2021 Optimizely Content Marketing Platform release notes

December

Task dependencies

Released: to Edge environment 12/07/2021

Task Dependencies allow you to establish relationships across tasks and automatically shift step and task due dates forwards or backwards as you adjust due dates on the fly!

Bulk download assets (library)

Released: to Edge environment 12/05/2021

Assets can now be bulk downloaded directly from the Library & Task/Campaign Content Tab.

Asset expiry (library)

Released: to Edge environment 12/05/2021

• Admins can now mark the “Asset Expiry Date” against every asset on the Library so that expired contents are not used in new content and relevant usage restrictions can be enforced (manually).
• Admins (and owners of any tasks where these assets are used) will also receive a Notification & Email (in intervals of 7 days and 1 day in advance) regarding this expiry so that they can plan in advance.

November

Delete campaigns and nested activities (Plan view, campaign)

Released: 11/25/2021

Campaigns can now be deleted directly from the Plan Module and the Campaign Menu.

Allow-listing of domains (organization)

Released: To the Edge environment, 11/21/2021

• Instance admins can put domains on allow lists for new user signups. This essentially means that when a new user signs up to Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) with an email address belonging to that domain then they will be opted to go to that specific instance.
• Instance admins can choose to add multiple domains to a single instance as long as they are not the commonly used ones (ex: gmail.com).
• Freemium instances will not have the option.

Asset conversion (library)

Released: To the Edge environment, 11/03/2021

Supported Assets can now be downloaded in multiple formats directly from the Library. The supported file types are:

• JPEG → PNG, PDF
• PNG → JPG, PDF
• BMP → JPG, PNG, PDF
• DOC → PDF
• XSLX → PDF
• EPS → PNG, JPEG, PDF
• PPT → PDF
• PSD → JPG, PNG, PDF
• AI → JPG, PNG, PDF
• SVG → JPG, PNG, PDF

October

Quick addition of activities

Released: 10/31/2021

Also known as Campaign-less Tasks & Events: Released to Edge environment.

• Campaign is no longer a mandatory field to create tasks & events. Users can simply create a campaign-less task/event and add the campaign later.
• These campaign-less tasks/events will be private to the creator and to only users with Object Override Privilege unless it is specifically shared to other users or the organization.
• We have also introduced “None” within the campaign filter option to locate these campaign-less tasks/events in the plan module.

August

Plan view feature updates

Released: 08/23/2021

• An all new “Watcher” filter in the Advanced Filter section and “Watched by me” as a Quick Filter.
• All date related filter dropdowns now support quick ranges such as This week, Next week, etc.
• The month is now shown as a sticky note at the header of the Visual Calendar so that you don't get lost in all those amazing tasks cards.

Timeline calendar features

Released: 08/13/2021

• Users can now add campaigns, tasks and events in-line.
• Users can now multi-select drag and drop more than 1 row at a time.
• Extension menu added (similar to list view).
• PDF export with "color by" has a legend included at the bottom.

Current Step Only filter (Plan view)

Released: 08/02/2021

We have re-introduced the "Current Step Only" filter in the filter panel of the Plan module to work across all of the views.

Updates for trial instances (freemium/trial service)

Released: 08/02/2021

A couple of quick updates for Trial Instances:

• We changed the Empty State CTA for MWR to a much more simple and user-friendly action which will navigate the user to create their first Request.
• We changed the images and due dates of our seeded data for Trial instances to match more with the content and the activities.

July

Plan view

Released: 07/27/2021

The all-new ‘Plan’ module combines Calendar and Work modules into one, giving users a single place to plan, visualize and manage all their campaigns and content. 

This release includes the following features:

• List View - An intuitive, spreadsheet-like table to create, update and manage your marketing strategy.
• Calendar View - A birds-eye view across all of your marketing activity — planned work and scheduled content.
• Timeline View - An easy-to-read, Gantt-style calendar to visualize all of your marketing campaigns.
• Board View - Agile-inspired views & powerful pivot tables to visualize work or content using robust metadata.
• Unified Filter - A clutter-free and customizable filter panel that will preserve your selections across all views within the plan module.
• Saved Views - A way to preserve your preferences for each of the above views for later use.

