Business One In Progress

Have You Tried the New and Improved Site Search?

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:42:00 GMT

Edward Chan

Go ahead! I dare you - it is blazing! As I wrote in my last post, after our software upgrade last Monday we had to rebuild the site indexes for all BC sites across all of our data centers. The indexing task was completed at 3pm this afternoon and the engineers have just 'flicked the switch' to enable the new site search engine for all BC sites. Both the site search (which searches forums, blog posts, web-app items, products etc) and product search (which searches products only) are powered by the same upgraded engine.

The Result:

Speed - the new site search is exponentially faster period. Where we used to measure site search result generation in seconds, we are now measuring in milliseconds in the latest performance tests. Even on large sites like businesscatalyst.com, search results are being returned almost instantaneously for commonly occurring keywords.
Search Terms Highlighted in Results: in the text blurb displayed below the result link the search will now display the text fragment that surrounds the search terms to give a better context for the result. The search terms themselves will be highlighted. In the past the system would display the first paragraph of the item description.

Some Partners have asked whether or not features like keyword stemming and wildcards are supported. We are looking to add these to site search in the future. In the meantime your clients' customers will still have a lightning fast and accurate search to help improve their website usability without you having to make any modifications at all.

Remove Unused Tags from Your Blogs

Finally I want to mention that we have now also enabled you to delete blog tags when you aren't using them anymore. You just need to click the little 'delete' icon next to each tag to remove the tag permanently from the system.

Just another bit of good news to go with a Friday afternoon. Happy Weekend everyone!

The Journey Ahead...BC's Roadmap For The Rest of 2010

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:28:00 GMT

Edward Chan

It's been just over half a year into BC's integration with Adobe and we're beginning to see some exciting synergy both from a business and an engineering perspective between the pre-existing BC team and the Adobe Group.

So far our top priority over the last 6 months have been to stabilize the existing business and prepare for the growth we need to be successful. To put things in perspective:

BC's new European data center went live this morning. What this means for you is all new sites created in Europe will now be hosted on the new data center for improved performance. Combined with the new North America data center this means we've had major wins in capacity expansion with 2 out of 3 planned new data centers now online. We will be following up with the Asia Pacific data center (based in Sydney, Australia) targeted to come online by the end of June.
In terms of product improvements we've replaced Sitewalk with In-Context Editing, delivered a new Extension for Dreamweaver and added FTP access to site-wide templates and module layouts.
Our engineering team has invested heavily on improving system stability and reliability 'under the hood' with more work to come in this area.

Now that we've achieved some integration milestones, improved system stability and ramped up our development team we will be shifting our priorities on 3 major development tracks over the remainder of 2010.

Features for Customer Satisfaction

In the next few releases we're going to deliver 5 major features driven by the most popular wishlist requests. These will include:

DNS Management Tools so you can create sub-domains for your site, redirect your www records to your non-www records, in general give you greater control over your sites DNS records (A, C, MX, TXT).
Customizable URLs for products, catalogs, web-app items and blog posts to improve SEO. URLs will be editable from the root folder level. We'll then extend this URL system to cover all other content modules.
Allowing Modules to be Rendered inside Content Holders so you can place lists of web-app items, catalogs, literature items, webforms and much more inside a repeatable content region that you can place on different parts of your sites.
Adding a Workflow Notification Editor To Your Partner Portal so you can customize the workflow notifications that are sent from your partner portal to your clients when they receive orders, webform submissions and other workflow triggers.
Integrating Custom CRM Fields with the Webform Builder - when you extend your customer database with custom fields these will be made available in the webform builder so that you can create forms to collect details directly into the extended CRM forms and allow your customers to login to a secure zone to update them again.

Data Center Migration

Now that all of our new Adobe data centers are on track to be online by end June the focus turns to migrating customers from the pre-existing BC data centers. Some of you may be thinking: "Why didn't they just copy the entire database?". By looking at this from a long-term perspective it's a better investment of resources to build the tools that will enable you to migrate your own sites from one data center to another at the click of a button.

