Articles - Page 108

The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

The Jaws Project has announced a new update to the incredibly easy to use Jaws CMS.
<img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/control-panel835x0.png" />
This update offers tons of new features such as a new forums gadget, a comments gadget for centralize manage comments and much more.  Here's a quick summary of some of the updates in this release:
<ul>
<li>Added Forums gadget</li>
<li>Added Comments gadget for centralize manage comments</li>
<li>Added Jaws_ORM</li>
<li>Added mootools framework as default javascript library</li>
<li>Added support dynamic ACLs</li>
<li>Added BBCode plugin</li>
<li>Added inline playing audio/videos by using BBCode plugin</li>
<li>Added HTTP errors handling to UrlMapper gadget</li>
<li>Added installing jaws with sample data</li>
<li>Added some new actions: online user, online statistics and latest registered users</li>
<li>Added CAPTCHA to login box for security reason</li>
<li>Added authentication type selection to front-end login box</li>
<li>Added profile, about and contacts actions to Users gadget</li>
<li>and much more.</li>
</ul>
For more details on this release, follow their home page link.

Jaws Project releases new updates to Jaws CMS

mike-johnston

While COVID-19 continues to impact markets globally, the CMS world has been on a binge of buying, partnering, and releasing new features.
In case you’ve been distracted over the last few weeks by a chaotic news cycle and a U.S. presidential election, here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening in the content management and digital experience world.
<h3>Hyland Completes Acquisition of Alfresco</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1200w" /></figure>
Recently, <a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> the enterprise content management (ECM) provider <a href="/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">announced</a> that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> – an open-source content services platform.
Last week, Hyland <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-alfresco/">completed</a> the transaction, bringing the entire Alfresco business, including all technology and products, under the Hyland umbrella.
“At Hyland, the Alfresco platform will continue to grow and to serve customers’ evolving business needs,” said Bill Priemer, Hyland’s President and Chief Executive Office. “Alfresco customers can confidently continue to use and expand their Alfresco solutions, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud.”
Future Alfresco versions will enable customers to seamlessly leverage other areas of the Hyland portfolio. These include the Hyland Experience Platform (HxP) — the recently launched, next-generation, cloud-based platform — and newly developed HxP components, such as <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/HxC">Hyland Experience Capture</a>.
<h3>Episerver Completes Acquisition of Optimizely</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/episerver-optimizely.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1280w" /></figure>
In a big move to evolve their personalization strategy, <a href="https://www.episerver.com/">Episerver</a>, the customer-centric digital experience platform, recently <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">announced</a> its plans to buy <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> – a leading A/B and multivariate testing platform. A few weeks ago, Episerver <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-completes-acquisition-of-optimizely">completed</a> the acquisition.
“With its acquisition of Optimizely, as with its acquisitions of Idio and Insite in 2019, Episerver substantially increases the value proposition that the company offers to enterprise brands,” said Jacob Groshek, research manager, Digital Experience Management, at IDC. “The Optimizely acquisition adds AI-based experimentation and optimization to the Episerver portfolio. The purchase of Optimizely not only augments Episerver's capacity to automatically deliver personalized content as a central component of users' digital experiences, it also adds another layer of behavioral intelligence for organizations.”
Following the close, Episerver now serves approximately 9,000 customers and more than 900 partners globally in segments including retail, manufacturing &amp; distribution, financial services, insurance, healthcare, media, and technology, among others.
As part of Episerver, the Optimizely progressive delivery and experimentation platform will continue to support customers as a standalone solution, but will also be available as part of Episerver’s offerings immediately.
<h3>Acquia Announces Major Updates to Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP)</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1920w" /></figure>
After <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">launching</a> its new Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP) this July, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a> has accelerated their innovation by leaps and bounds. In fact, they recently <a href="https://www.acquia.com/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-announces-major-updates-open-digital-experience-platform">announced</a> major upgrades to their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
So, what are these major upgrades? For starters, on the Drupal Cloud side, they <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9">transitioned from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9</a>. For developers, these enhancements focus on decreasing the time to build, design, and run sites and applications.
Following the successful launch of Drupal 9 in June, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9/accelerate-your-migration">Acquia Migration Accelerator</a> tool significantly reduces the effort tied to a transition from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. Currently in beta, the tool reduces time to value for Drupal 9 by providing a user-friendly interface to streamline analysis and planning, DevOps, data imports, and content auditing for migrations.
Once organizations are migrated, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> makes it faster than ever to build Drupal sites and applications, with one-click access to a cloud-hosted development and testing environment. Acquia Cloud IDE integrates with existing Acquia command line and automated build tools for Drupal, making it faster and easier for developers to build and test their code – even in remote or hybrid work setups.
On the Marketing Cloud side, the major updates include new real-time 360-degree profiles, identity resolution, and unified segment capabilities within the Acquia Customer Data Platform (CDP). These capabilities aggregate data from various sources, eliminate redundancy, and unify data into a single source of the truth for real-time customer segmentation.
Finally, Acquia also added a COVID-19 dashboard that helps marketers understand their customers’ shifts from offline to online channels, as well as changes in channel preferences throughout the pandemic. The dashboard also helps marketers identify changes in product preferences, as well as opportunities for growth in their marketing campaigns.
<h3>Fabric Launches Headless Commerce Platform with $9.5 Million in Seed Funding</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/fabric-logo.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 855w" /></figure>
<a href="https://fabric.inc/">Fabric</a>, a headless commerce platform, launched its cloud-native experience and commerce product suite and <a href="https://resources.fabric.inc/blog/seed">announced</a> $9.5 million in seed funding led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and Expa. In addition, e-commerce executive Faisal Masud, who led multi-billion-dollar commerce businesses at Amazon, eBay, Groupon and Staples, has joined the company as CEO.
Brands struggle to compete with Amazon’s continued market dominance in the e-commerce and digital retail space. While big retailers can afford to invest heavily in their own proprietary systems, widening their advantage in data, speed, pricing and convenience, many D2C and B2B brands are challenged by the cost and complexity of modernizing their outdated commerce platforms. COVID-19 has further raised the stakes: during the pandemic, e-commerce sales have grown as much as 55% year-over-year.
“Unlike Amazon, which wins on selection, price and availability, emerging and growing D2C and B2B companies need to win on brand and experience,” said Faisal Masud, CEO at Fabric.
Fabric’s headless commerce platform enables marketers and merchants to deliver world-class commerce experiences without the engineering burden. Its modular API-first platform enables brands to utilize tools that address their specific needs, rather than re-platforming. Fabric gives brands sophisticated capabilities with its Experience Platform Manager (XPM), Product Information Manager (PIM), pricing and offers and Order Management (OMS).
The Fabric platform offers a suite of commerce APIs that allow brands to orchestrate their offerings across all channels, enabling them to support the entire lifecycle of each customer. In addition, Fabric runs on a completely serverless infrastructure to effectively scale during high-traffic retail peaks.
<h3>Cloudinary and Contentful Partner to Help Brands Create “Visual-First” Experiences More Efficiently</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1340w" /></figure>
<a href="https://cloudinary.com/">Cloudinary</a>, the media experience platform, announced a partnership with <a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a headless content management system (CMS). The new partnership offers Contentful users seamless access to Cloudinary’s award-winning media experience solutions, including its headless digital asset management (DAM) within Contentful’s CMS – allowing Contentful users to more easily upload, optimize and deliver engaging visual-first experiences at scale.
"In today's visual economy, fast and flawless rich media experiences are no longer a nice to have, they are critical components to any company’s success,” said Scott Doughman, vice president of Business Development at Cloudinary. “Equally critical is the ability to deliver the right, high-performant content as efficiently as possible to eliminate the challenges that often keep experiences from reaching their true engagement potential. The Contentful-Cloudinary integration eliminates these challenges and we’re pleased to be bringing our media management expertise to the Contentful ecosystem."
With the API-first approach of Cloudinary and Contentful, you can now build a seamlessly-integrated, future-proof stack with your preferred development frameworks and platforms.
<h3>Microsoft Announces Clarity, a Free Visitor Behavior Analytics Platform</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 626w" /></figure>
The elder statesman of the digital realm, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/">Microsoft</a> continues to shock and awe the experience and development fiefdoms with bold moves – including their acquisitions of both <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>.
Now, Microsoft has announced a resource that will have an impact on digital experience in the usability, governance, and analytics categories. With <a href="https://clarity.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Clarity</a>, website and content owners will now have access to a GDPR compliant, free-to-use analytics tool to help improve their website experiences by better understanding their visitors' behaviors.
Microsoft Clarity has three main features: heatmaps, session playbacks, and an insights dashboard. Because of their unique delivery, Clarity’s tools won’t negatively impact a website's latency, and can handle variable traffic without incurring additional costs.
Clarity’s heatmaps come in two forms: clickmaps and scrollmaps. The combination will allow users to qualify behavior and trends, and make it easy to provide data-driven justifications for design decisions. The session playbacks allow site managers to record page visits and track where visitors clicked and scrolled, and the insights dashboard provides an overall understanding of the traffic to your site.
<h3>Contentsquare Acquires Dareboost And Launches Find &amp; Fix Product to Solve Revenue-Killing Errors</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contentsquare-dareboost.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1755w" /></figure>
<a href="https://contentsquare.com/">Contentsquare</a>, the Digital Experience Analytics (DXP Analytics) company, <a href="https://contentsquare.com/blog/contentsquare-acquires-dareboost-and-launches-find-fix-product-to-solve-revenue-killing-errors/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.dareboost.com/en">Dareboost</a>, an online tool to test, analyze and monitor websites. Dareboost has been a Find &amp; Fix product for Contentsquare. The integration breaks silos between marketing and IT teams, as well as the rest of a business.
The core capabilities of the new Contentsquare Find &amp; Fix product include web performance monitoring and scoring, error reporting and impact quantification, advanced retroactive search, advanced APM integrations, and comparison and benchmarking capabilities.
<h3>Mediafly Acquires Presentify to Transform Marketing and Sales Content</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sap_mediafly_cloud_diagram.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1280w" /></figure>
<a href="https://www.mediafly.com/">Mediafly</a> – a provider of sales enablement technology, content management, and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences – <a href="https://www.mediafly.com/mediafly-acquires-presentify/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.presentify.co.uk/">Presentify</a>, a global visual communication solution.
By adding Presentify’s capabilities, Mediafly users can now build “selling stories” using sophisticated visual communication capabilities all through the Mediafly app – which natively supports the most advanced content formats, animations and modularized assets for elevated sales storytelling.
“More companies are recognizing the need for digital sales transformation, and the importance of using a modern sales enablement platform. But all too often they don’t want to take their antiquated, boring sales content and put it into a sophisticated sales app for fear of garbage in, garbage out,” said Carson Conant, CEO and founder of Mediafly. “With Presentify, Mediafly now tears down the barrier of entry for these companies, allowing them to quickly refresh their sales stories with interactive, animated content — and learn the ‘Presentification’ techniques to create and maintain sales collateral that is a league above their competition.”
And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for another installment next month.

