In my last blog I addressed Ektron 9 questions on the new mobile and search features. This blog post will address questions on the persona management feature, user experience, upgrading and much more. Let’s continue on our quest to rule the new Ektron 9 features.
Persona Management
Q: How does persona management function?
A: Persona Management uses the Digital Experience Hub (DxH) and prebuilt connectors to help you use attributes in systems like marketing automation, CRM, etc. to easily create personas. Then you can use the targeted content widget to target content to those personas. Lastly, you can view activity by persona in Google Analytics.
As users visit the site, they will be measured against the various personas defined. From there, the system will help create qualitative information from quantitative data points.
Q: What platforms currently have the necessary hooks to integrate with the persona features?
A: Ektron has prebuilt connectors to Hubspot, Marketo, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics. You can also use data like search terms to help build personas.
User Experience
Q: Does image drag and drop work in all browsers?
A: No. Internet Explorer does not support drag and drop due to how it has implemented support for HTML5 (e.g. if you use IE for Gmail, you wouldn’t be able to drag and drop images from within that application either).
Q: Is drag and drop the only way to import images into Ektron 9.0?
A: No. You can still upload images like you always have. The ability to drag and drop images directly into content was something that was highly requested by the Ektron community.
Q: Has the Workarea itself changed outside of the Dashboard?
A: The Workarea hasn’t changed.
Q: What browsers does Ektron 9.0 support for the Workarea?
A: For content editing, Ektron supports Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. To take advantage of all the features in Ektron 9.0, be sure to use a version of your browser that is HTML5 compliant.
Q: Have there been any improvements to the photo galleries? Would "drag and drop" for images work for photo galleries?
A: For Ektron 9.0, drag and drop is only in the content editor. Other areas (such as library images) are on the roadmap for post 9.0 according to Ektron.
Q: Is the Aloha editor fully compatible with SmartForms?
A: Yes, the Editing of rich text within a smart form is done using the Aloha editor.
Q: What are the PageBuilder updates for new UI?
A: Ektron 9.0 features an updated user interface, with a new toolbar at the top of the page that you can use to quickly move from viewing your site, to editing content, to designing a page in PageBuilder. As part of that user interface update, the PageBuilder menus have been moved to the right side of the page, and capabilities were grouped into an accordion. The way PageBuilder widgets display was also updated. Lastly, Ektron moved toward making Ektron 9.0 great for creating content on all types of devices. To add a widget to a drop zone, you now need to click on that widget from the widget list and then click the drop zone where you want that widget to appear.
Upgrades, packaging, developers and other topics
Q: Is there a demo site to review Ektron 9.0?
A: Ektron has updated the OnTrek starter site for version 9.0, and you can have access to that when you download Ektron 9.0.
Q: How much effort will it take to upgrade from v8.6? What is the upgrade path from earlier versions?
A: Upgrades from versions 8.5 and later should be very straight forward, as long as your site follows best practices. Upgrades from v8.02 are more complicated, as there were API changes that may impact your site. We discuss upgrading Ektron in more detail in another blog post.
Q: Are there any eSync changes/improvements in Ektron 9.0?
A: Yes, there were some changes made that affect the ability to use a SAN for file system artifacts like images or documents.
Q: What version of the dot net framework does Ektron 9.0 support?
A: Ektron 9.0 works with .NET 4.5
Q: Are there any Social Media changes?
A: Not in Ektron 9.0. Going forward, Ektron is leveraging the content dashboard to provide administration of social content (e.g. moderate UGC, flagged content, etc.). The Dashboard will provide the platform for that going forward.
Although we have covered many areas of the new Ektron 9, there may still be more questions that you run into. Feel free to contact a WSOL Solution Engineer with any further questions.
