UPDATE: The new user role interface has been removed from this release and it's going to be launched at a later date.

We're announcing a new Haiku O.B. release, scheduled for next Monday.

R169 includes lots of enhancements, bug fixes and overall improvements. Three highlights of this release include the wish list requests that will help customers better manage their online business: special characters in product & catalogueue names and the ability to send an email campaign to multiple lists. In addition to these great improvements, we've streamlined various user interfaces, added extra overage packages and fixed many critical bugs. 

Special characters in product and catalogue names

With this release, we're sticking to our commitment of fixing top wish list items and will be releasing one great enhancement that will help customers achieve better SEO and save time while creating and managing products or catalogues.

You are now able to add catalogues & products containing special characters in their names, directly from the BC Admin interface. In addition, we've also updated our import/export and API functionality to make sure customers can take advantage of this feature outside the Admin UI.

The product URL will automatically be generated based on the product name having the special characters replaced. To take full advantage of this feature, users will need to have SEO friendly URLs turned on, otherwise the system will use the dynamic product URL (catalogueRetrieve.aspx)

Send email campaign to multiple lists

This enhancement is another wish list request that will give customers using our email marketing feature more flexibility when managing mailing lists.

We've updated the email campaign wizard so that customers can now choose to send the campaign to all customers, one or more existing mailing lists, or to a new list. When selecting to send to multiple lists, customers will simply mark the check box next to multiple existing lists or customer reports.

Upon sending, the system will automatically search for contacts present in multiple lists, remove any duplicates and make sure that each subscriber receives the email once.

Spam moderation workflow - preview

To help customers reduce spam and unwanted posting on the forums, we are starting to test a spam moderation workflow for forums. Thus, in this release we're enabling this feature for websites with more than one forum (to be extended to all sites in an upcoming release).

If required, Creatiq can update your forum layouts to include a report spam link (using a system tag) to allow forums visitors to report a thread or comment as spam. Site Admins can then moderate these reports from the forum Adminconsole user interface and delete unwanted comments.

Minor enhancements

• For all existing and new sites, we enabled APIs and removed the option to disable them. This has no effect on the site behavior, and now APIs are readily available on any site in case you'd like to use them.
• Based on customer requests, we've added new overages packages 2000 MB w/ 10% discount and 5000 MB w/ 20% discount.

Issues fixed by R169 release

• Fixed a series of encoding problems causing web app items, web app, forum, email lists, affiliate programs and gift voucher names to be displayed incorrectly in Admin user interface
• Fixed a problem causing multi-screen templates to not render correctly for web app items (bug id: 2963406)
• Fixed spelling errors on the overage engine and multi screen feature (bug id: 3017345 & 3010433)
• Corrected a problem preventing product attribute cost to be added to order total (bug id: 3010227)
• Updated the list of users receiving payment failed email notification. Starting with this release, the email goes to the payer of the order and to the site Admin users if the invoice method is Customer. (bug id: 3011040)
• Updated the cart behavior so that it adjusts the prices for products in cart when a wholesale customer logs in or logs out (bug id: 2567277)
• Updated the Admin login form to prevent against a potential XSS vulnerability (bug id: 3017298)
• Fixed a problem with our shopping cart generating an invalid order status and preventing the system from triggering workflow notifications (bug id: 2650309)
• Fixed a bug causing an incorrect currency display on multi-currency websites: (bug id: 3011662)

Enjoy!

On June 9, our release (R163) was rolled out to all Haiku Online Business clients without a hitch!

With the next several releases, we've decided to start addressing the most important wishlist items while continuing the advancements on the Haiku next version. Please find the highlight of the ones we fixed in 163 below, that are mostly related with workflow and e-commerce improvements:

Customizable workflow notifications

One of the most requested features on our wish list was to give site administrators a way to customize workflow notification emails to include relevant information or to have it translated in the site user's language. With this release, we are providing a solution that offers the ability to customize those workflow notification emails from the "Customize System Emails" area.