CMS Monthly Recap: Acquia Gets Feature Boosts, Cloudinary and Contentful Partner, Big Acquisition Updates and More

paris-tuzun

After being founded in 2007, SocialGO has grown from strength to strength, becoming one of the best social networking CMS available today, supporting well over 400,000 websites.
SocialGo actually offers two separate social platform builders. SocialGo Classic is the option which allows you to use pre-set configurations to quickly create a social network. Alternatively, SocialGo Pro offers a wider range of features, directed at more experienced users who are aiming to create a fully customizable, feature rich social website.
Both options allow you to get your website and content online within minutes, in a way which is professional and socially optimized. You can be completely hands-on, by editing themes and creating custom pages, or you can opt for a more hands-off option, allowing the SocialGO experts to take on the task of building your social website for you.
<h2>Extensive Social Features</h2>
Since SocialGO is all about social networking, it's vital that it gives our users the ability to utilize their handles from the biggest social media websites around, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Your users will be able to sign up with your website quickly and easily via Facebook, embed videos and images from YouTube and Flickr, and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3.png" alt="SocialGo" />
SocialGO Pro users will also be able to offer their members access to a Twitter sign up option alongside the standard Facebook feature, advancing an already solid social integration feature.
Whether you are looking to build a social network from scratch, or offer a new residence for an existing one, having these integrated social features is vital for any online community. This is down to the fact that, instead of competing with the giants of social media, SocialGO enables you to use them for the benefit of your members.
<h2>Leave it to the Pros</h2>
If you're weary of setting up your social network, SocialGO offers a service to help give you the running start you need.
From as little as $250, SocialGO offer three comprehensive design and build packages. The packages ensure that your website is built by SocialGo's professionals, who will take your brand and idea, and put them into action for you. Once they're done, you will have a social network which is aesthetically pleasing, and tailored to your own taste.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-4700x0.png" alt="SocialGo" />
Services offered within the packages include bespoke theme designs, custom pages, headers and even CSS coding. What's more is, SocialGO also offer search engine optimization services, logos and a 3 year redesign.
<h2>Everything You Need to Build a Thriving Community</h2>
As well as service to design and build your SocialGO website as previously mentioned, you can also rest assured that you won't be left without the right tools once you begin recruiting members, marketing, expanding and even monetizing your online community.
SocialGO gives you everything you need to build a successful social network, and then some. For example, you can monetize your online community via membership fees, which can be paid via PayPal and ClickandBuy.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2.png" alt="SocialGo" />
Additionally, you and your members can enjoy the functions of instant messaging, video chat, blogs, forums, and much more. You also don't need to worry about the size of your community, as SocialGO allows you to have an unlimited number of members.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1700x0.png" alt="SocialGo" /> 
Overall, SocialGO offers a pretty comprehensive social network building solution, dividing their services into both the Classic and Pro platforms. Both platforms have their advantages, with one being suited to a quick, streamlined launch, whilst the other enables you to take a more detailed and executive approach to building your social network or online community.
Whichever of the two platforms you opt for, you can take comfort in the fact that SocialGO has a solid history and a thriving user base, both of which prove the effectiveness of their community building products.
Sound good? Find out more about SocialGO, or check out their 14-day free trial.