Integration catalog

Released: 07/16/2021

 (accessible via https://integrations.welcomesoftware.com)

Customers and prospects can now browse all of our available integrations and see detailed descriptions about what features are provided, what benefits and value the integration offers, and how they can get connected. They can also see screenshots of our integrations in a carousel of images, request new integrations, and vote on other requested integrations. Existing customers can be directed to knowledge-base articles and go directly in-app to setup the integration from the catalog.A total of 39 integrations are published today with approximately 10-15 more queued to be published to the catalog in the coming weeks.

Lite onboarding for freemium users

Released: 07/08/2021

Every new freemium user will now go through an interactive onboarding process guiding them to create campaigns and tasks with ease before they even land on the platform.

June

Can Share Views in the Plan view

Released: Cutting Edge, 06/28/2021

We have introduced the ability to “Share Views” directly from the Plan Module.

This feature includes the functionality to:

• Share your own saved views
• Share views directly without saving

Plan view

Released: Cutting Edge, 06/16/2021

The all-new ‘Plan’ module combines Calendar & Work modules into one, giving users a single place to plan, visualize and manage all their campaigns & content. 

This release includes the following features:

• List View - An intuitive, spreadsheet-like table to create, update and manage your marketing strategy.
• Calendar View - A birds-eye view across all of your marketing activity — planned work and scheduled content.
• Timeline View - An easy-to-read, Gantt-style calendar to visualize all of your marketing campaigns.
• Board View - Agile-inspired views & powerful pivot tables to visualize work or content using robust metadata.
• Unified Filter - A clutter-free and customizable filter panel that will preserve your selections across all views within the plan module.
• Saved Views - A way to preserve your preferences for each of the above views for later use.

Asset and folder sharing

Released: 06/29/2021

Added since Cutting Edge: 

• Admins can set the “default sharing” behavior from the Asset Management menu in Settings
• Improved notifications when Asset/Folder is shared

Reminder

• Users will be able to upload and share a view or edit access to Library assets and folders directly with users, teams, and organizations.
• Campaign and Task permissions inheritance will be respected, meaning if you have edit access to a campaign, you can edit the
  Library assets that originate from that campaign.
• Folder permissions inheritance will be respected, meaning if you have edit access to a folder, you have edit access to all assets and subfolders within that folder (waterfall permissions)
• You can request the owner of a folder/asset to grant view/edit access similar to tasks or campaigns.
• You can access the share dropdown for assets and folders from the card/list ellipsis menu “...“, side pane preview of folder/asset, full-page folder preview, and full-page preview modal of the asset.

Granulated permissions for Home (dashboard)

Released: 06/27/2021

Admins will now be able to provide granulated access to the homepage. Providing access to the Home module does not automatically provide access to the Dashboard Widgets now, thus allowing better control over analytics data.

Signup/Login Flow

Released: 06/10/2021

We redesigned the whole Sign-up and Log-in flow for Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) users. 

All new users, signing up for a freemium/trial instance, will be navigated through the new sign-up flow along with a quick survey which will help us optimize their experience onto the platform in the future. 

All existing users, however, will only see the new log-in page and will not have to fill in the survey.

May

Collections - rich text description (library)

Released: Cutting Edge, 05/06/2021

The feature will now give users the ability to add rich text options (bold. italic, hyperlink, etc.) and insert images (e.g. logo) into the Collection description.

Collections (library)

Released: Cutting Edge, 05/06/2021

• Add a banner image to a collection
• Carousel view for public and in-app collections
• Search and filtering for public collections
• More discrete logo

Archive campaign

Released: 05/06/2021

Users can now easily archive a campaign and its nested activities (sub-campaigns, tasks and events) in one single click. The “Archive” functionality merges two existing behavior (ie. Delete & Hide) for better clarity and ease of use. Users can view “archived” campaigns, by using the filter status and then easily unarchive from the ellipsis menu or within the campaign page itself.

