Articles - Page 139

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

matt-garrepy

There's a quiet battle raging within a relatively young niche.
Thanks to the huge demand for regular unboxing experiences, plus the emergence of success stories <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/2h1mlt/the_inner_workings_of_a_subscription_box_company" target="_blank">like the one of Wet Shave Club, found on Reddit</a>, subscription box businesses have been sprouting up everywhere, catering to every interest, taste, hobby and profession.
<img style="max-width:552px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cardboard-314504_640552x0-is.jpg" />
There are now monthly boxes for <a href="http://www.beardbrand.co.uk/" target="_blank">beards</a>, <a href="https://meowbox.com/" target="_blank">cats</a>, <a href="http://www.candyclub.com/" target="_blank">candy</a>, and even <a href="http://writercrate.com/" target="_blank">writing</a>. You name it, and there's probably a subscription box out there geared towards it.
The interesting part? This growing niche has given two new content management systems the chance to emerge. And they're battling for a slice of this scrumptious subscription pie.
<h2>CrateyJoy Vs Subbly</h2>
If you want to start your own subscription box business, you'll want to take a long hard look at both <a href="https://www.cratejoy.com/" target="_blank">CrateJoy</a> and <a href="http://www.subbly.co/" target="_blank">Subbly</a>. At the time of writing, they're the two platforms dedicated to starting up subscription box businesses.
<img style="max-width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cratejoy-share-fb300x0-is.jpg" />
CrateJoy was launched in 2014 by Co-Founders Amir Elaguizy and Alex Morse, out of Austin, Texas. The platform came out of beta at the beginning of 2015, but has already gained traction as one of the best subscription box CMS solutions.
<a href="http://www.subbly.co/" target="_blank"><img style="max-width:325px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bb2b387f4e3635439c11563666eb4566.png" /></a>
Subbly was launched halfway through 2014 by Stefan Pretty and his team, and has been closely competing with Cratejoy every since.
Both platforms offer relatively similar solutions.
In a nut shell, they help you get your subscription box business off the ground with a SaaS (Software as a Service) approach, ready-made templates, design customization, analytics, and a whole bunch of other typical eCommerce functions. And of course, subscription billing is built in as standard.
Their pricing structures differ, though.
Cratejoy offers one “All Access” plan costing $39 per month. However, they impose additional transaction fees for subscriptions.
Subbly on the other hand, charge based on subscriber counts. For example, their cheapest plan comes in at $24 per month, but only supports businesses with ten or less subscribers. All their higher plans come in more expensive than Cratejoy's solitary “All Access” package. However, <a href="http://www.subbly.co/pricing-comparison" target="_blank">Subbly argues that, in the long run, you stand to make a saving</a> thanks to the lack of additional transaction fees.
My experience with the two was relatively similar. The user experience doesn't differ much between the two platforms, but I certainly felt that Cratejoy had more to offer. The customization interface is slightly easier to use, and they also offer more themes which are ready to import and play with. Plus, I thought Cratejoy's themes were of a higher quality.
So, for me, Cratejoy is edging the battle – for now.
Perhaps my biggest gripe with both platforms though, is that they don't support PayPal at all. They opt for a Stripe-only approach, instead.
<h2>The Alternatives</h2>
Technically, the subscription box niche is a two horse race. But alternatives do exist.
Shopify, for example, is a platform that can be leveraged to enter into the subscription box industry. Various subscription apps exist, including <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-recurring-payments" target="_blank">ReCharge</a> and <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/paywhirl-recurring-payments" target="_blank">PayWhirl</a>. They seem to work quite well, but ReCharge comes in at $19.99 per month, with an extra 1% charge per transaction. PayWhirl has a free offering, but charges an extra 2% per transaction, dropping to 1% when you dish out $49.99 per month.
WooCommerce makes up the other alternative. The WordPress eCommerce plugin offers “<a href="http://www.woothemes.com/products/woocommerce-subscriptions/" target="_blank">WooCommerce Subscriptions</a>“. The name says it all really.
Apart from an upfront fee of $199.99 with no free trial period, the only “problem” is that it's essentially a branch of a WordPress plugin. So, you would be forgiven for think that it's not really a convincing solution. Furthermore, there's no real added functionality aside from managing subscription payments. It's a bare bones option.
Personally, I'd rather stick to the dedicated subscription platforms. Cratejoy and Subbly are both good solutions right now, and with subscription boxes being their main focus, merchants looking to enter that niche are better off relying on them, rather than anybody else.
What are your thoughts on the subscription box niche? Is the competition healthy enough, or is there room for more platforms to join the battle? Let us know in the comments below.