SocialGO: Online Community Building Made Easy

Percussion Software <a href="/percussion-launches-cm1-version-2-with-social-engagement-blogging-and-more/">announced</a> the release of version 2 of their popular Percussion CM1 WCM today and I thought I'd share my Percussion CMS Review, having recently had an opportunity to test it out.
One of the first things I noticed, having never had an opportunity to explore CM1 before, was the slick look and feel that their interface offers. CM1 is beautifully laid out with an attractive dashboard that features a number of modules that can be added with drag and drop functionality. This allows the user to quickly build a high level overview of their site(s) complete with analytics and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nplogo_crtpy2.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Not only does it look good, it's snappy and responsive as well. Almost everything is drag and drop enabled and adding and modifying content, navigation and widgets is incredibly easy (and fun) to do.
There are a number of highly useful widgets that can be added to your dashboards. Once specific one I am fond of is the SEO audit module. As you can see in the screenshot below, it gives you a quick list of issues that should be corrected to attain maximum SEO value from your content.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/percussion-seo-audit-module-450x159.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Another great dashboard widget is the “What's Working” widget. This one allows you to set targets and goals for your various content (ie: number of visits, etc) and keep an eye on how well your content is performing with regards to those metrics. This is great for a quick high level overview of how well content from various editors is performing, for example.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dudalogo-sq_100x100_qk4prk.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Ok, so we've established that the dashboard is slick and offers a number of great options. What about the rest of the system? Well, let's say you are looking to add a new site. First off, you are prompted to select a template with an easy to use interface (shown below).
To modify or select a template for your page, you simply scroll through a list of available options and choose one:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/selecting-a-page-template-450x298.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
These templates can, of course, be modified at a later date or the code edited as well if you choose to add your own capabilities. Once you've got the template selected, there is a wide array of widgets available that you can add to your pages to allow extended functionality. Adding widgets and modifying the layout is as simple as drag and drop designing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-hosting_koyxad.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
To modify the widgets once you've added them, simply double click to activate the edit window and you're off.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-hosting-1_jlzshd.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Looking to change the site's navigation?  It's just as easy. Take a look at how simple it is to modify. You select your site:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/percussion-nav-1-450x334_ilgr1t.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Then you drag and drop your pages wherever you wish them to appear within the navigation tree:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/percussion-nav2-450x279.png" alt="Percussion CMS Review" />
Simply using drag and drop, the site will rearrange the menus automatically and ensure that all links work as they should.
Percussion's system is without a doubt, one of the most attractive interfaces I have seen with a slick combination of speed, simplicity and beauty that makes it a pleasure to work with.
The system comes with plenty of other functionality such as unlimited content revisions (versioning), excellent media management and multi-site support.
So where does it falter?
Honestly, I've yet to find anything about the system that I didn't like. For the price point, Percussion is an excellent system.
The only caution I would throw out is to ensure that you understand the market that it is targeted towards. This is a WCM, and as such, it's designed to allow you to put your organization online. There is a distinct difference between a WCM and a CMS and it's important to understand what that difference is before you make your selection.  I've put together an article to assist: <a href="/cms-or-wcm-which-is-which/">CMS or WCM – Which is Which?</a>
You can learn more about Percussion from their website: <a href="http://www.percussion.com">http://www.percussion.com</a>

Percussion CMS Review

Every business owner must eventually overcome the hideous monster that is database management, and it is always better to do it sooner rather than later.
Many entrepreneurs enjoy the challenges that accompany the growth of their commercial enterprise, but few relish the prospect of maintaining a digital structure to hold all of their essential information.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/macbook-606763_1280_1550x0-is.jpg" /> Fortunately, this is not a struggle that must be faced alone. Advanced customer relationship management (CRM) software, like <a href="http://agilecrm.com/" target="_blank">Agile CRM</a>, includes customized tools and a simple interface to allow users to store, access and modify databases.
Incorporating database management with other marketing and sales utilities further increases the functional value of these multifaceted software solutions.
<h2>Common Uses of Databases for SMBs</h2>
Companies once relied on a skyscraper of filing cabinets and a thick address book packed with handwritten notes to organize and access all of their important data. All of these details are now stored on computers, which means that designing and implementing an information management structure presents a fresh set of challenges compared to older systems.
Modern businesses use databases to organize and store all kinds of important information, including:
Customer Contacts: Names, addresses and phone numbers are just the beginning. The tracking and analytic capabilities of CRM software provides a personal perspective on each individual customer. Harnessing the power of this data requires a high level of organization, as well as the ability to access and edit entries as needed.
Company Calendar: Keeping track of appointments, meetings and promotional events is a skill many entrepreneurs learn early on in their professional development. However, even the most meticulous planners find it difficult to stay on top of everything as the company grows and takes on new employees, marketing initiatives and clients. Dedicating this information to an accessible database ensures the entire staff is up to date and prepared for the days ahead.
Project Plans: Even the grandest objectives can be divided into bite-sized pieces to create an actionable path to the final goal. Access to a shared database allows team members to communicate and collaborate to increase overall productivity. Organizing digital information this way ensures that everyone is on the same page as the project moves forward.
<h2>5 Reasons to Manage Data Through Small Business CRM Software </h2>
1. Develop Complete Customer Profiles
It’s not enough to make generalized statements or assumptions about consumers when integrated CRM software puts the power of personalized customer profiles at your fingertips.
Each entry can be assigned a timeline that includes prior interactions a client had with a your brand. This allows for tailored marketing tactics targeting each individual’s interests and habits. Profiles can also be sorted with tags to make it easier to manage and sort database entries.
2. Streamlined Drag-and-Drop Interface for Easy Task Management
Coordination is the key to any collaborative effort. CRM software that includes project management tools is a huge asset for any business, particularly those that are experiencing growth.
A simple interface that provides an overview of all scheduled tasks is a convenient way to manage a complex project. Drag-and-drop capabilities allows team members to update their progress regularly and gives management the ability to modify the existing plan in seconds.
3. Integrated Channels of Communication
Gathering all the necessary information from various channels and files is one of the most laborious databasement management tasks. Small business CRM software bypasses this time sink by integrating all the channels of customer communication into a single platform, so data is saved and stored as it is created.
This includes everything from marketing emails to customer service calls, as well as social media posts, text messages and submitted forms.
4. Access Information from any Device
Managing databases through a single system also makes them more accessible to the entire team, no matter what device they are using.
Cloud storage allows credentialed users to get at the information they need when they need it, so they don’t have to struggle with technical difficulties instead of making a sale. CRM software solutions encourage productivity by streamlining the entire information access procedure.
5. Update and Automate Database Processes
Integrated CRM software reduces maintenance requirements and limits the need for specific technical expertise among staff members. For example, an “unsubscribe” option can be included in all marketing emails to customers that connects directly to the contact database.
This ensures that the customer’s request is processed quickly without any direct intervention from staff.
<h2>Take Database Management to the Next Level with CRM Software</h2>
Successful companies create a fast-paced and efficient environment that empowers staff members with swift and reliable access to information. Simple database interface tools are among the many reasons why more businesses are turning to CRM software solutions every year.
As a leader in the customer relationship management industry, <a href="http://agilecrm.com/" target="_blank">Agile CRM</a> offers users a variety of customizable features that includes a complete set of database management tools.
It is a highly compatible software solution that works with other digital tools, like Dedupely, to maximize the value of the user’s database.
* * *
This post is sponsored by Agile CRM. Find out more at <a href="http://agilecrm.com/" target="_blank">AgileCRM.com</a>.