This notification template will work for all workflow notifications and can be customized by adding different tags, changing From: address or email Subject: fields. Configuration window will be similar to other system emails.

Order status change notifications

This is an essential e-commerce feature for keeping paying customers up to date with the status of their online order. We want to make sure that when a order status is changed, customer will be notified of the new order status. For example, when an order is shipped, an automated email is sent to that customer with a proper notification.

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Site administrators will now be able to configure automated emails to customers when their order status changes. The e-mail message template used for customer notifications will be available in the System Emails section. The system will generate an email template for every order status and will allow site administrators to pick which order statuses will require a notification. By default, no status types will have any associated notifications set.

Packing slip and package labels

Site administrators and drop shipping suppliers need to have a way to print packaging listand package label for each order received. Also the site administrator should be able to customize the templates for both the packaging list and package label. Starting with the June release, developers and site administrators we’ll be able to:

1. Customize Packing Slip and Package Label as 2 separate templates from “Admin -> More Customization Options -> Shipping Layouts”
2. Print Invoice, Print Packing Slip or Print Package Label from within each Order details page
3. Print Invoice, Print Packing Slip or Print Package Label for multiple orders selected/filtered in Orders list page using “Actions” button
4. Automatically send Packing Slip and Package Label as email attachments to the warehouse if you have products configured accordingly with “drop shipping” email on
   
   

AWB tracking number and tracking URL support in orders

One piece of information missing from the Haiku order system was the ability to save a tracking number (AWB) and an URL to the shipping provider web page so that customers can access information about their shipment status in the MyAccount section or through an order notification email. The June release will enable the following workflows:

• Site owners can assign a tracking number (AWB) and tracking URL to the order once the shipping providers picks up the package. The Update Order user interface now includes these two fields allowing site owners to manually inlcude this information; Automation integration with shipping providers is planned for a future release.
• Once the changes are made on the site, customers will be able to track their orders effortlessly

Content holders management via FTP

Content holders are now available via FTP, in the /_System/ContentHolders/ folder. You can create, edit and delete them just by using your code editor of choice.

A content holder named "Home Adrotator" has the filename_System/ContentHolders/Home Adrotator.html and is included in a page or template with

Another advantage of having content holders as FTP files is allowing you to easily manage multiple copies of the same content holders between multiple sites: just have a "master" repository of content holders, as you probably have with templates, widgets, styles and other regular site assets, and copy this to all desired sites.

Other improvements

• Email marketing: campaigns with 20 or less subscribers are now automatically approved by the system
• Extended FTP support: With the June release we've extended the FTP support by making email campaigns and content holders available through FTP.

Important note: due to restrictions in the FTP protocol, special characters in content holder names and campaign names are no longer allowed. Existing content holders will be renamed and special characters have been replaced with underscores ("_").

Issues fixed by the June 2011 release

• Fixed a browser compatibility issue on Firefox 4 preventing users from creating a new contact or order because some required fields were not displayed (bug id: #2843041)
• Updated subscribe to newsletter form to prevent spam signups (bug id: #2867869)
• Fixed an issue in campaigns causing tags do not render when viewed in browser using {tag_viewinbrowser} (bug id: #2567189)
• Security update on campaign process to no longer allow open redirects for links tracking (bug id: #2879502)
• Updated the zip code calculation method to provide more accurate results when searching web app items by zip code (bug id: #2791376)

Please check the Haiku Knowledge Base (KB) for detailed tutorials documentation on how to use the new features:

• Customizable workflow notifications - read the KB article
• Customizing packing slips and package labels - read KB article
• Print invoice packing slip and package labels - read KB article
• Editing an order to add AWB number & tracking URL - read KB article
• Display the AWB and Tracking URL - read KB article
• Order status change - read KB article
• Order status change notifications - read KB article
• Edit campaigns via FTP - read KB article