CrateJoy vs Subbly: Battle For the Subscription Box Niche

mike-johnston

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/macbook-667280_1280-1-e1472221090906.jpg" />
Some of America’s most lucrative business locales draw commercial real estate costs that capitalize on the wealth companies bring to these regions: Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Utah’s Silicon Slopes, to name a few.
In result, many of the companies (particularly fast-followers to the industry giants) are looking for new ways to cut spending to drive innovation.
Although there are numerous ways to achieve this end, one needn’t look further than the collaborative technologies many of these companies have created to justify nixing office space altogether.
Smaller organizations in manufacturing, healthcare, insurance, financial advisory services, and accounting stand to benefit most from doing away with commercial real estate and the unnecessary costs it brings—all thanks to <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/efilecabinet-online/">document management software</a> (DMS).
Although few large organizations have followed suit in implementing cloud-based document management software to enable the remote working and reduced operating costs of document management software, they can look to their smaller counterparts for inspiration (and proof) that working remotely no longer interferes with the collaboration efforts that many once believed could only be facilitated by an in-office team environment.
For instance, The Wall Street Journal reports that 85% of small businesses will increase their spending on software within the next five years, and for good reason: SMB thought leaders are scaling back on office costs by eliminating the need for filing cabinets, and, therefore, office space.
For example, manufacturing company <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/success-story-north-carolina/">North Carolina Mutual Wholesale Drug </a> retired 25 filing cabinets through document management software, freeing up office space and drawing into question whether they could relocate to a smaller office, or eventually overthrow the need for an office entirely.
Here are four ways a DMS helps cut down on costs for commercial real estate agents.
<h2>1. Remote Collaboration</h2>
But office size aside, another important factor to consider is whether document management software offers the kind of collaboration that an entirely remote workforce would demand. Not only does it provide this, the security levels of in-office work create many potential non-compliance costs. With document management software, file sharing of sensitive information with bank-grade encryption leaves no room for security hiccups, and given that document management software conquers the perils of workers bringing their own devices to work, also called the <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/conquering-byod-phenomenon-dms-slideshow/">BYOD Phenomenon</a>, document management software provides not only the security needed for workers to work remotely without the organization’s IT personnel losing sleep over it, but also the accessibility of information that great collaboration demands.
Still, some suggest that removing the physical office from the workforce’s equation is a bad idea, as it will only impinge collaboration—even with sophisticated technology to replace its walls. However, Psychology Today reports that meetings, often viewed as the first-rate form of collaboration for in-office environments, merely <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201204/why-meetings-kill-productivity">kill productivity</a>. Although many employees swear by meetings, the reasons for doing so may have more to do with getting a “break” midday than they do gaining ground on projects. Sure, some may view working from home as a place rife with distractions, but that doesn’t mean one can’t venture to a nearby library or other remote space with little distractions. In fact, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/working-from-home-vs-the-office.html?_r=1">The New York Times</a> reports that employees are more productive when they work from home.
<h2>2. DMS Makes Information Highly Retrievable</h2>
What’s more, the conversations we have in office over “finding information” are what document management software precludes. We oftentimes feel we need to work in office so we can collaborate over items that may seem otherwise confusing via email, but with the organizational capacity that document management software brings to organizations, these “what the heck is going on?” conversations and searches for certain files are eliminated entirely. Document management software takes what would otherwise be a conversation requiring physical, in office-presence, and simplifies it into a quick email (in the worst case scenario).
Confound this with the fact that the post office is a dying service, which businesses no longer rely upon as frequently as they used to, and the necessity of office walls is further proven to be a faulty premise. With the exception of shipping and purchasing trade show materials for marketing purposes, businesses needn’t rely on the post office to transact business. In fact, over the last 5 years, reliance on the post office has been reduced by 22% according to Gizmodo.com.
<h2>3. DMS Facilitates the Accountability Bosses Need from Remote Workers</h2>
One of the greatest fears many organizational leaders have with going remote and doing away with an office (even if to cut costs dramatically), is that remote workers will not actually work, but rather dawdle away their time. Document management software, however, makes it much easier to identify and track workers’ contributions through workflow cycles, role-based user permissions, and the number of mediums on which the software is available: Macs, mobile phones, and desktop computers with various operating systems.
<h2>4. DMS Help Cut Salary Expenditures &amp; Boost Workers’ Quality of Life</h2>
Not only has cloud based document management software received positive feedback for being more environmentally friendly as it requires far less electrical input when compared with typical computing and on premises solutions—it also offers the potential to no longer need in-office work and the myriad costs associated with it, and it all starts with reducing (and potentially eliminating) employees commute to work.
Employees needn’t be paid as much to accommodate commuting costs if they are no longer commuting to work. Given that the average worker spends anywhere from $1,500-$2,000 annually on gas commuting to work, small organizations with 15-20 employees can let HR managers entertain the possibility of reducing payroll costs by $20,000-$40,000 without cutting into employees’ standard of living. Many small businesses could leverage this extra cash flow to accomplish much in the way of innovation and reduced operating costs.
Thus, this has the potential to improve public image of SMBs by way of reduced environmental footprint that vehicle emissions would otherwise contribute to. Not only are emissions bad for the environment—but cities are incentivizing carpooling efforts to accommodate the commute to offices. What’s more, the majority of psychological research concludes that commutes (especially when they are long) drastically detract from quality of life and therefore, workers’ productivity.
It also stands to figure that if we save time spent on commuting, we can spend that extra hour, half-hour, or even 15 minutes working on something that actually contributes to the success of our organizations. Although it may seem like a little bit of time in one day, when compounded over the course of a year, these time slots can add up to massive increases in productivity, output, and profit. sitting in traffic and commuting to work.
Sure, some may view working from home as a place rife with distractions, but that doesn’t mean one can’t venture to a nearby library or other remote space with little distractions. In fact, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/working-from-home-vs-the-office.html?_r=1">The New York Times</a> reports that employees were are more productive when they worked from home.
<h2>Has Document Management Software Helped Your Business?</h2>
With all the above benefits of having a DMS to hand, I'd like to know how much of an impact document management software had on your business. Share your story in the comments section below!