How to Manage Bulk Databases With a Simple CRM Tool

Zenario is a multilingual, web-based content management system that can be used to create (very) simple or complex sites depending on your needs.
This is an open source website builder/CMS with no price tag attached, but it’s not really designed with the basic or casual user in mind. If you want to use Zenario you’ll need to install it in the back-end of your site.
Read on for my Zenario review.
<h2>Getting Started</h2>
To begin, you’ll need to <a href="https://zenar.io/download-zenario">download</a> Zenario as a ZIP file and install it in your website’s hosting package.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/download_screen573x0-is.png" />
Less advanced users will need to have <a href="http://www.softaculous.com/softaculous/apps/cms/Zenario">Softalicious</a>, which is a free backend installer tool that comes with a lot of hosting packages as standard.
Once you have it installed (don’t forget to check their <a href="https://zenar.io/system-requirements">hosting requirements</a>), you can get started with your site.
<h2>The Site Editor</h2>
The interface is very, very basic – but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/edit_screen620x0-is.png" />
The Zenario interface allows you total control over the elements you see – pixel width, colours, CSS elements, etc. If you’re in any way technical with this kind of web coding, you can make a perfectly passable website pretty quickly. It probably won’t be winning any design awards but I don’t think this CMS is aimed at that market. It’s really more suitable for a consumer portal or company intranet.
The interface does have a very basic WYSIWYG editor but it’s pretty clunky and counterintuitive. Moving a box from one point to the other is a little confusing, to say the least.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/complex_wysiwg643x0-is.png" />
This is a website builder with a very ‘old school’ feel. Remember, this website builder is free and open source – so anyone expecting top of the line drag-and-drop style interaction is going to be disappointed.
Everything, down to the way you add pages or a menu entry, is text based. It isn’t an easy or intuitive process so it’s definitely one for the advanced, experienced back-end user only.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/complex_menu_system973x0-is.png" />
<h2>Design</h2>
This is a CMS that gives the advanced user 100% control of their website and the no-frills design reflects this functionality. You can control your cookies, your CAPTCHA test forms, your contact sheets, your branding, your IP blacklist, your data, and your sitemaps.
You won’t find a range of fancy templates here but you still use Zenario to create a highly functional site.
It’s possible to fully customize this CMS with your own branding and completely white label the entire build.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/edit_branding.png" />
It does have two basic templates – Snowline and Deepdive – but they’re very basic and only really offer a difference in template layout. It also has some preset arrangements that you can customize and these are all pretty useful without being outstandingly contemporary.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/templates_1716x0-is.png" />
<h2>Features</h2>
The app itself has very few features that will be of interest to your average website builder. However, it does have some powerful features that would be extremely useful in the creation of a consumer portal or corporate intranet.
It has a powerful language pack that has dozens of different languages to choose from, and you can also set up automated newsletters, pre formatted emails, contact forms and user accounts
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/language658x0-is.png" />
Users can also add raw HTML and script to the site homepage, so externals apps or widgets can be added as/if required.
<h2>Overall</h2>
This is not a CMS for everyone. Zenario is definitely a decent option for intranets, moodle programs in universities, or as a platform to handle customer complaints or multiple users; but it is in no way suited to anyone other than trained back-end developers. If you aren’t versed in this, you’ll barely be able to get the site installed (you don’t want to know how many attempts it took me).
Zenario isn’t the platform for a regular consumer who wants a site for their business. But for the experienced back-end developer, who wants something that is eminently customizable and completely controllable, then this is probably the perfect CMS.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Free and opensource
</li>
<li>
Completely customizable
</li>
<li>
Allows you complete control over your source code and files
</li>
<li>
Has a great multilingual feature
</li>
<li>
Can be completely white labelled
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cons:</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Only available as a download. No online hosting
</li>
<li>
Extremely complex for all but the most advanced users
</li>
<li>
Limited design capacity
</li>
<li>
Poor WYSIWYG editor and extremely technical front-end
</li>
</ul>

Zenario Review

grainne-logue

CMS Summit 26

Find out at Open Source CMS 26, October 20-21 in Utrecht, Netherlands

What's ahead for Open Source CMS?

#ffffff

CushyCMS is a relatively new approach to content management that allows you to take any website and add editing functionality and management to it using a very simple and easy to use interface. Today we're going to examine this new system in this CushyCMS Review and give you an overall view of how it works as well as rate it.
In order to use Cushy, you do not install anything nor do you require another web host. You can use Cushy to manage your existing sites. To do so, simply add your site into Cushy and you've now got a usable interface for easy site management.
The way it works is simple, you visit the website <a href="http://cushycms.com/">CushyCMS.com</a>:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy1.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
One there, you login with your account and are presented with the Cushy Control Panel page:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy2.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
In this case, you can see I have a website added to it already, however, if you wanted to do add a new site, you could simply do so by selecting the add site button which will present you with the following page:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy3.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
Once here, you fill in the details of you existing site and Cushy will import them into it's control panel which then allows you to edit them. Once you've told Cushy where the site is and how to access it, you then add pages to Cushy like so:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy4.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
We then have to tell Cushy what parts of your pages you would like to have editable. You do this by following these intructions:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy9.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
Once you do this, you will be shown the pages detected by Cushy and be allowed to select which ones you would like to manage from the Cushy interface:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy51.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
Simply click on the page you'd like to add, and add a Page Name:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy61.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
Congratulations, you have assigned a page. Now all you need to do is click on the control panel button to get back to the main page and you'll see the page you just added:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy71.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
Now simply click on it's name and you will be dropped into the Wysiwyg editor and you can now start editing your site:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cushy8.jpg" alt="CushyCMS Review" />
That pretty much covers it. You can read more about the advanced features at the <a href="http://cushycms.com/">CushyCMS website</a> and there is also a great video on their front page that explains in more detail.
Items that could be improved upon are the detection of editable elements, if the team at Cushy could figure out a way to auto detect editable areas without the end user having to modify their html and define it, they would have an exceptional product. As it stands now, however, it's still a very very nice interface and a very good option for those who have moderate html experience and just need a simple easy to use interface.
Try out <a href="http://cushycms.com/">CushyCMS</a> on your site, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Overall, although this is very difficult to rate, I would say that Cushy gets:
<h2>8/10</h2>

CushyCMS Review - A New approach to Content Management?