P.S: Archived Campaigns won’t show up in Analytics. Assets from Archived Campaigns will still show up in the Library. 

Splitting notifications for Step assigned to me and Step requires action

Released: 05/05/2021

Previously both notifications for “Step assigned to me” & “Step requires action” used to be under one settings control. We separated the two in the settings page for users to opt-in/out individually if required. In addition to that, we have also created a combined email for assignments to multiple steps, to be sent in a single email when a task is being created.

April

Planner and time tracking (resources view)

Released: Cutting Edge, 04/08/2021

Planner view

See the "Planned" vs. "Available" hours of individual resources on your team. 

At-a-glance visualization of resource bandwidth helps you keep tabs on the capacity across all your team resources so you can see  who is working on what (and when) to maximize output.

Time tracking

Give users the ability to log how much time (in 15 minute increments) their step took to complete, and view "Planned" vs. "Actual" reports to measure how much time a step actually took to complete vs. what was originally planned.

Invite users from everywhere (campaign, task, work request)

Released: 04/05/2021

• Users can now invite new users directly within the context of their work.
• Share a campaign with new users & invite them to collaborate on the campaign
• Assign a step to new users & invite them to contribute to a task/step
• Assign a Work Request to a new user & invite them to take actions
• Add a new user as a Watcher of a Work Request

March

Collections (library)

Released: Cutting Edge, 03/24/2021

Marketers now have the ability to create collections of library assets to share with internal teams or externally with clients across themes, product lines, regions, markets, etc. This gives them the ability to keep assets in their internal folder structure within the library but share these assets across a variety of collections with different personas.

Task columns on everything Tab (work view)

Released: 03/31/2021

We have added the 'task' specific columns ('Current Assignees', 'Current Step', 'Workflow', 'Current Step Due', 'Current Step Name', 'Channels') as options on the Everything tab of the Work Module.

Start Date is no longer a mandatory field (task)

Released: 03/18/2021

When creating a task, the "Start Date" field is no longer mandatory, reducing friction and enabling users to plan their work more effectively.

Hierarchy selection of campaigns (filter)

Released: 03/18/2021

When selecting campaigns within the Filter panel, selecting a parent campaign will automatically select all sub-campaigns within it as well. Users can select/deselect any parent or sub-campaign to include in the filter. This selection will apply to any new campaign added to the tree afterward, and will be added to the “Saved View”.

Board view (work)

Released: 03/18/2021

We have released a new Kanban visualization within the Task tab in the Work module. In addition to the spreadsheet-style view users currently access, they can also view tasks and steps by status from the Kanban board. This enables a more agile manner, and understand the status of their work and update the status of tasks / steps in a more intuitive way.

Asset API v2 (bi-directional asset sync)

Released: 03/15/2021

This integration now supports bi-directional syncing. This means that in addition to sharing assets from Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) to another digital asset management system, users can import assets and new versions of existing assets can be sent to the CMP with updates to label metadata, titles, and folder location.

Notification to comment owner for replies without @mentions

Released: 03/01/2021

Don't miss another comment reply! Any responses to your comment or responses in a thread you're participating in will trigger both email & in-app notifications, even if you are not @mentioned within the thread.

February

Invite User from anywhere (campaign, task, work request)

Released: Cutting Edge, 02/09/2021

• Share a campaign with new users & invite them to collaborate on the campaign
• Assign a step to new users & invite them to contribute to a task/step
• Assign a Work Request to a new user & invite them to take actions
• Add a new user as a Watcher of a Work Request

Work view (campaign, task, event)

Released: 02/25/2021

We combined  the "Campaigns" and "Tasks" modules into a single one, called "Work". Within Work, you will have dedicated tabs for "Campaigns" and "Tasks", which retain all of the functionality users know and love today, as well as a third tab for "Events".