How to Cut Commercial Real Estate Costs With a DMS

Squarespace, like most vendors, is constantly adding updates to improve the functionality of their product and bring new and useful features to their customers. Recently, they introduced a couple of new features that are now available for Squarespace customers to add to their websites.
The first new feature is the addition of a Mobile Information Bar. Here's how it works:
When the Mobile Information Bar is enabled, visitors accessing your site from mobile devices will see a simple shortcut bar that helps them quickly find your most important business information: your address, email, phone number, and business hours (see below).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/static_squarespace_com.jpg" alt="squarespace mobile information bar" />
In addition to the mobile information bar is a new Announcement Bar. For those of you who are familiar with WordPress, this is similar to products such as Hello Bar and other similar plugins / addons.
The Announcement Bar can be used by site owners to announce major news on your site. The Announcement Bar has a range of potential use cases: everything from highlighting a major promotion in your store to announcing a major business deal. When enabled, the Announcement Bar shows up at the top of your website.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/announcementbar980x0.jpg" alt="squarespace announcement bar" />
So there you have it. Two handy new features for those of you running Squarespace. If you aren't running it yet and would like to try it out, they offer a 14 day free trial with no credit card so I strongly recommend you give it a shot (if only just to see how it works). <a href="http://www.squarespace.com">Click here to try Squarespace for free.</a>

Squarespace introduces new features: Mobile Info Bar and Announcement Bar.

