Affino 6.0.8 Release (Updated to 6.0.8.6)

Initially this was going to be a very quick follow-on release to Affino 6.0.7 to resolve any issues that come from the major new Affino release. It has grown a fair bit and includes key new abilities including a great new Lead Generation platform, new Chart content, updated Media Library, greatly improved Comments and Ratings and another set of major improvements in the Control Centre.

 

Affino users with large sites and multi-site setups are going to love this release. It greatly improves your ability to manage your sites with improved handling of all key aspects including Zones, Channels, Sections, Articles, Media and Catalogue Items.

 

There are dozens of additional usability improvements throughout where interfaces are being streamlined, automated and made more contemporary. This release primarily focuses on improving the user experience with Affino and most of the work has gone into this with dozens of fixes and tweaks.

 

Upgrade Guidance

 

This is a great update release which should not impact sites in any big way. The updates to the Coupons and Discounts mean that you will want to Zone these; we’ve introduced dedicated settings for the Comments and Ratings so you’ll need to set these up on the Comments and Ratings Profile; and the improved ability to delete Zones (which only have a Homepage) means you can now clean up multi-site instances which have redundant Zones.

 

This is a simple update so it is easy to update to and no special precautions are required. For those updating from a release prior to Affino 6.0.7 it is essential that you also read the release notes for Affino 6.0.7 and prepare accordingly, in particular the requirement for a new licence key.

 

It is essential that you run through the complete update process starting with the Affino Updater, followed by the System Update, Re-Initialise Site, Design Element Update and Skin Update; all of which are available on the Settings > Update screen.

 

Key Enhancements

 

Lead Generation v1

Powerful new lead generation application tracks incoming leads both for site owners and premium users.

 

Media Library v4

A major overhaul of the Media Library sees a completely new look and feel and radically improved usability. It is now far easier to browse and search for media. It is now also possible to bulk sort and move media at will.

 

Charts v1

We have introduced a new Chart content type. This allows for simple charts to be uploaded. It’s very much v1 at this moment with simple line charts only supported. The charts are all generated on the fly and compatible with all recent devices and browsers.

 

testcontent.affino.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/242/Charts.png

 

Comments and Ratings v4

Major update to Comments and Ratings supports multiple new use cases for Comments and Ratings including anonymous ratings for stores and combined comments and ratings for awards and competitions.

 

Other updates include simplified comment moderation, new comment thread subscriptions and improved notifications. Setting up Comments and Ratings has also become much easier with streamlined management and pre-populated defaults.

 

Other Enhancements

 

Amazon Content Delivery Network Support - Affino now supports the Amazon CDN; the key development has been the roll-out of versioned JS and CSS files which allows for instant refreshing of content on the Amazon CDN as well as others

 

Campaigns - now support PNG creatives

 

Catalogue Items - completely new catalogue management screen; greatly improved searching and browsing of catalogue items means that products are now much easier to manage

 

Detailed Standard Sections - new option to display Previous Price on product highlights

 

Discounts and Coupons - these have now been Zoned so that Discounts and Coupons can be applied to specific zones and not across all stores; additionally we have optimised the management screens greatly so that these are now much faster to manage

 

Forums - users are now taken to the latest post when posting; users can now also view all posts in a thread on a single screen

 

Images / Design Images - major refresh to Design Image management in Affino; greatly streamlined and modernised interface; now much more intuitive

 

Members - improved member listing formatting; improved defaults and required attributes to prevent setup errors

 

Optimisation - numerous backend errors resolved which although not apparent to users affect overall site performance

 

Orders - improved presentation of licences and coupons used on orders; improved search so that orders can now be filtered by delivery

 

Product Search v1.1 - the Product Search has had a complete overhaul since the initial release; the biggest improvements are that you can now have multiple different searches on a single site and the setup is greatly improved; this is an essential upgrade release for sites using the product search

 

testcontent.affino.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/242/ProductSearch.png

 

Recruitment - multiple fixes, tweaks and enhancements make this an essential update for Recruitment

 

User Import and Export - the user import and export have now been updated to include custom demographic fields; make sure you do an export to get the correct column structure for any user import

 

Fixes

 

Blogs - no longer error out when clicking on archive

 

Broken Links Analysis - now sorting correctly by last breaks

 

Campaigns - resolved error when uploading image creatives; major fix to now rotate campaigns consistently across all pages including cached and pre-cached pages

 

Carousel - arrows aligning correctly now (finally)

 

Catalogue Attributes - improved feedback notifications and help information

 

Catalogue Items - resolved major issues with VAT / TAX presentation under specific configurations; fixed issue where wrong catalogue reference was being displayed on some products

 

Channels - copying a media Channel now automatically sets the default media style on the media section and no longer errors out

 

Comments and Ratings - users can now only post a single comment where multiple comments have been turned off, however they can still reply to any number of comments; duplicate likes are now prevented

 

Control Centre - refined logout process

 

Coupons - fixes for enforced shipping coupons; can now apply more coupons to enforced coupons than previously

 

Customer Ladder - badges now showing reliably again

 

DailyMotion - fixed integration issues

 

Dashboard / Media Editor - now pop up in their own tabs / windows

 

eBay - integration setup issue resolved

 

eTests - fixed issue with eTest creation which was causing it to error out

 

Form Handler - now displays the images reliably, broken images are removed or shown as missing

 

Forums - fixed issue which caused forum posts to error out under specific conditions; users can now delete posts

 

LinkedIn - resolved errors which were occurring with syncing specific user profiles with LinkedIn

 

Newsletters - fixed issue when not using CDNs with Newsletters

 

Products - deleting products no longer errors out when connected to Google Base

 

Recommendations - complete overhaul of recommendations logic for greatly improved recommendations; essential update if using recommendations

 

Registration - fixed issue which was causing Affino to error out when users registered multiple times with the same email address

 

Related Products - fixed formatting issues and now enforce Design Style sizes consistently

 

Related Sections - resolved issue which caused these to error out under specific conditions

 

Rotating Backgrounds - numerous fixes, now working perfectly

 

Shopping Basket - now displays price values consistently, especially in scenarios where Taxes are being included in the price; basket now accurately reflects catalogue attributes

 

Store Profile - can now remove notification recipients from the Store Profile

 

Tips DE - fixed navigation on Tips

 

Twitter Integration - fixed issues which were causing Twitter connections to error out

 

WYSIWYG Editor - new release (again) resolves further issues with the ever changing browser scene

 

Plus dozens more enhancements and fixes, which will simply make your time with Affino easier and more efficient.

Update

We’ve just bumped up the release to include 50 or so further fixes from the original release. Some of these fixes address new issues, whilst the majority address behind-the-scenes server automation issues which affect performance.

 

Two other key improvements are a new behind-the-scenes approach to security and a number of anti-hacking / anti-phishing measures. Well worth an update even if you’re running on the latest release.