Online shopping has not only become quite an ordinary thing nowadays but almost replaced a tiresome procedure of visiting real shops for a lot of people worldwide. That’s why it’s not surprising that the number of online stores is increasing rapidly day by day. Being an owner of the online store, you’ve definitely realized that the quality and variability of the products you offer to your customers is just a half of success in your business. Your main trump card that makes you competitive today is a well-developed eStore website that provides its customers with good user experience due to its smooth performance and perfect functionality.
MotoCMS eCommerce templates are the very solution you can take advantage of to occupy a reputable place online. &lt;a href=”https://www.cmscritic.com/a-look-at-motocms-as-an-ecommerce-solution/”&gt;Since their launch&lt;/a&gt; more than a year ago, the functionality for creating an eStore with MotoCMS has been significantly improved. 
The recent example is the update 1.2.9 that brought shipping functionality, lazy loading and a bunch of other improvements. Let’s focus on the refined MotoCMS eCommerce functionality in more details to show you all the advantages it provides.
<h2>Attractive Collection of eStore Templates</h2>
MotoCMS offers you a rich collection of professionally designed &lt;a href=”https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-ecommerce-templates/”&gt;responsive eCommerce templates&lt;/a&gt; that fit various business niches and can become a perfect solution for any online store. Minimalistic design gives a clean and airy look to an online store pages and allows showcasing products of any kind in the best light thanks to different types of galleries.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1-1.jpg" />
The user-friendly admin panel of each template includes a handy drag-and-drop editor to create new layout sections and content elements right away. The &lt;a href=”https://www.motocms.com/“&gt;website builder&lt;/a&gt; from MotoCMS empowers you to manage a wide range of widgets and adjust their settings directly in a web browser.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2.jpg" />
<h2>MotoCMS eCommerce Functionality</h2>
The Store section within the admin panel from MotoCMS provides you with various tools for creating a fully-featured online shop. 
<h2>Dashboard</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4-1.jpg" />
On the Dashboard, you can find the detailed statistics on your customers and their orders including lifetime sales, products, daily orders and customers, lastest customers, total order price, order date information, and order status.
<h2>Orders</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/5.jpg" />
The Orders tab gives you complete information about all orders of your eStore customers. Here an online shop administrator is able to:
<ul>
<li>
add new orders for customers manually;
</li>
<li>
check customers billing and shipping details;
</li>
<li>
apply discounts with promo codes;
</li>
<li>
choose a payment method (Manual Payment, PayPal, 2Checkout, PostFinance, iDeal, Skrill, PayOne);
</li>
<li>leave a comment for the current order either visible to the client or seen only by your staff.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Products</h2>
The Products tab enables you to sort your products in the way convenient both to you and your customers, specify custom properties and values of your goods and set up various discounts for sales and holiday promos.
Catalog
This section contains the full list of your online store products and includes all the necessary information about each of them: thumbnail, name, SKU, UPC, price, visibility, and quantity. You can quickly find the product you need using a search field. Thanks to the update 1.2.9 that we mentioned before, you can delete existing products in a catalog in one click with the checkbox near each list element. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/6.jpg" />
You are able to create new items, configure their main settings, add short descriptions, images, set weight, length, width and depth for shipping purposes, hide or show them using the visibility feature. You can also set a specific amount for a product, a discount price, a special price for a certain date range, a discount price for bulk purchases, and define your product tax class.
Furthermore, the Categories tab inside Catalog helps you to sort and organize your products in the proper way. You can also mark them with specific labels to inform your customers about the current availability of the definite items.
Brands and Categories
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/7_1.jpg" />
These two sections are aimed at categorizing your products so that the customers can easily find the very product they need. You can sort out your products by brands creating and editing your brand title, URL, brand image, and description. You are also able to group your products according to various categories and add these categories to your navigation menu. Furthermore, SEO settings such as Meta Keywords and Meta Description will help you to improve the position of your products in search results.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/7.jpg" />
Discounts
This section allows you to set discounts of two types (by percentage or by fixed price) for your goods to make your clients happy thanks to sales and holiday promos. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/8.jpg" />
Properties
Set up additional custom properties and values for your products such as composition, size, color, and others to give a more detailed description of the goods you offer. The number of values you are able to add is unlimited.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/9.jpg" />
<h2>Customers</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/10.jpg" />
The Customers section contains a list of all your customers, including their billing information and allows you to manage your clients' accounts. Here you can add profiles of new customers manually, find out a customer's status (active or inactive), track orders etc.
<h2>Templates</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/templates.jpg" />
To redesign your online store pages, take advantage of the Templates tab. Once you pick a necessary page, click on the layout to start the editing process. The properties for each page is also available on the left panel of the admin panel.
<h2>Special Widgets for eStore</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/widgets990x0-is.jpg" />
Alongside with the traditional MotoCMS widgets, MotoCMS eCommerce templates contain a set of special widgets that enable you to fully customize the look of your online store according to your own needs and requirements. 
<ul>
<li>
Cart and Profile Widget. Gives you an opportunity of inserting a shopping cart button within the necessary section (Header, Content or Footer) that will take your customers right to their cart. 
</li>
<li>
Search Widget. Enables your customers to search for necessary products on the Store page.
</li>
<li>
Breadcrumbs Widget. Allows you to add a breadcrumb navigation menu to the pages to redirect your customers right to the section they need.
</li>
<li>
Product List Widget. Helps you to create a good-looking and functional product gallery for your customers. It contains the list of all products that is separated into categories based on type, size, shape, etc. with their thumbnail images. You can set up the number of the products to be shown on the page (from 1 to 100) or in one row (from 1 to 4) and provide your customers with an enlarged image of the product. 
</li>
<li>
Product Categories Widget. Allows you to customize the appearance of your products categories. 
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Settings</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/general.jpg" />
In the Settings section, you can customize currency for your products price, manage taxes, payments systems, email options, your online store design and much more. Let's take a look of a recently featured Shipping tab.
Shipping
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipping.jpg" />
The shipping calculation feature helps you set a product shipping cost. It allows you to choose a measurement system, taking into consideration the region of your activity and set a product shipping cost according to actual and volumetric weight with Shipping rates. As an eStore manager, you are able to add different shipping methods to make the shipping process more convenient to its customers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipping_method.jpg" />
Another feature related to shipping of goods is choosing a calculation method for a particular product. To do this, you should go to the settings of a commodity you want to edit. There are two values you can take advantage of – Fixed Price or Dimensional.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/calculation.jpg" />
To put it in a nutshell, MotoCMS eCommerce functionality can definitely become the best solution for creating any kind of online store. See for yourself and test any web theme from the collection of MotoCMS &lt;a href=”https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-ecommerce-templates/”&gt;responsive eCommerce templates&lt;/a&gt; free of charge within the trial period.

Refined MotoCMS eCommerce Streamlines the Creation of Your Online Store

Today we're going to take you through our Vivvo CMS Review. Vivvo is a commercial offering from Spoonlabs and is a well priced article publishing CMS primarily used for News, magazine or other sites where you publish large amounts of articles with pictures and other media.
Vivvo has been around for a while and has a very solid community and excellent support. Let's examine the install process and look at a few key elements of this system. We're going to review the Professional edition which was graciously provided by Boris @ Spoonlabs for review purposes.
First off, I'm unsure if this is a software concern or my host but when I first accessed our test URL, I was not greeted with the installer page.. instead I had to append it with /installer to get the installation going. Not a major concern but just something I wanted to point out. It would be best if it auto redirected on it's own.
I was then greeted with:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v1.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Once you've selected your language, you proceed to:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v2.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Looks like everything passed inspection. If you have anything come up with a red X it would be a good idea to get ahold of your hosting provider before proceeding.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v3.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Accept the license and continue:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v41.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Fill in your database details here.. make sure you append a database table prefix if you are using the same database as something else. Make sure you input your license number as well (you can get this by logging into your account at vivvo.net and you will see the license listed).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v5.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Plug in the obvious information like your website name, admin info. One thing I thought was a nice touch here was that the system will not let you choose an admin password of less than 6 characters. This is a nice touch.. I think it would be even better if it enforced some rules to password conventions to help new users secure their installation a bit more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v6.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Now comes the fun part. Let's click on the View website link and see what our fresh install looks like:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v7.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Looks pretty nice! We have a login section, some featured article examples and you can see there is a sidebar with some nice tabbed boxes. Vivvo also has a decent selection of themes which are available for purchase from their site as well as some free ones which are available at <a href="http://www.vivvo.net/resources/">http://www.vivvo.net/resources/</a>. There are some free layouts for content as well as plugins to incorporate some other features into the system.
Let's take a peek at the admin section:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v8.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
Well laid out, easy to find what you need and well labelled.. just the way I like it. I also like the embedded statistics to give you a quick overview of number of visitors.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v9.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
I wanted to point out the above screen has a very nice simple feature.. Meta description and Meta keywords. This is a nice feature to let you quickly edit these to help your SEO score without having to manually edit the template files directly.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v10.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
This screen is another nice feature, you can preset the image sizes directly! That's very handy and gives you a ton of flexibility, again, without having to edit files directly. Nice touch!
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/v11.gif" alt="Vivvo CMS Review" />
The above screen is the final one I wanted to show. This lets you easily edit SEO functions for each article. This is a really nice option and isn't often seen in a CMS where you can manually control your SEO options with ease. Good work Spoonlabs.
Overall, Vivvo is a really nice system. They've made it very easy to maintain a nice search engine optimized site with excellent content management and article publishing flexibility. The overall price of this system is very reasonable as well. Coming in at around two hundred dollars to start, which is very reasonable for this type of system. If you are a new startup looking to break into the world of article publishing or starting up a magazine or newspaper.. this system would be a very good selection.
There's an excellent community as well and support is prompt and efficient. What would help this system out a bit more is a wider variety of plugins and more free themes… personally, I'm not fond of buying themes for premium systems, as I think more free themes would make the investment a bit more appealing for some.. but some people may not have an issue with that. The cost of the average theme is on par with most other premium theme options for other systems (ie: wordpress and all).
Vivvo works well, has a nicely laid out and user friendly admin section and just seems to do the job well for the price tag they are asking.
Our ratings:
Community 9/10 (Solid community with prompt support.)
Expandability 7/10 (It needs more plugins and can't easily be used for much other than article publishing)
Themability 8/10 (Not bad. Some free themes and some paid ones but could use more free.)
Useability 9/10 (Very easy to use. 10 in my books due to the added functionality with SEO editing)
<h2>Overall Score: 8/10</h2>