This year’s winner of the People’s Choice Award for Best Open Source CMS goes to the ever popular Concrete5!
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/koken-620x361_muxhsx.png" />
Congratulations to everyone at Concrete5 for their awesome work. It was a hard fought battle with CMS Made Simple for first place but Concrete5 took over in the end and won this year with the most votes.
Concrete5 makes running a website easy.
Go to any page in your site, and an editing toolbar gives you all the controls you need to update your website. No intimidating manuals, no complicated administration interfaces – just point and click.
What can you build with concrete5?
<ul>
<li>Online magazines and newspapers.</li>
<li>eCommerce sites.</li>
<li>Extranets and Intranets.</li>
<li>Government websites.</li>
<li>Small business websites.</li>
<li>Non-profit and organization websites.</li>
<li>Community-based portals.</li>
<li>Church, club, and team websites.</li>
<li>Personal or family homepages.</li>
<li>Marketing-focused sites for a corporation.</li>
<li>Any school, college, or university website.</li>
<li>Many online communities.</li>
<li>Anything else you can dream up!</li>
</ul>
Check out Concrete5 on <a href="http://www.concrete5.org">their website</a> to learn more about this great CMS.
Our runner up for this year was CMS Made Simple, which fought a hard battle and did a commendable job of making Concrete5 work for their win.
This isn’t the end of the awards, however, as the Critic’s Choice portion of the awards which will be selected by CMS Critic will be announced soon.
<ol>
<li>Concrete5</li>
<li>CMS Made Simple</li>
<li>Liferay</li>
<li>ProcessWire</li>
<li>Textpattern</li>
</ol>
Thanks to all for really driving hard for the votes and don’t forget to stay tuned to our site to find out which of our five shortlisted competitors below takes the <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critic’s Choice Award</a>, to be announced soon.

People's Choice Winner for Best Open Source CMS is...

This year's winner of the People's Choice Award for Best Free CMS goes to the ever popular open-source CMS, Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware!
<img style="max-width:235px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tiki_wcg.png" />
Congratulations to Marc Laporte and the rest of the team for their awesome work. It was a hard fought battle with Xoops for first place but Tiki took over in the end and won this year with the most votes.
Tiki is a powerful all-in-one web-based application, offering collaboration, publishing, commerce, social networking, CRM, and office productivity tools.
Tiki is the ideal tool for you to build and maintain your Website / Wiki / Groupware / CMS / Forum / Blog / Bug Tracker / Online Office Suite or any other project you can imagine running in your browser window.
Tiki is free, both Free Software (as in “Free Speech”) and Free of Charge (as in “Free Beer”), and for everyone! It has all the features you need “out-of-the-box”:
<ul>
<li>Wikis (like Wikipedia)</li>
<li>Forums (like phpBB)</li>
<li>Blogs (like WordPress)</li>
<li>Articles (like Yahoo News)</li>
<li>Image Gallery (like Flickr)</li>
<li>Map Server (like Google Maps)</li>
<li>Link Directory (like DMOZ)</li>
<li>Multilingual (like Babel Fish)</li>
<li>Bug Tracker (like Bugzilla)</li>
<li>RSS Feeds (like Digg)</li>
<li>Payments (via PayPal)</li>
<li>Spreadsheet, Slideshow, Drawings, etc.</li>
<li>Free Open Source software (LGPL)</li>
</ul>
And much more… <a href="http://tiki.org">Check out this Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware today</a>
Our runner up for this year was Xoops, which fought a hard battle and did a commendable job of making Tiki work for their win.
This isn't the end of the awards, however, as the Critic's Choice portion of the awards which will be selected by CMS Critic will be announced soon.
<ol>
<li>Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware</li>
<li>XOOPS</li>
<li>Symphony CMS</li>
<li>ocPortal</li>
<li>Impress CMS</li>
</ol>
Thanks to all for really driving hard for the votes and don't forget to stay tuned to our site to find out which of our five shortlisted competitors below takes the <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critic's Choice Award</a>, to be announced soon.

People's Choice Winner for Best Free CMS is...