This is because building site migration tools gives us the software architecture to also build site backup tools and following on from that we will develop the ability for partners to download sites as 'BC template zip files' and sell them to customers who can then load them onto their own sites. We'll be rolling these out over the rest of 2010 starting with a pilot program to migrate some sites in July as the quality assurance effort involved with site migration will be tremendous. I will be blogging more about the site migration program over the next couple of months.

Strategic Projects For the Long Term

To make sure we don't just build a faster horse, some of our development team will be devoted to projects that are contributing to further long-term integration with other Adobe products. Luckily for you these projects will have a tangible customer impact. For the remainder of the year they will be working on:

Multiple Module Layouts - we will be providing the ability for web designers to specify multiple module layouts for blogs, web-apps, catalogs, products and more.
APIs will be extended around the CMS capabilities of the system for example the ability to access Web Apps items via an API. Most modules will gain the ability to access a list (such as a list of announcements) or a single item. The aim is to extend our API to cover much more of the system and provide XML and JSON layers to give our partners the ability to integrate BC with a much wider range of 3rd party applications.

"Slow and Steady" wins the Race

Although we've got a number of new and exciting projects in the pipeline the underlying drive to improve system stability remains and any new features must pass a high quality bar before they can be released even in Beta. We will be taking a cautious approach to make sure service levels continue to improve hence progress will be slow and steady.

In spite of this we have been at Adobe for a little more than half a year now so we're working much more closely as a unit. Overall we feel confident about sticking to the plan and as we achieve the goals listed I will be happy to share more and more of the BC roadmap especially around the medium term blogs and e-commerce overhaul with our partner community.

3 Steps To Getting Started With InContext Editing

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:27:00 GMT

As previously announced, we've recently launched a beta version of our new InContext Editing feature for you and your clients to take for a test drive.

Over the past week, we've received some great feedback from Partners via the Community Forums and would like to address any questions you might have regarding this exciting new feature.

In this post, we'll run through three easy steps to getting started with InContext Editing, pointing you in the right direction with links to the relevant articles and resources.

1. Download the BC Extension

One of the great new features of InContext Editing is the ability to set editable regions for your clients. This allows you to lock down certain page elements while leaving other areas editable while in InContext Editing mode.

The best way to take advantage of this new feature is to use InContext Editings tight integration with Adobe Dreamweaver. To speed up the process, make sure you download the BC Extension for Dreamweaver which allows you to interface directly with BC sites via your Dreamweaver workspace.

While not mandatory for setting up InContext Editing, we recommend use of the BC Extension as it simplifies the setup of BC sites within Dreamweaver, saving you time and streamlining your workflows.

2. Controlling Editable Regions

In addition to using Dreamweaver to control your editable regions, you are also able to define them manually by coding them into the HTML of your pages.

If you're using another third-party HTML editor such as Coda or Expresso, or even a basic text editor like Notepad, this means you can still take advantage of InContext Editings editable regions using your tool of choice.

By default, your clients are able to edit the entire page (including the Site Wide Template) using InContext Editing - if you'd like to lock the editable regions down, it's important you refer to the following articles:

Default Editable Regions (if you have not yet defined editable regions)
Defining InContext Editing editable regions using Dreamweaver
Defining InContext Editing editable regions using any code editor

3. Using InContext Editing

InContext Editing allows your clients to edit their content "in context" rather than having a WYSIWYG editor pop-up over the top of the page. This makes simple page edits a much more user intuitive process, with the new content automatically taking on the previously defined styling.

To enter InContext Editing, simply navigate to Website > InContext Editing from the Admin Console.

To find out more, refer to the following article:

Using InContext Editing to edit site content from your browser

Once you've set up InContext Editing on your existing sites, this is a great article to refer your clients to.

So why not dive in and take InContext Editing for a spin? We'd love to hear your feedback in the comments section of this post and will keep you updated on the final release of this feature over the coming weeks.

