1. Home
  2. Release Notes
  3. 2021 Release Notes: Release F

2021 Release Notes: Release F

Is it just us, or is the midway point of 2021 coming in the blink of an eye? We’ve been working hard to provide you, our valued customers, with as many feature improvements and new functionality as possible in the first half of 2021. Time flies when you’re having fun!

We hope you’ve enjoyed what we’ve delivered so far, and we’re excited to continue the momentum in the second half of the year. Speaking of momentum, our June release is packed with improvements across all modules. Dive into our new SEO and accessibility content gap analyses with Website Tools, enhanced thumbnail capabilities throughout the platform, additional insight within PathFactory for Sales and more!


Core Platform

Better flexibility for thumbnail images

Previously PathFactory would generate a thumbnail with a 4:3 ratio to optimize for our card promoters and various landing page views. This became problematic, however, when sharing PathFactory experiences in places such as social channels, since optimal image sizing in these spaces are more aligned to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

To solve this, we now generate a thumbnail with a max 600px width, and the height will be computed based on the aspect ratio of the image. This will occur for automatically generated thumbnails, but any images that are manually uploaded by your team to the Image Library moving forward will remain the original size.


In an effort of increasing visibility across the platform, we now showcase which experiences your configurations have been applied within. To view this, navigate to your Appearances, Languages or Links & Sharing configuration pages within the platform settings. As you click through the different configurations, a right-hand pane will be displayed that shows the experiences where the configuration has been added. It will also give you insight as to when the configuration was last updated. You can click on an experience name from this view to be taken directly to it for quick editing.

imageAppearances Configuration

To support the spacing requirements for this new section, we have also updated the behavior of the tabs within Appearances and Languages. Now, when viewing these pages on a smaller screen, the tabs will consolidate into a “More” drop-down instead of just truncating the names. This allows for clearer navigation as you build out various configurations.


Persona and industry tags now in Content Library filters

If you are using persona and industry tags as attributes on your content, you’ve probably thought once or twice that it might be helpful to filter by them when working in the content library. If so, you are not alone! We’ve added these two tag types so you can now filter your content list view based on these attributes.

imageContent Library Filters


Edit custom languages within the Languages Configuration

We recently provided the capability to add your own custom languages to our Languages configuration list. If you wanted to change the name of the configuration however, you would have to delete it and then add a new one. With this release, you will see an edit icon when you hover on a custom language which will open a pop-up to change the name and/or language code.

Note: This edit function does not apply for default languages in the platform.

imageEdit icon


Native video support available for Parmonic and Limelight videos

Anytime a Parmonic or Limelight video is added to the platform, PathFactory will recognize the media type as video. This means that functions such as video start time, autoplay, and “show same channel video” will be available when adding the asset to a content track. When viewing the content track externally, a video icon will also be displayed for the asset instead of a webpage icon.

This will not be retroactively applied to existing Parmonic or Limelight URL types you have uploaded. You can however reupload these assets with the .csv upload function and it will update the media type to “video”. Make sure to select the overwrite option when uploading for this to work.


Image source URL now available within the Image Library

When you load an image into the platform, PathFactory will assign a source URL to that image, similar to what we do for content. This image source URL can now be found on the right-hand information pane within the Image Library when an image is selected. This can be particularly helpful if you are looking to embed that image within an HTML block on your PathFactory landing pages.

imageImage Library


Calling all Marketo users: Better validation of the Marketo API form submission export

As part of the updates to our Marketo integration, we have added improvements within the Marketo form configuration. This includes the following:

  • In the Event Fields configuration, the fields that are available in the Marketo form are now selectable in the right hand column instead of having to manually enter the form field name
    • If the Marketo form field that is selected is of data type: datetime, the corresponding event field for the session / visitor activity must be a datetime field (ex. Event Time)
    • If the Marketo form field that is selected is of data type: integer, the corresponding event field for the session / visitor activity must be an integer field (ex. Assets Viewed)
  • In the Custom Fields configuration, the fields that are available in the Marketo form are now selectable in the left hand column instead of having to manually enter the form field name
    • The Marketo form field must have a data type of “string” or “textarea” for custom fields configs
  • For the actual exports, if the Marketo form field is of the “string” data type, any data that is passed to that field will be truncated to 255 characters if the value has more than 255 characters. This is to ensure that the form submission to Marketo does not fail.

imageMarketo Form Configuration


Campaign Tools

Adjust the sizing of your thumbnails on Explore pages and card promoters

Building off of our improved thumbnail sizing outlined in the Core Platform section, we have also enhanced the thumbnail display for Explore pages and content track card promoters.

