Please note: We use Release Rings to systematically roll out new features to users in a way that minimises risk. This means that updates aren't rolled out to every user on the day they're shipped. Instead, they're gradually delivered to a small percentage of customers each day within specified Release Rings. Of course, if customers report issues with an update, we'll pause the rollout while we investigate. So, if you can't see the newest updates yet, don't worry - you'll receive them in the next few weeks.
❓ Enquiry Entity (Preview)
A new entity has been added to the CRM that allows basic details of an Enquiry (or sometimes referred to as a Lead) to be captured so it can be later qualified and processed. Once qualified, these records can then be converted into an Opportunity/Contact/Company or discarded. The initial Enquiry has fewer rules about what you can input. For example, it can contain duplicated or blank information in any field, so is perfect for quickly recording information, without worrying about deduping or other data validation activities.
This initial release is in Preview, so we know there's a lot more work to do and a lot more features to add, so watch this space! For example, in future releases, we'll be providing a bulk import facility and an Enquiry Form builder that will allow visitors to your website to submit a form through and automatically register their Enquiry in the CRM.
We'll also be running webinars on this new functionality, covering things like how to set it up, integrate it into your marketing and sales workflows, and offer some best practice tips for using these features to further grow your customer base and maximise lifetime value (LTV). Look out for these webinar announcements coming soon.
📧 Email Open & Click Tracking
Emails sent from the CRM now track recipient interactions at each step of the process - from being processed by our email servers, delivered to the recipient's mail server, and any open and click events that the recipient performs. Please note: open events can be blocked by the email client (especially on PCs and laptop email clients) unless the user specifically clicks the “Download images” banner on the email.
You can see all this information via the Tracking page on an email document window.
These events will only be available for emails sent after you receive this update (Version 91). Any emails sent before that date won't be tracked.
We'll be looking at how best to actively notify you of important opens and clicks in a future update.
🏷️ Bulk Update of Tags
You can now bulk update Tags from a list or Report. This only works on record types that already support Tags e.g. Companies, Contacts, Opportunities, Documents etc., but makes it easier to assign or remove Tags in bulk. This feature is available on relevant Reports from the further options menu (three dots in the top right-hand corner) - simply choose "Buk Update" and go from there!
🐛 Other Features & Fixes
The Unleashed suppliers import has been migrated to use GUIDs as the primary key. This means that any changes to supplier codes in Unleashed will be recorded and processed correctly. This update also allows us to build other supplier-based functionality in the future too.
A new Unleashed product-item supplier import has been added to the Unleashed data sync process. This means that CRM users can now see and report on which suppliers are related to and supply a given product, and vice-versa.
There's now a button in the title of a Report that will let you add it to your favourites while using the Report (rather than having to navigate back to the list of Reports).
When connected to Unleashed, you can now specify a tax code for a Quote to a Prospect. Typically for Customers, the tax code comes from the Unleashed account, but for Prospects there is no Unleashed account, so now you can choose the relevant tax code at the point of creating your Quote.
Added an “Open Record” button to the bottom of the slideover. In a Report or list, clicking the pencil icon opens a quick "slideover" summary view of the record instead of opening the record full screen. You can already expand from a slideover to the full screen via the "expand" icon at the top, but this button at the bottom now makes that feature more obvious for new or confused users.
A specific meta description field has been added to pages on the CMS. This will be output into pages via the (CMS_META_DESC) system tag. Note: you can still manage other header tags via the "header" field on a CMS page.
A meta description dynamic object has also been added. This dynamic content is output by the product item and product groups plugin so that product pages get a description meta tag that matches the product or list of products being output on the page. This dynamic content can be referenced using the CMS_DYNAMIC_METADESC dynamic tag.
A meta description field has been added to the product groups screen in the CRM. This will allow users to override the description metatag for a given product group. Where set, this will be used instead of the group description to populate the meta description dynamic tag.
Added a system option to automatically recover from some situations where data sync's with third party datasets could become "stuck". This previously needed support to resolve the issue, but should now automatically reset itself after 30 minutes of no sync activity.
Configuring domains to use DKIM is now done using a unique identifier to avoid conflicts with other SendGrid configurations on the same domain.
Fixed a bug that caused Problem and Opportunity status to sort by ID instead of the correct fields.
Fixed a bug that prevented several "achievements" from completing at the right time.
Fixed various CRM currency displays using the wrong value for the currency ISO code.
Fixed various null errors when data is being loaded or unloaded.
VAT by delivery address option is now hidden for Accounting systems that don't support it.
Fixed some inconsistencies with the count of current Tasks in some timezones.
The CMS/CRM order confirmation email will now add an automatic subject if the selected template has no subject.
Fixed a bug with some tooltips showing incorrectly when a filter is removed.
Fixed a crash that would happen if you attempted to perform Quote line bulk uplift from a Quote lines Report outside of a Quote detail context.
Fixed some scenarios that could lead to excessive data being returned when populating some drop-downs.
Fixed the Magic Matrix category configuration button being visible to non-Admins.
Fixed an issue where pressing the back button could bypass client-side visibility checks (although don't worry, the correct security was still correctly imposed by additional back-end checks!).
Fixed incorrect record types being offered when the parent selector was accessed via a slideover.
Fixed the “Use orders or invoiced revenue” setting being visible to systems that don't support it.
Fixed "Copy Quote" duplicating the document ref and customer order ref values.
Fixed a bug where web descriptions would not overwrite in some scenarios when they were configured to do so.
Fixed CRM inbox addresses failing to save text-only emails.
Fixed a bug with margin calculations on foreign currency Quotes.
Fixed a crash when the legacy data exporter (the one in the Admin Portal) was asked to export more than 32k characters in a single cell.
Fixed incorrect behaviour of the notepad Activity type drop-down on mobile devices.
Fixed direct links to Library files failing to encode spaces.
Fixed custom drop-down items not ordering alphabetically when grouping or filtering by them in a Report.
Fixed a bug where an obsolete tax code could be imported as the default for Unleashed.
Updated the visibility of the email subscription components so that the correct one is displayed in Reports based on whether you're connected to Mailchimp.
Rewritten all CMS article queries to improve their speed.
Updated the OData recycling behaviour to remove the lunchtime recycle. Recycling will now happen automatically, but only if/when certain memory limits are reached.
Updated the CMS product groups ajax queries to be cachable at CDN level. This significantly improves the performance and user experience in this area, but does need the site to be running on Microsoft FrontDoor.
Updated the CMS multi-threading execution mode to improve performance and avoid request queuing.