In addition, as part of this change, we will be introducing a fourth tab, called "Everything". Under the "Everything" tab, users will be able to add, edit, search, sort, filter across a hierarchical view of Parent Campaigns, Sub-campaigns, Tasks and Events within a single spreadsheet-style view. 

Placeholder tasks

Released: 02/23/2021

Users can now quickly outline a campaign by creating placeholder tasks. We have removed the restrictions (converted mandatory fields to optional) from Task start date, Task due date and Workflow while creating a task.

Placeholder Tasks now allow users to create tasks without populating previously-mandatory fields (such as start dates, due dates, and workflows). Tasks created without a dedicated workflow will default to a "Quick Task", and remain in a new, "Not Started" status (filterable across the entire platform). With this particular release, we have introduced the ability for Admin users to switch Placeholder Tasks on/off at an instance level from the Workflow settings page.

Not Started status (task)

Released: 02/23/2021

We have introduced a whole new "Not Started" status to tasks. This means that every new task created will now have the "Not Started" status to begin with, instead of the "In-Progress" status. An all new "Start" button is now visible along every step of the Workflow.

This start button allows us to keep track of multiple active steps where flexible workflows are used. Clicking on "Start" or "Complete" within the first step of the Workflow will move the task from "Not Started" to "In-Progress".

This also means that users will now have a new "Not Started" status option within the filter panel as well to help them narrow down the search results.

Permissions enhancements and scalability (campaign, task)

Released: 02/22/2021

A simple and intuitive sharing experience allowing users to easily govern all of their users and associated permission levels.

This includes the functionality of task sharing + @ mention logic to share campaigns and tasks, campaign permission inheritance (in sub-campaigns), request access experience, and the ability to scale our permissions model across 1,000+ users/campaigns.

January

Board view (tasks)

Released: Cutting Edge, 1/29/2021

Leveraging agile practices to better visualize work-in-progress and maximize output, users will be able to view step and task by status - Not started, in progress and completed. With drag and drop functionality, in-line editing, customizable boards, and more, users will benefit from additional resources for better agile planning and execution of their marketing initiatives.

Change ownership of asset or folder (library)

Released: Cutting Edge, 1/28/2021

Enables users with edit access to an asset or folder to change the owner of that asset or folder.

Asset and folder sharing (library)

Released: Cutting Edge, 1/27/2021

• Users will be able to upload and share view or edit access to Library assets and folders directly with users, teams, and organizations.
• Campaign and Task permissions inheritance will be respected, meaning if users have edit access to a campaign, they can edit the Library assets that originate from that campaign.
• Folder permissions inheritance will be respected, meaning if users have edit access to a folder, they will have edit access to all assets and subfolders within that folder (waterfall permissions).
• Users can request the owner of a folder/asset to grant view/edit access similar to tasks or campaigns.
• Users can now access the share dropdown for assets and folders from the card/list ellipsis menu “...”, side pane preview of folder/asset, full-page folder preview, and full-page preview modal of the asset.

Default campaign (campaigns, tasks)

Released: 01/29/2021

When users create a new task and assign it to a campaign, the campaign dropdown will default to the last campaign with edit access the user visited.

Task assignees are no longer watchers (task)

Released: 01/22/2021

As a Task Watcher, users will no longer be automatically notified of any changes within the task, reducing the amount of irrelevant notifications users receive as Watchers. Should a user prefer to receive these notifications, users can navigate to their Settings page to change this and manage other notifications at any time.

Asset uploader ID (library)

Released: 01/08/2021

When an asset is uploaded to the Library, the user who uploaded the asset under the Usage accordion is visible. This provides more visibility and allows users to know who uploaded each asset.

External Work Management API (integrations)

Released: 01/04/2021

The Work Management API allows users to integrate with external work management systems such as Jira. Designate a step in a Workflow to be delegated to an external system so that status updates, documents, comments, and other attachments can be exchanged with the Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) user seamlessly. Due dates, assignees, brief data, and custom fields can all be synchronized in real-time between CMP and the external system, offering CMP users uninterrupted access to their counterparts.