Vivvo CMS Review

Jahia, today announces the availability of Jahia xCM 6.6.2 in Community and Enterprise distributions, and of Jahia Wise 1.8, its social and collaborative document sharing solution (Enterprise distribution).
These new versions are Services Packs resulting from continued collaboration with the community, which makes it possible to constantly enhance the user experience, performances and stability.
For all Jahia customer projects combining critical portal and content management aspects, these new versions mean significant improvements in terms of scalability, speed and stability, including:
<ul>
<li>For Jahia xCM, a significant improvement of response times when viewing and contributing to a project, with display times almost 50 percent faster; optimization of the clustering, making it possible to linearly extend the scalability of the consultation front end for web and mobile projects.</li>
<li>For Jahia Wise, the ability to manage up to 1 million documents while maintaining an optimal user experience.</li>
</ul>
Socomec and La Poste in France, Desjardins in Canada, the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, General Motors and Phoenix in the United States, to name but a few, recently selected Jahia over proprietary or Open Source competing solutions, for critical and complex projects. The choice made by these large organizations demonstrates that Jahia’s vision is consistent with the needs of enterprises: application convergence (portal, web, research, document, social, collaboration and mobile).
These recent deals allowed Jahia to achieve the best half-year results of its history with a growth of over 70 percent compared to the first half of 2012.
<blockquote>“We have been working jointly with members of our community, our clients and partners for over 10 years. This allows us to address the strategic challenges of large companies. Whether for portal, extranet, intranet, web or mobile projects, Jahia’s unparalleled portal/content unification naturally convinces them to choose our offering over all other solutions on the market. Developers, especially those working for our partners, appreciate the increased development speed provided by our exclusive tool – the Jahia Studio – and its suite of modules, when implementing digital portals. All this demonstrates that our platform is robust, feature-rich and relevant in the long term.” Elie Auvray, CEO of Jahia Solution Group SA, comments.</blockquote>
Downloads and Migration Tools
<ul>
<li>Jahia xCM Community distribution (Windows and Linux) – <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=74469271&amp;msgid=309164&amp;act=8Y2D&amp;c=870976&amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jahia.com%2Fdownload-develop%2Fdownload%2Fcommunity-distribution.html" target="_blank">here</a></li>
<li>Migration package from Jahia xCM 6610 to Jahia xCM 662 Community distribution – <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=74469271&amp;msgid=309164&amp;act=8Y2D&amp;c=870976&amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jahia.com%2Fdownload-develop%2Fdownload%2Fcommunity-distribution.html" target="_blank">here</a></li>
<li>Jahia xCM Enterprise distribution (Windows and Linux) – <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=74469271&amp;msgid=309164&amp;act=8Y2D&amp;c=870976&amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jahia.com%2Fdownload-develop%2Fdownload%2Fenterprise-distribution.html" target="_blank">here</a></li>
<li>Jahia Wise Enterprise distribution, migration packages for Jahia xCM and Wise Enterprise distribution – available on the client extranet.</li>
</ul>
Screenshots
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jahia-wise-interface250x0.png" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jahia-wise-workspace-home-page250x0.png" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jahia-wise-feeding-document-by-email250x0.png" />
More details on <a href="https://www.jahia.com/">Jahia xCM</a> and <a href="https://www.jahia.com/">Jahia Wise</a>

Jahia Announces the Availability of Jahia xCM 6.6.2 and Jahia Wise 1.8

The concept of a "<a href="https://www.akana.com/blog/composable-architecture">composable enterprise</a>" is becoming more popular as digital transformation enters its next wave. And it makes sense: leading up to Covid, digital stacks were already becoming decoupled and less monolithic, all driven by the rise of the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/">open API</a>. 
Add a global pandemic, and the hyper-accelerated pace of transformation resulted in more systems "talking" to each other – and integration driving innovation. 
In the simplest terms, composable enterprises are building digital solutions that leverage the <a href="https://www.mulesoft.com/resources/api/what-is-an-api-economy#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20API%20Economy,created%20by%20differing%20software%20platforms.">API economy</a>. This means businesses are assembling their offerings together in a highly modular way – breaking down components into smaller <a href="https://microservices.io/">microservices</a> or packaged business capabilities (PBCs).
I know, I know... more acronyms. But this is a good one because PCBs are becoming a bigger deal. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3976170/innovation-insight-for-packaged-business-capabilities-an">According to Gartner</a>, they encapsulate the concept of composable commerce and how fixed applications are becoming a thing of the past.
And that leads us to the latest news from <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a>, a leading Drupal-based digital experience platform. They just announced major updates to their Acquia <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank">Open Digital Experience Platform</a> (DXP), which is powered by their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud ecosystems. By embracing a new set of component features, Acquia is advancing the composable enterprise by enabling marketers, developers, and IT operators to assemble and deploy digital experiences for every point along the customer journey.
<h2>A tale of two clouds</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/acquia-dxp.png" alt="Acquia Drupal and Marketing Cloud Diagram" />
As part of an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">ambitious growth plan</a>, Acquia is hanging its DXP hat on a bifurcated strategy with their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud. While the former focuses on building and enhancing digital experiences, the latter provides a sandbox for personalizing and orchestrating campaigns and assets with cross-channel capabilities. 
In an age of composable enterprises, this approach is allowing businesses to focus resources while connecting data. Acquia's new version features enhancements to both of their cloud layers – each with its own composable attributes.
Acquia also announced a new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-launches-china-managed-services">China managed services offering</a> with in-region security and support as part of their update package. 
<h2>Drupal Cloud updates focus on scalability</h2>
Acquia's improvements to Drupal Cloud are focused on helping companies build and scale their experiences in a number of key areas. This includes enhancements to the HR and employee experience, container-based hosting, advanced search functionality, and developer support. 
"With the accelerated demand for digital experiences, businesses need to continue to scale at greater capacities and speeds," said, Kevin Cochrane, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Acquia. "They need to be confident that their digital infrastructure and teams are able to perform without fail no matter when or where they're needed." 
The updates to Drupal Cloud include:
<ul>
<li>Employee Experience Platform: Acquia's new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/powering-digital-workplace-employee-experience-platform" target="_blank">Employee Experience Platform</a> (EXP) is an HR-centric modern intranet powered by Drupal. It combines employee systems in applications via the API framework of Acquia's Open DXP. Acquia's EXP integrates HR applications with dynamic site-building and hosting capabilities – creating a one-stop-shop for benefits and payroll, information access, discovery, cross-team collaboration, and more.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud Next: Acquia made significant updates to their <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Platform</a> services to create <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/introducing-acquia-cloud-next-kubernetes-native-drupal-hosting-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Next</a> – an enterprise-grade, Kubernetes-native Drupal hosting platform backed by Acquia's collaboration with AWS. With Acquia Cloud Next, customers benefit from the improved application and site performance along with nearly limitless storage volume, enhanced security and resiliency, and optimized resource utilization. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fully Managed Search: Enhanced Apache <a href="https://solr.apache.org/guide/7_0/">Solr 7</a> search capabilities are now integrated into the Acquia Cloud Platform and fully managed by Acquia. Searches are faster across multiple servers and provide better results to keep site visitors engaged with content.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud IDE and Developer Support: <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> improves developer productivity with a new cloud-based, fully integrated workflow between development, staging, and production environments. It provides a full stack of optimized development tools – including PHP, Composer, and Drush – readily installed and configured for a fast and simple onboarding process. As a browser-based source code editor and Drupal development stack based entirely in the cloud, Acquia Cloud IDE will help developers accelerate writing and deploying code without adding maintenance or security issues. Best-in-class support enhancements include a new <a href="https://docs.lando.dev/">Lando</a> plugin and support for both <a href="https://www.php.net/releases/8.0/en.php">PHP 8</a> and the latest version of Drupal.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Marketing Cloud gets new Unified User Interface</h2>
Enhancements to Acquia's Marketing Cloud will provide a simpler, more intuitive way for marketers to understand their business. New features are designed to help users build personalized experiences for customers and scale both operational efficiencies and smarter workflows across their organizations. 
The <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/acquia-marketing-cloud-introduces-new-ui-enhancements-unified-marketer-friendly-experience" target="_blank">new Unified User Interface (UI)</a> for Acquia Marketing Cloud makes it easier to leverage the combined capabilities of <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/customer-data-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Customer Data Platform</a> (CDP), <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/personalization" target="_blank">Acquia Personalization</a>, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Studio</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-factory" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Factory</a>. The main navigation provides a single view over all Marketing Cloud solutions, supporting a streamlined workflow across teams and regions. This will allow marketers to elevate their control and visibility – and run more effective, data-driven campaigns. 
Some of the other updates to Marketing Cloud include: 
<ul>
<li>Golden Template in Campaign Factory: To help marketing teams effectively govern their campaigns across hundreds or even thousands of brands, websites, and business units, Acquia Campaign Factory is introducing a "Golden Template." This feature will enable users to change all downstream child instances across email, segments, complete campaigns, and more – saving time and accelerating updates.</li>
<li>Machine Learning Center ("ML Center" ): Acquia's new Machine Learning Center gives marketers and business leaders a dashboard that unifies all ML-driven intelligence into one view and allows marketers and business users to understand the impact of their campaigns (both online and offline). The new Metrics Launchpad dashboard provides easy-to-understand visualizations and is enabled for all Acquia CDP customers who use machine learning as part of the platform. </li>
</ul>
To learn more about Acquia's Digital Experience Platform, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">click </a><a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">here</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
<a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> is the open digital experience platform that enables organizations to build, host, analyze and communicate with their customers at scale through websites and digital applications. As the trusted open source leader, Acquia uses adaptive intelligence to produce better business outcomes for CX leaders.