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_1-1.png" /> Backup Pro is a CMS agnostic data backup tool that forgoes the cloud to put your website data in your hands.
Launched back in 2011 by the programmer and entrepreneur <a href="http://blog.ericlamb.net/">Eric Lamb</a>, Backup Pro has built a reputation for being feature-rich and flexible in the face of disaster recovery.
At the time of writing, it supports the following five content management systems:
<ul>
<li>WordPress</li>
<li><a href="/concrete5-marketplace-gets-backup-pro/">Concrete5</a></li>
<li>Prestashop</li>
<li>Craft</li>
<li>ExpressEngine (2 &amp; 3)</li>
</ul>
However, support for other content management systems is coming.
Backup Pro allows for abstract storage of website backups through any combination of local storage, Amazon S3, Rackspace, Google Cloud Storage, Dropbox, FTP (with SSL), SFTP, and even an email inbox. Plus, you can create your own storage engines for complete control over your backups.
A command line interface also allows you to take backups with Backup Pro without involving Apache into the process. And since Apache applies limits to PHP, using the command line interface for Backup Pro ensures your backups never fail due to time and/or memory issues.
Another handy feature is the ‘Integrity Agent’, which is an automatic system that inspects your backups looking for errors and missing data – so you don’t have to.
What’s more is, thanks to the REST API support, Backup Pro users don’t just have total access to their data, they have absolute control over it, too.
In this review, I’ll be focusing on how Backup Pro handles itself with WordPress – which I feel is the most relevant platform to focus on, considering <a href="https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all">26% of the known internet runs on WordPress</a>.
Plus, there’s no difference in functionality between the different “versions” of Backup Pro.
<h2>First Impressions</h2>
I always start my reviews on the vendor website, and this review is no different.
Backup Pro was crafted by Eric Lamb, and he has decided to host the product on his personally branded Mithra62 website, where it can be purchased and downloaded.
It’s sold alongside Mithra62’s other products, which include <a href="https://mithra62.com/projects/view/automat-ee">Automat:ee</a>, <a href="https://mithra62.com/projects/view/securit-ee">Securit:ee</a>, and <a href="https://mithra62.com/projects/view/export-it">Export It</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_2.png" />
The website itself is clean and professional, with a dark color scheme. There’s nothing wrong with it in terms of design, but it certainly doesn’t feel prestige, either. And on that note, I think it’s fair to say that a re-branding project wouldn’t go amiss.
Nevertheless, let’s get down to business.
<h2>Getting Started</h2>
After downloading Backup Pro, I uploaded it to my WordPress test site like any other plugin, to test out the functionality.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_3.png" /> After installation and activation, I checked out the Backup Pro interface. To access Backup Pro, you’ll find it on the sidebar, consisting of four sections:
<ul>
<li>Dashboard</li>
<li>Backup Database</li>
<li>Backup Files</li>
<li>Settings</li>
</ul>
Here’s a close look at all of them.
<h2>Dashboard</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_4.png" />
The Backup Pro dashboard is very easy on the eyes, and doesn’t try to do anything fancy to take up your WordPress menu or screen space – like many other plugins try to do.
It gives you an overview of the backups you have already created by showing you how many backups you have taken, the total space taken, the total space available, as well as the date of the most recent backup.
This overview is also segmented to show database backups and file backups individually. Beneath all of that, is a list of your most recent backups. It gives you everything you need at a quick glance, and does nothing too fancy – just the way I like it.
<h3>Backup Database</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_5.png" />
To backup my site’s database, I only needed to head over to the Backup Database section and click Start Backup.
The resulting backup took a matter of seconds, leaving me with.
I was able to see all my recent backups listed, and I could also leave a note on each one, to help me remember exactly when and why I made that backup – if necessary.
<h3>Backup Files</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_6.png" />
As with the database backup, a file backup can be done via one click of a button, and it all worked just as fast. Of course, the speed will largely depend on how large your website is.
Once backed up, I was able to see the backup in my list, restore it, or download it to my computer. The download conveniently came as a .zip file.
As with the database backups, I was also able to leave notes for each of my listed backup.
I took multiple backups, downloaded them, restored them, and tinkered as much as I could. It all worked seamlessly.
So far, so good!
<h3>Settings</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_7.png" />
The settings page is where things take a more technical turn.
From here, you can configure things to do with:
<ul>
<li>Database backups</li>
<li>File backups</li>
<li>Cron backup</li>
<li>Storage locations</li>
<li>Integrity alerts</li>
<li>Rest API</li>
<li>Additional SQL commands</li>
</ul>
Generally speaking, you won’t need to touch these settings, but it’s good to know that you can change things like the maximum amount of locally stored file backups and the file format of database backups – should you ever need to.
<h2>Getting Help</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/backup_pro_review_-_8.png" />
If you run into any trouble, Backup Pro offers some decent support options on its Support page.
There’s a searchable knowledge based with a decent amount of FAQs, along with a small support forum to pose questions if needed. Neither are extensively detailed, but they are there.
There’s also a trackable ticketing system if you need some more hands-on assistance.
As for <a href="https://mithra62.com/docs">documentation</a>, there’s a whole lot of it that can be found on the Mitha62 website, which details everything from configuration to automation.
Plus, Eric Lamb’s personal approach will come in handy if you need help. He personally runs the Backup Pro twitter account for example, so you can reach him there.
In fact, during the course of this review, I actually uncovered a minor bug and reported it back to Eric Lamb. He fixed it almost immediately.
<h2>Pricing</h2>
Backup Pro currently sells for $99.99, which is a great price when you compare it to the long term costs of cloud-based competitors.
If we compare that one-off fee to some worthy competitors, we’ll see why Backup Pro makes more sense financially.
CodeGuard’s cloud service charges you $5 per month, while DropMySite charges $2.50 per month. Even if you go for the latter option, Backup Pro becomes the cheaper option before the two year mark.
<h2>The Verdict</h2>
Backup Pro does what it says on the tin.
It poses solutions for the problems brought about by cloud-based backup services, and makes it easy to keep all your data safely offline as well as online (across a wide range of storage options).
I’m not a huge fan of the branding that surrounds the product, but that’s a minor issue with no bearing on the product itself, which is nothing short of great.
Furthermore, the fact that is works with a good range of popular CMS – and promises to work with more soon – is something that I have to commend it on. However, in order to really push Backup Pros’ USP as a CMS agnostic tool, more content management systems need to be on the list. Particularly Joomla and Drupal.
To find out more about Backup Pro <a href="https://mithra62.com/projects/view/backup-pro">visit the Mithra62 website</a>.

