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Release notes v1.57 – v1.64

Rogier Bestebroer - April 2, 2020 at 12:54 PM

In the releases of NextChapter v1.57 to v1.64 we have made some nice improvements to the NextChapter platform. The most important developments at a glance:

Order allocation

The order allocation module in NextChapter has been significantly expanded. The order allocation module is applied when a webshop uses multiple stock locations (warehouses, dropshipment partners, store branches, etc.). A webshop order is allocated based on business rules to one or more locations that deliver the order or part of the order. .

The order allocation module now has two types of allocation processes:

Direct allocation

Allocation based on pools

Direct allocation

With Direct allocation, the business rules fully determine which stock location(s) will deliver the order. The stock location that gets the order allocated must deliver the order. This form of order allocation is mainly used in webshops with dropshipment partners or webshops with multiple stores and warehouses (owned or hard franchised).

Allocation based on pools

With the allocation based on pools (groups), the order is presented in steps to one or more stock locations on the basis of business rules. For each step, the order will be offered to more and more (larger group of) stock locations, until a stock location 'picks up' the order. This form of order allocation is used by (soft) franchise formulas and collective (multivendor) eCommerce platforms.

The applicable business rules for both types of allocation processes have also been expanded.

Pick up email

This is a functionality for webshops that offer the delivery method 'pick up in store' (B2C) or 'pick up on location' (B2B). The collection location can now send a 'pick up email' to the customer from the NextChapter back office as soon as the order is ready.

This is very useful when the ordered product must first be sent to the relevant collection location from the supplier or inter-branch delivery.

Improved stock overview in back office

The stock overview has been improved for webshops with multiple stock locations. Now you can see at a glance which variants are in stock in which stock locations for a product. This has been implemented generically.

Images per channel

In the NextChapter back office you can now determine which product images are shown per sales channel and affiliate networks. Sales channels include: Webshops and Marketplaces. Affiliate networks include: Google Shopping and Facebook. This allows you to show different (or more or less) product images on Amazon than on the webshop. This is possible for all our customers from now on.

Improvement Smartphone menu

The display of categories and subcategories on smartphone has been greatly improved. Visitors see the same products when choosing a main category. In addition, you can now also navigate to subcategories directly at the top of the category page via the submenu slider or dropdown function. This improvement has been implemented generically for all NextChapter webshops and can be managed per category in the back office. With this update, the shopping experience has also been improved immediately for visitors who reach the shop on smartphone via a newsletter. They can immediately see the products in the right category from all mobile devices.

PIM innovations

A lot of technical and functional improvements have been made in the NextChapter PIM. This has made PIM even easier and faster and article data can be arranged very quickly. The goal is “always perfect article data”.

The performance of the search functionality is highly optimized, so that searching through a huge number of products is super fast. For the technical enthusiasts among us: when searching in 5 million product variants, PIM generates a search result within 200 milliseconds;

Improvements for data enrichment. An Excel export can be made from PIM of products with validation issues (invalid products). These products can then be enriched in Excel and imported into PIM;

File type CSV added to the export;

Various updates in the underlying core technologies of PIM.

Microservices

In the underlying technology of the NextChapter platform, we are continuously working on the migration to a Micro Services architecture. In this release, the payment logic has been migrated and now runs in the Micro Services architecture. Everything has been thoroughly tested in advance and processes run stable after release.

Thanks to the Micro Services architecture, we can continue to develop the NextChapter platform in a scalable way and implement improvements faster.

Other improvements

Improvements in payment status processing from the PSP. This keeps the orders open longer in case the customer pays in a different way. This ensures fewer errors and therefore more paid orders;

In the check-out it is possible not to show the costs when choosing payment and shipping methods. These costs are visible when adding up the total order amount at the bottom of the page.

Improvements in the search within the 'Back in stock' functionality in the NextChapter back office;

The product import process for the import of new products from an external system has been considerably accelerated. This also applies to the processing of many product data changes during, for example, promotional periods such as Black Friday, etc.

Shop reviews via Facebook reviews and Google Reviews.

Migration

Several NextChapter customers have migrated to Order Management 2.0.

bugs

All issues in all applications have been resolved and live, making the platform error-free.

WHAT'S NEXT

Do you have questions about the implementation of new functionalities on your webshop? Please contact us.

Rogier Bestebroer

CTO