InContext Editing, Support Central Knowledgebase and the BC Extension...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:27:00 GMT

Edward Chan

At 11:30am this morning (US Pacific Time), the BC Engineering team deployed their latest round of software upgrades to the system. This upgrade is a significant leap forward in terms of user experience for you and your clients with the inclusion of a brand new Knowledgebase inside Support Central and the exciting public beta release of InContext Editing. The upgrade has also allowed us to go live with a v1.0 release candidate of theBC Extension for Dreamweaver CS4.

InContext Editing enters Public Beta

One of the first projects that was kicked off with the merger of Adobe and BC was to integrate InContext Editing and make it available within BC to replace Sitewalk as the 'live view' editor that your clients use to edit their site content. A lot of effort has gone into this project and the results are now available for you and your clients to try by clicking on 'Website > InContext Editing' in your Admin Console.

InContext Editing is a huge improvement over Sitewalk, a few highlights that I'd like to point out include:

As a BC Partner you can now set editable regions using Dreamweaver to control which parts of their BC sites your clients have the ability to edit when they are using InContext Editing
Content editing is more intuitive - you edit 'InContext" on the page rather than having an editor pop-up as was the case with Sitewalk
The new InContext content editor is much more robust compared with the Sitewalk text editor

What's happening to Sitewalk?

InContext Editing will be in Beta for the next 12 weeks during which Sitewalk will continue to remain available. When the Beta period ends, Sitewalk will reach end-of-life and be removed from Business Catalyst. During the Beta period for InContext Editing we will continue to make small improvements and also take the opportunity publish extensive documentation on how to use it in the new Knowledgebase.

So what are you waiting for? Go on...demo InContext Editing to your clients. :)

Support Central Gets New Knowledgebase

If you login to your BC sites and click on Support Central in the top right corner you'll notice that it's been redesigned. That's because we've moved all the content from the Online Business Wiki into a Knowledgebase that now forms the center of Support Central. For all things BC this is the place to go for answers. The new Knowledgebase brings a bunch of benefits including:

Improved Navigation - with articles sorted by topic or by where they belong on the user interface it's much easier to browse what you're looking for
Improved Search - don't want to browse? The new search in the Knowledgebase completely knocks the socks off the Online Business Wiki search with a much more complete set of results for any term
Different Views for Partners and Clients - based on your login the Knowledgebase knows if you're a Partner or a Site owner. Site owners (your clients) will only see a subset of the articles to hide references to BC and the Partner Program. As with before, if you're a Premium partner you have the ability to control whether your clients will be able to see the Forums and submit Support requests inside Support Central by going to Settings page in your Partner Portal.
Rebranding Dilemma has been Solved - we had some Premium Partners who previously had rebranding concerns about directing their clients to the Online Business Wiki. The Knowledgebase makes all the content accessible from within the Admin Console without going to a separate domain so these concerns should be addressed now

As with Sitewalk, the Online Business Wiki will stick around for another 12 weeks while the Knowledgebase is in Beta as we iron out any small kinks. Additionally the BC Support team will be busy adding new articles to the Knowledgebase and editing current ones to make them easier to understand.

BC Extension for Dreamweaver v1.0

We're now releasing the official BC Extension v1.0 after undergoing several months of testing, firstly with our pre-release community and then with our partner community. A big "Thank You" goes out to those (especially the pre-release community) who provided valuable feedback on improving the BC Extension and helped our team find those obscure bugs. You can download the BC Extension here, for CS4 users who are new to BC or people who are new to the Extension there's also a detailed tutorial on how to use it to edit your BC sites.

What's Next?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I wanted to share some information around BC's engineering focus areas for the next 4-5 months, I will definitely be devoting a blog post to this topic next week and will also share information around the next release as well. Until then, adios!

Customer Relationship Management for everyone.

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:49:00 GMT

The acronym CRM has been, in recent years, bandied about as an essential tool for any business almost to the point where if you don't have CRM then your business may be heading for the deadpool. But what is CRM? Why is it so important? An how can you use it, starting today?