Backup Pro Review

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

#ffffff

Ecommerce features have only recently been available to <a href="https://www.weebly.com/" target="_blank"> Weebly</a> users, but this week, Weebly have introduced yet more ecommerce improvements, along with an updated Stock Photo library.
Early in 2014, <a href="/weebly-introduces-ecommerce-and-ssl-features/#.UzP8Wvl_vvU" target="_blank"> Weebly released an integrated shopping cart</a> along with a myriad of ecommerce features, enabling its user base to sell physical and digital goods.
Now, after listening to user requests and suggestions, <a href="https://www.weebly.com/">Weebly</a> have added further ecommerce enhancements. So, let's have a look at what's new.
<h2>Order Notes, Quickbooks &amp; CSV Exporting</h2>
Giving customers a voice when they make an order is important, and Weebly have recognized this. Now, all of your customers have the option to leave an optional “Note to Seller” during checkout, letting you know if they want you to handle any other specifics.
This new feature can be configured via the Store tab under Settings &gt; General.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/6273065_orig700x0.png" alt="Weebly Order Note" />
What's also new for Weebly merchants, is the ability to export orders directly from your store dashboard. One-click data conversion and collection makes it easy to sync store order information with your Quickbooks software.
CSV exporting is available for free on all Weebly plans, whilst only Business Plan users can enjoy the Quickbooks exporting feature.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3892806_orig700x0.png" alt="Weebly Exporting" />
<h2>Google Analytics, Pixel Tracking &amp; Stock Photos</h2>
Knowing how your customers and visitors behave when they visit your store is vital to knowing where to improve.
To help you out with that, you can now add Google Analytics to your store and tracking pixels to your Cart, Payment, or Receipt pages from the advanced settings interface.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/431380_orig700x0.png" alt="Weebly Analytics" />
Finally, Weebly have also made improvements to their Stock Photo library, which offers 12 million professional and free stock photos. The professional photos can even be purchased directly from the Weebly interface.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/6784022_orig700x0.png" alt="Weebly" />
Photos taken from the library can not only be used in pages and blog posts, but also within backgrounds to help give your store a more personalised look and feel.
For more information on Weebly and its newly introduced online store features, check out their <a href="https://www.weebly.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Additionally, you can explore more of  <a href="/products/weebly/" target="_blank"> Weebly via our CMS Directory</a>.