Acquia Introduces Composable Enterprise Features in Latest Version of DXP

Communication has always been at the heart of <a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a>'s mission, and this week’s acquisition of <a href="https://segment.com/">Segment</a> – a leading vendor in the red-hot Customer Data Platform (CDP) space – sent a clear signal to the market.
With this latest addition to the cloud communication provider’s portfolio, Twilio is doubling down on the digital world’s unquenchable thirst for data. Segment’s ability to process events at scale (roughly 500 billion a month) amplifies Twilio’s focus on customer engagement, helping developers connect with customer data across multiple sources.
This move also demonstrates the impact of accelerated digital transformation in a COVID-19 world, where organizations require more access to data-driven tools to grow and compete. Both Twilio and Segment have seen greater opportunity as businesses shift to a digital-first model in the wake of the pandemic – and that shows no sign of slowing down.
While Twilio’s cloud communication platform enables developers to build integrated solutions with text, email, telephony, chatbots, and more, it lacked direct access to customer data – which is where Segment excels. The combination of their API-driven platforms could lead to even greater innovation around purpose-built apps that enhance the digital customer experience.
The deal, first <a href="https://investors.twilio.com/news/news-details/2020/Twilio-to-Acquire-Segment-the-Market-leading-Customer-Data-Platform/default.aspx">announced</a> on October 12, was closed earlier this week – and Segment had been valued at $1.5 billion according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-02/startup-segment-is-worth-1-5-billion-thanks-to-companies-troves-of-customer-data?sref=ctSjKj2N">The Wall Street Journal</a>. The $3.2 billion price tag is only the latest in a long line of strategic acquisitions for Twilio – and a “hair” more than the $3 billion they paid for transactional email platform <a href="https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-completes-acquisition-sendgrid">SendGrid</a> in 2018.
<h3>Customer data meets customer engagement</h3>
Twilio is on a mission to become the leading customer engagement platform. While they have the infrastructure in place, they needed the essential data layer to provide a more complete view of the customer. For developers, this means more access to data intelligence, allowing them to build more unique and purposeful applications with Twilio’s APIs.
“The one thing that’s always been missing from Twilio as we’ve been building up this customer engagement platform is understanding of the end-users themselves,” said Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson. “We power the communications, but we don’t actually know who the customers are.”
While the applications have yet to be written, it's all but certain that Twilio will add Segment's core capabilities to their cloud communications platform to enhance a wide variety of channels including SMS messaging, voice, video, e-mail, the Internet of Things (IoT) and more.
<h3>Unifying data sources with Segment</h3>
As the leading customer data platform, Segment enables developers to unify customer data from every customer touchpoint, and empowers marketing, sales, and customer service leaders with the insights they need to design and build relevant, data-driven customer engagement.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/segment-flow.png" /></figure>
Armed with these data optics, Twilio’s developers will now have the ability to craft apps and experiences based on a more holistic view of the customer. Segment unifies a wide range of data from multiple sources like Facebook, Salesforce CRM, websites powered by CMS, eCommerce platforms and more.
“Exceptional customer engagement requires not only high-quality data, but the infrastructure to activate those insights across every channel and customer interaction,” said Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO of Segment. “By bringing Twilio and Segment together, we will help businesses build a foundation of actionable insights critical to engaging with customers based on their needs and preferences to deliver a positive, seamless and effective customer experience.”
<h3>Destroying the data silos</h3>
Getting the data is only half the battle. The real challenge lies within an organization's <a href="https://www.talend.com/resources/what-are-data-silos/">data silos</a>: isolated sources of data that prevent access from users, groups or applications. Breaking down these silos has become a critical objective for data-driven organizations, and the Twilio/Segment union promises to "bring down the walls" so organizations can realize true data integration.
<blockquote>Data silos destroy great customer experiences.
Segment lets developers and companies break down those silos and build a complete picture of their customer. Combined with Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform, we can create more personalized, timely and impactful engagement across customer service, marketing, analytics, product and sales.
- Jeff Lawson</blockquote>
Attacking the data silo problem takes time. By leveraging their flexible APIs, Twilio and Segment will be able to accelerate the process by connecting developers with a more diverse ecosystem of data sources – such as web apps and analytics tools – all without having to write new code. This will eliminate countless development hours building custom integrations.
<h3>Why the Acquisition Makes Sense</h3>
When Twilio acquired SendGrid, they already offered a broad range of communications services through a set of APIs, allowing developers to integrate custom phone numbers, manage services such as SMS and voice, and tap messaging channels like Facebook, WhatsApp and Google Home. But e-mail was a missing link – and SendGrid closed this gap.
Twilio and Segment are a good fit for many reasons. They’re both API-first products, they’re both developer-centric, and they already offer an <a href="https://segment.com/sources/twilio/">integration</a>.
While it’s still early days, it’s clear that the market sees significant value from this match. CDP continues to be a growth space, so investing in Segment can certainly provide more wind in Twilio’s sails. But their unique focus on powering developers with more access to data aligns perfectly with Segment’s mission, and gives the platform greater reach and appeal.
With a proven infrastructure for handling billions of customer-generated events, Twilio now appears to have everything a developer or organization needs to build data-driven apps – and improve the end-to-end customer experience at every touchpoint. In effect, it will create a single, unified view of the customer journey – making it a holistic customer engagement platform that could rival Salesforce and Adobe.
The real question is: what will Twilio buy next?
<h3>About Twilio</h3>
<a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a> is a cloud communication company that powers the future of business communications, enabling phones, VoIP, and messaging to be embedded into web, desktop, and mobile software. They take care of the messy telecom hardware and expose a globally available cloud API that developers can interact with to build intelligent &amp; complex communications systems. As your app’s usage scales up or down, Twilio automatically scales with you. You only pay for what you use - no contracts, no shenanigans.
<h3>About Segment</h3>
<a href="https://segment.com/">Segment</a> is a customer data platform that democratizes access to reliable data for all teams and offers a complete toolkit to standardize data collection, unify user records, and route customer data into any system where it’s needed.
Segment collects user events from every customer touch point (your website, web and mobile apps, tools) and provides a complete data toolkit to every team in your org. They take care of the redundant and repetitive work that comes with integrating new tools, maintaining data pipelines, and managing data quality.
Today, over 20,000 companies across 70+ countries use Segment, from fast-growing businesses like Instacart, Peloton, and Bonobos to some of the world’s largest organizations like Levi’s, Intuit, and FOX. With Segment, companies can connect and activate reliable first-party data across 300+ marketing, analytics, and data warehousing tools.