Firstly CRM or Customer Relationship Management is more than likely something you already do in the course of everyday business. You have a customer, you call them up "Hey, Bob just calling to catch up with you on that widget you were building? How's the project going?". Bob, your customer, is building a widget and told you about it at the recent network meeting you went to. So you decide to call him up to ask how it's coming on and while your on the phone tell him about your latest product or service.

This is a form of CRM, but, where is the intelligence about Bob? Where are his contact details stored? When was the last time you called and what did you speak about? If it's all in your head, on scraps of paper or stored on various separate data-sources like your phone, a spread sheet here and there and so on, then you may have trouble waiting for you. Why?

Let's just say you loose your phone where Bob's number was stored, you can't call him. Or you completely forget that you said you would call him next week after he was on holiday. Or the hard drive the spreadsheet was on corrupts and you didn't make a backup. Well then you just missed a business opportunity with Bob.

So whilst most companies may have a form of CRM it's methods and data storage practices may very well be a headache waiting to happen.

How can we improve this scenario?

Good CRM does not need to be expensive or time consuming it just has to be consistent. Let's just say you meet Bob at the network event and take his card, when you get back to the office you fire up your CRM service and for this illustration we are talking about a web based CRM solution.

You browse to your online application and add Bob's details, you also add a note about the widget he is building and set yourself a reminder to call him in two weeks after his holiday. Whilst your in your CRM system you tick a box that says Bob is a prospective customer. You also add information regarding the size of Bob's business and that he has two employee's. Plus you add him to your mailing list used for sending email marketing to small business owners.

How does this improve the scenario?

Now you have access to Bob's details wherever you are in the world through your browser. You have set yourself a reminder to call Bob on the right day and to ask him how his holiday was to break the ice. You have the information about the widget he was building in front of you without having to bluff your way through the conversation as you also spoke to some other people about their widgets and you may have got them mixed up.

Also the next time you send out your newsletter for small businesses you also send one to Bob, reinforcing your brand, and, you never know he might just be looking for the product or service you are offering.

As you do business or market to Bob and his company you continue to add information to your CRM system that other members of your team can use when you are unavailable or in different departments. When Bob becomes a customer you will be able to use the data that is contained in his profile to ensure that you market effectively to him, Bob becomes a happy customer because he feels that you take an interest in him and his company and this Customers Relationship has been successfully Managed.

There are many excellent ways to implement CRM from both online and offline services. We think that online is a good starting point as you have access to your data anywhere that there is an Internet connection, no software to install and the fact that the data is stored outside of single location so you've always got a backup.

Business One CRM

The Business One approach to CRM links a single database of customers and prospects to your ecommerce, marketing, secure login areas, comments and tech support service in fact your entire website. The benefits are obvious as your customers and prospects interact with you company and website you are able to gather more data about them and create even better leads and sale opportunities.

Instead of having to import and export data to various services you now have a single source to manage through any browser on any operating system anywhere in the world. Now that makes good business sense. With our total solution starting at just £10 per week on average, it's affordable too.

Click here to find out more about our CRM services.

Where are we going?

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:34:00 GMT

So the system is up and running and we are making good progress on the front end of the site. The excitement is building and we have already had a huge amount of interest in our new services. But why have we set this service up and where are we going with it?

Why?

Since the dawn of cyberspace companies large and small have set sail on the information super ocean in search of fame and fortune. We have gone from simple text based information to the mega-media-technofests of the present. However, the aim of most businesses is surely either gaining greater hold on their chosen market or selling product.

Until now a typical web site owner has possibly gone through various incarnations of their web presence and they may even have ecommerce of some flavour, but, they still feel that they could be getting more from there clicks and mortar holding in http world.

Business One's sole mission of getting more business opportunities through a single collective of all the tools needed to be a web based professional.

As we say "we don't build websites we build online business" and as rude as it may sound if you have a web presence and don't want to try your level best to make it worth your while then you might as switch it off.

Where?

So where are we going from here? Well over the next six months we will be working to ensure that the front end of this service provides the best possible overview to grab you the visitors imagination so that you can join an ever growing lis of successful online businesses.

Join us on the ride to online success...join the Business One community and sign up today.