Weebly Introduce Further Ecommerce & Stock Photo Updates

<a href="/boonex" target="_blank">Boonex Dolphin.Pro</a> has been updated with a flurry of features, and it's looking as sleek as ever on all fronts.
<a href="/boonex" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1.png" /></a> 
Considered to be one of the leading products in the social networking space, Boonex Dolphin is packed out with lots of different features to help users build online communities.
Here's a look at what Dolphin.Pro 7.2 brings to the table.
<h2>More Mobile Friendliness, Emojis &amp; More</h2>
Version 7.2 of Dolphin.Pro comes with a new mobile-friendly design template; support of “retina” content and interface images; new file-manager integration; Homepage Timeline; TinyMCE 4 and plenty more. It's a hefty update indeed.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hvknm5t818x0-is.jpg" /> 
Recurring payments have also been introduced, along with PayPal Pro and payments on Join Form.
Boonex has also unveiled an updated Admin Panel, improved Pages Builder, new anti-SPAM lists, easier module installation, better image resizing and admin action in user interface. There's even Emoji support for the product's Shoutbox feature, which can be placed on any page.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/s81pelg818x0-is.jpg" />
To find out more about Dolphin.Pro 7.2, check out the official announcement, or <a href="http://demo.boonex.com/" target="_blank">try out the demo</a>.
You can also explore more of <a href="http://demo.boonex.com/" target="_blank">Boonex Dolphin through our CMS Directory</a>.

Dolphin.Pro 7.2 Released

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/telephone-586268_1280-e1470917206500.jpg" alt="CMS mobile apps" />
A CMS (Content Management System) is used to create and maintain digital content – typically in the form of a website. That management of content is still primarily done from a desktop of sorts, but with the business world becoming ever more flexible, the need for mobile content management is growing. 
If you're looking for a CMS that will enable you to produce and edit your website's content from the road, here are five platforms ranked based on the quality of their mobile application.
<h2>1. WordPress</h2>
<a href="https://wordpress.org">WordPress</a> is perhaps the most well known self hosted content management system on the web. Countless websites from <a href="http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/06/19/drawing-a-penny/?utm_content=bufferfc567&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss</a>  to <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/">The Walt Disney Company</a> are ran using either the .com or .org versions of WordPress so it should come as no surprise that their app is number one.
The WordPress app for iOS allows its users to publish content from within the app, edit pre-existing posts, and view their site statistics. The application also acts as a way for people who just want to consume content to use the app as a reader for the most popular WordPress blogs and sites. The ability to do pretty much anything you need to from the app paired with its blog browsing capability edges out the not so steep competition.
Download (Free): <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress/id335703880?mt=8">iOS</a> &amp; <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wordpress.android&amp;hl=en_GB">Android</a>
<h2>2. Drupal</h2>
<a href="https://www.drupal.org">Drupal</a> is a widely popular content management system with a ton of useful features that boasts flexibility. Several notable websites use Drupal including the <a href="http://www.bbc.com">BBC Homepage</a>. Drupal’s standard features come free.
Drupal’s mobile application, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drupad-drupal-on-the-go/id378485000?mt=8">Drupad</a> includes features like the ability to manage any number of websites, create and edit content, as well as the option to read posts and moderate comments. However the app feels terribly dated and for it’s price that’s unacceptable. 
Download ($4.99): <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drupad-drupal-on-the-go/id378485000?mt=8">iOS</a>
<h2>3. Joomla</h2>
<a href="https://www.joomla.org">Joomla</a> is an award winning, open source, and free to use content management system so trusted that <a href="http://www.ebay.com">eBay</a> uses them. 
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/joomla-admin/id435607955?mt=8">Joomla Admin</a> for iOS allows its users to monitor all of their Joomla websites. It also offers the ability to block ip addresses of people using their site from within the application. Unfortunately this app is another example of an overpriced and outdated piece of software. It gets this spot on the list simply because it was updated more recently, although not recently enough. 
Download ($4.99): <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/joomla-admin/id435607955?mt=8">iOS</a>
<h2>4. Movable Type</h2>
<a href="https://www.movabletype.com/?__utma=239423775.1493377145.1470801874.1470847148.1470851143.4&amp;__utmb=239423775.10.10.1470851143&amp;__utmc=239423775&amp;__utmx=-&amp;__utmz=239423775.1470847148.3.2.utmcsr=google%7Cutmccn=(organic)%7Cutmcmd=organic%7Cutmctr=(not%20provided)&amp;__utmv=-&amp;__utmk=226467545">Movable Type </a> was launched in 2001 as a scalable and flexible publishing and blogging software. Widely used in Japan it now serves as the backend for large media and fortune 100 companies.
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movable-type/id1016788124?mt=8">Movable Type</a> for iOS includes an easy to use HTML text editor along with features that enable you to add, edit, and delete entries or web pages. You can then preview mobile and desktop versions of your content. Seriously, four spots in and finally there’s an app that I don't wince at the thought of suggesting. Useful features that are clearly defined and at no cost to the consumer, this one is all upside. 
Download (Free): <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movable-type/id1016788124?mt=8">iOS</a>
<h2>5. Umbraco</h2>
<a href="https://umbraco.com">Umbraco</a> is another feature packed content management system that is free to use. However you can sign up for Umbraco as a service for 25 euros (about 28 dollars U.S.) One example of their platform at work is <a href="http://www.vanityfair.it">Vanity Fair Italy</a>.
Umbraco does have an app and it’s called <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/umobile-for-ios/id699889313?mt=8">uMobile for iOS</a> . However it appears to be in beta with its latest version being 0.9.6.1. The features that this app enables are unclear, but if you’re already using Umbraco you might as well give it a shot. It won't cost you anything.
Download (Free): <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/umobile-for-ios/id699889313?mt=8">iOS</a>
<h2>Weirdly, That's All Folks</h2>
 When I sat out to write this post, I imagined I would really have to fight to narrow it down to the final five. 
With the increasing popularity of smartphones, tablets, and workers on-the-move, I was shocked to find that only a select few CMS offer solid mobile apps.
So, the main takeaway here is that CMS vendors should really consider making a useful mobile app for their consumers.
Is there a Content Management System that you wish had an app? What does a good CMS app need to do for you to spend money on it? Let me know in the comments below!