When you navigate to the Explore tab of the Appearances Configuration, you will see two new settings for thumbnail aspect ratio to set the width and height, giving you greater styling flexibility.

imageThumbnail Aspect Ratio

Card promoters will also no longer be restricted to a 4:3 ratio. Instead, the height will be displayed based on the height of the actual image and width will be 248px to fit within the card container.

imageExample of a Card Promoter


Disable tracking on Website Campaigns

We have added the option to prevent visitor tracking and cookies from being set on Website Campaign URL path configurations. This ensures that if your visitor engages with the webpage URL, no tracking or cookie setting will occur. Once they engage with the PathFactory promoter and enter into the track, then our tracking scripts will run and cookies can be set if the visitor has provided consent.

To turn on this toggle, navigate to the desired URL within the Website Campaigns section of Campaign Tools. You’ll see the right-hand information pane which now includes this feature.

imageEnabled toggle


Hide the track logo when microsite logo is also displayed

If you’ve incorporated a content track into a microsite, you may have noticed that the logo on both on the microsite header as well as the track is being displayed. This occurs when viewing Target flow tracks or Recommend topic sidebar tracks in a microsite and the header appearance has a logo applied. To resolve this, we have implemented the following behavior:

  • If your header appearance has a logo, then your Target flow or Recommend topic sidebar track logo will not display when viewed within a microsite
  • If your header appearance does not have a logo, then your Target flow or Recommend topic sidebar track logo will display when viewed within the microsite
  • When your Target flow or Recommend topic sidebar track are viewed separately (not as part of a microsite) they will still display the logo as usual.

These changes are irrespective of whether the microsite navigation bar is turned on or off, as when it’s turned off there is typically a custom navigation being applied.


Appearances landing page tab merged with microsite builder tab

In an effort to clean up the tabs within the Appearance Configuration page, we have consolidated the landing page information into the Microsite Builder tab.

Now you can find microsite level settings that will impact your entire microsite, as well as your landing page level settings to adjust layout, font, filter and card styling. Easily style your microsite appearance from within one place.

imageAppearances Landing Page Configuration


Improved filter behavior for landing pages

Since launching our enhanced search and filter options for landing pages, we have received fantastic feedback from our customers on how we can continue to improve the look, feel and functionality of these pages!

Two feedback items we have addressed for this release include:

  • Adjusting long filter values to a second line so they are not cut off within the filter drop down view
    imageTopics example

  • Removing the search component from filters with a fixed number of values, ex. funnel stage.
    imageFunnel Stages checklist

Font size override available for block headers on landing pages

If you are looking to punch up the size of your landing page block headers, look no further! We have added the ability to override the header font size from within the block level editor.

imageFont Size Override


Edit the default appearance and text for the landing page “no results” message

We’re always working to ensure that our landing pages provide the customization and flexibility you need. With that in mind, we have added areas within the microsite builder and virtual event tabs of both Appearances and Languages configurations to edit the default “No Results” message. This is the message that appears on your landing page track or session blocks when a visitor’s search/filter criteria does not return any results.

To edit the styling of this message, navigate to the landing page section of either the microsite builder or virtual event tabs within Appearances. To edit the text of this message, navigate to either the microsite builder or virtual event tabs within Languages.


VEX

We have rolled out many improvements to our landing page feature that have been outlined within the 3 last sections of Campaign Tools. Scroll up ^^^ to see how these can benefit your VEX landing pages!


Appearances landing page tab merged with virtual event tab

Similar to the consolidation we did with the Microsite Builder tab, we have also moved landing page information to the Virtual Event tab within the Appearance Configuration page.

