' and 'dispute' e.g. for backorders or situations where there is a longer delay than normal.
  Available in Order Manager > new "On Hold" tab, & available in Order Statuses > Add/edit statuses as a state. (Remember to enable 'success' with this otherwise it will not show in order totals)
• Payzone Payment Processor
• We've added Payzone as an alternative to Paypal, Sagepay and the other processors already available. Find out more about them on the Payzone site. For instructions to setup and use Payzone read this article.
• UPS errors now pull through onto checkout
  If you use UPS for delivery rate lookups on your site then users will now see more informative reasons if UPS cannot deliver to them.
  These reasons are also logged against each order in the Order History for admins to view too.
• Coupons can now optionally allow both a mininimum spend & minimum quantity before applying.
  This now let's you run deals that only apply when a user adds more than a single item to cart.
• Reviews & testimonials now have simplified statuses
  Both now use the names: "New/pending", "Published" & "Suspended" to help you manage your product reviews & testimonials. 
• Avg. Order Qty/Value now available in Marketing Metric's Order Traffic Analyser.
  Head on over to Order Traffic Analyser in Marketing Metrics (Marketing Console) and in the 'Show' dropdown select Avg. Order Qty or Avg. Order Value. This is helpful for working out the effectiveness of different types of campaigns driving customers to your site. 
• Thanks page 'ordered items' template keys
  'Ordered items' are now leaked into the thanks page template via {{ dump(order.items) }} allowing you to auto embed these into thanks confirmation page forms so that admins can see what was being purchased when they look at the feedback forms. Also allows you to add more custom tracking.
• Price list downloads
  You can now offer a CSV download for price lists on your site as well as showing retail vs group base pricing.
  These 2 new settings are available in: Site Settings > Prices & VAT > Displaying Prices > Offer Price List app as a downloadable CSV  &  Show "Retail Price" column on the Price List app

Behind the scenes

• Facebook v4 upgrade
  Keeping up to date with Facebooks latest API updates we've upgraded to their latest version 4.
  NB You may need to re-connect to Facebook to continue posting automatically from your site.
• Auto expire old user passwords (3 months for admins and 15 months for users)
  As an automated additional security & privacy layer, you can now enable auto expiring old user passwords. Their accounts will not be lost but when they try to log in they will need to confirm a link emailed to them at which point they will auto need to set a new password. Read more.
• Lazy loading images in new browsers enabled in default template for products and categories
  With this the browser will only request those images when the user scrolls down near to them, this has resulted in large initial request counts and download size reducing by over half on several large sites.
  The new browser standard for loading="lazy" is now implemented around these images by default, your template may need updating to add these in.
• Autoparts export/import now contains the marketing site link
  This is a custom field that can be used on your sites for custom functionality such as different enquiry links per product etc. Allowing it in this export file allows for faster entry when in use, if you don't use it you can safely ignore the new column.
• Form builder now triggers subscribe events for email tasks and admin email notification system
  This lets you setup email tasks for new subscribers and utilise form builder to sign up the user. 
• Blog posts can now be shown in full on blog category pages rather than just being a summarised list of posts
  This is useful where you wish to create an easier-to-read 'stream' of your articles in full e.g. for readers to be able to search faster for information rather than clicking in and out of each post. See how we use it on our Update page to show all our software changes.
  New template tag available in the /html/blog/item.html.twig templates for {{ blog.text_full }} that's similar to {{ blog.text }} but without the set character limit.
• Google Analytics user group tracking via custom dimensions
  Set up views inside Google Analytics so you can include/exclude different user groups from reporting, for example only seeing retail visitors or only seeing trade customers. Read how to set this up. 

As part of our program of continuously improving data protection, GDPR compliance and planning for new web standards, we have introduced an optional change so that old user passwords are removed from the database where the user has been inactive for 15 months. This can be set in Site Settings > Security > Expire Passwords For Old User Accounts. NB for new sites from 11th October 2019 this is enabled by default.

Why Is The Inactive Period 15 Months?

The 15 month timeframe is a practical time limit because it means that annual repeat buyers, such as Christmas shoppers, will not be affected the following year when they may wish to make a repeat purchase, but once they lapse a further 3 months then they will be classed as inactive and will then benefit from greater data protection through password removal. 

Can Users With Deleted Passwords Still Login & Use The Site?

Yes. When they try to login the system will inform them that their password has expired and automatically send out a new password to their registered email address:

Webauthn - Industry Standards To Eliminate Passwords

Looking further ahead, there is already an industry drive towards eliminating password use altogether for website logins via the 'WebAuthn' web standard. This will use different methods of authentication such as biometric devices like fingerprint readers on your phone or browser based control, and there are already passwordless 'magic links' in use allowing one-time logins via email addresses or SMS.

As we head towards the festive season, online retailers are preparing for two of their biggest events of the year, Black Friday on 29th November  2019 and Christmas. Here's a quick memory jog to… Continue Reading »

We previously wrote about the essentials you need to cover for your website. We have now launched actionable business intelligence to highlight actions that you need to take to ensure your websi… Continue Reading »

We are pleased to announce the introduction of actionable business intelligence in REC+ to help you manage your site and be alert to ways to improve it and maintain compliance.

What Is Business Intelligence (BI)?

BI analyses data and presents you with actionable information to make improvements to your business, decision-making and processes.

Why Does BI Matter?

With so many changes taking place with web technology, search engines, internet security and legal compliance like GDPR, BI helps you stay on top of what’s important for your website.

How Does BI Work In REC+?

REC+ has become smarter by analyzing your website and presenting actions you can take for:

✓ Compliance

✓ Security

✓ User experience and interaction

✓ Marketing and products These are displayed in Website Recommendations.

Notifications have also been introduced so you can quickly see new user interactions with your site including new form replies, orders, testimonials and product reviews.

Is It Free?

Yes. This is such an important way to help business owners stay on top of everything that’s required of them we have released this for free to all REC+ websites.

This includes adding new recommendations in the future.

Accessing The New Features

Simply log in to your website Admin Console and click on the new icons in the top navigation bar.

How Can I Clear Down All My Unread Form Replies That Have Built Up?

You can now also mark all replies in a form as read to focus on just new replies.
Go to Admin > Form Builder > View from replies > "Mark all as read"

In addition, if a form is set to email your admins, we now track that you've read it from your email client to keep the read/unread status in the system up to date which will stop the build up of unread replies. Tip: Make sure admins allow images to display when reading the email as this is needed to trigger the tracking mechanism.

Can I Use BI To Analyse My Overall Business?

Yes. For businesses running on Sage turning over £1m per annum we can now extract your Sage data into the Afinitis BI tool to analyse and recommend business-wide improvements.

Contact Neil Whelan to book an appointment on 0330 311 2810.