Twilio Acquires Segment for $3.2B, Adds Market-leading CDP for Building Data-Driven Apps

Percussion Software, a leading provider of Web Content Management (WCM) products, today announced the general availability of Percussion CM1 Version 2, the industry’s first pure WCM product that provides users with full WCM functionality delivered as an easily upgradeable product in a cost-effective package. Percussion CM1 Version 2 features comprehensive new social engagement capabilities, including advanced blogging functionality, improved content reuse, sharing and commenting capabilities, new cloud deployment options, and new ways to deploy sites faster. With Percussion CM1 Version 2 organizations have unmatched power and control over their online content strategy, improving their ability to broaden reach, enrich social engagement with customers, and maximize revenue opportunities.
<h3>Productizing Web Content Management</h3>
Recently named a “2011 Trend Setting Product” by KM World Magazine, Percussion’s CM1 Version 2 represents a breakthrough in Web Content Management (WCM). Whereas all other WCM “products” are in fact technology platforms on which the customer or a third party services firm must build their own custom WCM application, Percussion CM1 Version 2 is different. Percussion productizes the actual WCM application itself, enabling rapid deployment of sites and web channels through pre-built Widgets and Gadgets.  This enables organizations to eliminate the reliance on costly third party consulting services firms to build these core features during the initial roll out, and for the ongoing deployment of new features and upgrades. Its significant advance in user-interface design makes it possible for users to take control of their WCM initiatives while maintaining the flexibility to address “What’s Next” on the web.
Through its unique drag-and-drop interface, CM1 Version 2 enables users to create, launch, and maintain sophisticated web sites with unmatched simplicity and at lower cost.  Users can easily make any kind of edit or change—such as creating new templates, modifying page layouts, integrating social content, or embedding third-party web applications.  By empowering the user, organizations can make the vast majority of required ongoing updates and changes to the site on their own, reducing their reliance on time-strapped internal technology teams or costly external services providers.
“In our research, we have found that many organizations continue to struggle with even the most basic components of web content management.  And yet the explosion of channels for customer interaction online is putting tremendous pressure on those same organizations to do more online, faster than ever before,” said Scott Liewehr, Lead Analyst, Web Content Management, Outsell’s Gilbane Services.  “Companies are demanding that WCM providers such as Percussion improve the content management experience by delivering advanced functionality, packaged in a simple, user-centric model, together with the freedom and flexibility to be ready to move at web speed.”
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-6_700x0_jn6ul8.png" alt="Percussion CM1 Version 2 Dashboard" />
<h3>New in Percussion CM1 Version 2</h3>
Percussion CM1 Version 2 is built upon the same server architecture as Percussion’s CM System and features numerous advancements that enable the product to scale to meet the requirements of larger sites with more users.  In addition, key new social engagement features include:
<ul>
<li>Integrated Blogging Functionality Blogs have become a central component of content marketing strategies because of their ability to draw new social traffic into existing site content. Stand-alone blog platforms, however, are disconnected from the organization’s overall content platform limiting the ability of marketers to wrap blog posts with site content and cross links, which ultimately undermines the effectiveness of the blog as a marketing tool. Percussion CM1 Version 2 provides advanced blogging functionality from within the WCM to enable wider re-use of site content and rich cross linking with the blog, as well as more complete analytics from the CM1 Dashboard. Users no longer need to access different systems and can easily incorporate site content into the blog, and blog content into the site or other online channels to maximize content engagement.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Improved Content Reuse Percussion CM1 Version 2 enables marketers to better structure and reuse information by extending the concept of content tags and categories across all pages on the site. Dynamic indexing capabilities ensure real-time updating of tag and category widgets, exposing new tagged or categorized content as it’s published automatically.  Advanced RSS functionality drives better connection to subscribers and social platforms such as Facebook, or Google+.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Enhanced Social Engagement via Comments and Likes Deepening engagement with site visitors throughout their time on the site is a critical goal of every web marketer. Percussion CM1 Version 2 adds commenting functionality to every page under site management. Further, a new “Like” capability allows visitors to rate content, giving visitors the ability to engage directly on the site without connecting to an external community.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Cloud Ready Percussion has launched Cloud-based evaluations of Percussion CM1 Version 2. These evaluations allow interested prospects to experience the products award-winning user experience and functionality to see for themselves how easy WCM should be.  Additionally, it is now even easier for clients to publish content to a Cloud-based delivery tier, or deploy Percussion CM1 Version 2 in the cloud.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Premium Support to Deploy Faster To help users deploy their site on Percussion CM1 Version 2 as quickly as possible, Percussion has introduced Administrator Training and Premium Support.  Included at no charge for the first 90 days after purchase, Premium Support provides users with unlimited access to Percussion experts who are available to answer questions ranging from best practices to situational training and how-to’s.  This ensures customers are able to deploy their site in a minimal amount of time, often in just a few weeks.</li>
</ul>
Because Percussion CM1 Version 2 is built as a product, customers will themselves have the ability to easily upgrade as new widgets and gadgets become available without fear of breaking complex customizations or custom code built at the time of deployment. New features will generally be made available every four to six weeks.
<blockquote>
“The promise of WCM has remained elusive for far too long. Percussion is on a mission to bring this promise to the market by productizing web content management and fundamentally transforming how organizations deploy and upgrade their WCM solutions,” said Joseph Wykes, president, Percussion Software.  “Percussion CM1 Version 2 is a key component of this strategy by delivering core WCM functionality as a cost-effective product out of the box, without requiring our customers to perform costly, un-upgradeable customizations to achieve their business objectives. Packaging WCM as a true product ensures that users have greater control over their web strategy while maintaining the flexibility to address whatever comes next on the web.”
</blockquote>
<h3>Pricing and Availability</h3>
Starting at just $20,000 for product license and a $5,000 annual subscription covering upgrades and maintenance, Percussion CM1 Version 2 provides substantial value for your WCM needs. Percussion CM1 Version 2 is available immediately for purchase by contacting Percussion directly.
Percussion will be demonstrating Percussion CM1 Version 2 at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston, September 14 and 15, 2011, and celebrating at a launch party on the evening of September 14th. To attend, register at <a href="http://www.percussion.com/tequilamoonrise">http://www.percussion.com/tequilamoonrise</a>.
To Learn more about how Percussion is productizing WCM visit <a href="http://www.percussion.com/freedom">http://www.percussion.com/freedom</a>

Percussion launches CM1 version 2 with Social Engagement, Blogging and More.

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

#18164c

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 108