This tab is now broken out into three sections so that you can style everything you need for your event within one place. You will find event settings that impact across your entire event, session specific settings and then landing page settings.

imageLanding Pages and Virtual Events Appearance


Consistent sizing of VEX session group cards

Previously, if VEX session titles were different sizes, the session card border would be different heights to accommodate for the title lengths. With this update, we have made the card borders consistently sized regardless of title length, so all of your event landing pages look clean and consistent.

imageExample of VEX Session Group Cards


Website Tools

SEO and accessibility gap analysis

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), all public areas must accommodate people with disabilities—this includes your website. However, there are still many B2B websites which are not fully accessibility compliant which can negatively impact your business in many ways.

The biggest challenge is to know where the gap is based on the guidelines and how to effectively fix it. With PathFactory’s new Accessibility Gap Analysis feature within Content Analysis, now you can perform an automated audit of your entire or part of a website and get detailed reports on accessibility gaps both at the individual content level and the aggregate level for better planning.

image

image

Another important area of focus for web content is SEO compliance. SEO is search engines’ way of determining which sites deserve to rank highly for the queries entered into its search engine. In order for your web content to rate higher on search results, it is critical that your website is SEO compliant and is constantly updated. As part of Content Analysis, with this release we are introducing another new feature which provides detailed reports on the SEO compliance of your web content. These reports provide a deep understanding of HTML tags, which of them are compliant and what is the gap at individual content and aggregate level for your team to focus on.

image

image

Both Accessibility and SEO Compliant dashboards are made available under Path Analytics for easy access under Website Tools/Content drop down.


Recommend Content Tracks with Website Tools

Customers who have been using PathFactory Campaign Tools as part of their website strategy (such as, using content tracks for resource centers) have good news now. They can now include their content tracks as a content source within Website Tools to directly recommend them on their websites. Based on visitor’s engagement, their history and related content the visitor is consuming on your website, Website Tools is able to provide personalized recommendations using track’s content.


Guide and Concierge appearance settings

Website Tools customers now have full control over the appearance setting of the Guides and Concierge based on their website UI needs. While these website components automatically inherit the CSS styling of you website but now you can configure the entire look and feel within the tool itself with no dependency on the developers:

  • Font type, size and style of the text to appear on Guide and Concierges can be individually configured for Guide and Concierge using simple drop downs
  • Thumbnail aspect ratios (which are defaulted to 1.91:1 ratio as recommended by social media platforms) can be adjusted to match you website UI needs
  • And for any further styling, now the tool provides ability to overwrite customization by simply adding custom CSS within the tool

These configurations are available under the “Appearances” section of the User Experience tab of the product. You can add multiple appearance settings per Guide and Concierge.

image

image


APIs to access Website Tools analytics data

For customers who want to analyze and visualize the Website Tools analytics data within their own visualization tools, we have now created an API to push this data directly into their data lake. The data lake API returns page view results as per the values configured for the offset, limit, collector_tstamp_start, collector_tstamp_end parameters. The API can be called using Swagger or Postman. Both these methods provide the user with the same output. For customers who are interested in accessing this API, PathFactory can provide the API documentation with the overview of API, methods used, and sample outputs using Swagger doc.


PathFactory for Sales

See the total count of anonymous visitors

PathFactory for Sales insights provide rich information to better understand your buying committee. A big piece of this includes surfacing anonymous visitor activity alongside known visitor and contact record activity. Although you could see an aggregate view of when and what your anonymous visitors were engaging with, previously you weren’t able to see the total count of anonymous visitors. To get a true understanding of the size of the buying committee, we have now surfaced the total count. This is a sum of the unknown visitors, i.e those where we don’t yet have an email address to associate to them.

image

image


Chrome Extension thumbnail updates

Continuing with the thumbnail image improvements across areas within our platform, we have extended this logic to the way thumbnails display within emails when the PathFactory Chrome extension is used.


That’s it for now…

Midway points are always a great time for reflection and further planning. We hope you appreciate what we have delivered for you, our customers. More importantly, we can’t wait to share what we’ve got planned for the rest of the year! Stay tuned.

Views: 3

Updated on March 27, 2023

Was this article helpful?

Need Support?
Can't find the answer you're looking for? Don't worry we're here to help!
CONTACT SUPPORT