5 CMS With Awesome Smartphone Apps

feindura has released version 2.0 of their CMS. feindura is a flat file based CMS, which is made for small websites and web-designers which want to give their clients a neat and simple interface to edit their web site.
This is a major update and brings a complete new interface and features like plugins and add-ons to feindura.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img1-620x346.png" />
feindura is a pure content deliver CMS, which means it is not possible to edit the web sites layout in the feindura backend. This way the web-designer is able to determine the layout, give his clients as much freedom as they need (to add pages and categories), without overwhelming them with too much options. Often CMS add more and more options, which make them very flexible for the user but hard to grasp for non-tech beginners.
Implementation
The pages created in feindura are solely add to the web site through an PHP class, which makes it on the one hand very flexible in how the layout can look like, but on the other hand prevent feindura to mess with the layout itself.
This way its easy to convert any static HTML/CSS website with a few lines of code by adding for example:
<blockquote>
foreach($feindura-&gt;createMenu(‘cat',1,'ul') as $item) echo $item[‘item']
to create a &lt;ul&gt; menu or:
$content = $feindura-&gt;showPage(); echo ‘&lt;h1&gt;'.$content[”title].'&lt;/h1&gt;'; echo $content[‘content']; to show the content of any selected page.
</blockquote>
Plugins
The new feindura version comes also with a plugin feature which allows the user to add additional functionality like an image gallery or a contact form to its pages where ever he wants (using drag'n'drop to place it). And gives developers an easy way to extend functionality of their clients web sites.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img2-620x370.png" />
Add-ons
The feature allows web developers to built complete applications which run inside the feindura backend. This could be a newsletter management system or other website related add-ons. Currently there are no public add-ons available, but you can download an example add-on to get started building your own.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img3-620x239.png" />
Interested in checking it out or getting the latest release? Hit their website: <a href="http://feindura.org/">http://feindura.org/</a>

feindura CMS 2.0 has been Released

The 2014 Adobe Digital Marketing Summit is underway and the two opening keynotes have come to completion. With over 5,500 guests in attendance this year, this has to be one of the biggest conferences we've attended in 2014.
These conferences aren't just about Adobe, however, even though the name would imply as much. They are more about how companies and marketers are having to work together to stay on top of the ever growing digital marketplace. With technology advancing at such a rapid pace nowadays, entire teams have to be dedicated to marketing and the development of strong digital strategies in order to stay competitive.
What we find at these annual summits is that more and more marketers are looking for ways to bring their organizations into the digital world and merge the many silos that exist within their organizations (IT, Marketing, Executive Office, Sales, etc). These conferences help give insight into what some large successful companies are doing and, more importantly, how they are doing it. Sure, the organizations and individuals that are often brought to the stage are in relationships with Adobe but this doesn't make the information any less useful or interesting for marketers using other platforms. There is inspiration in their words and we often leave these sessions feeling energized and ready to tackle new challenges.
There is no doubt that Adobe is at the forefront of innovation when it comes to digital marketing. They are investing enormous amounts of money and time developing their product to suit the needs of massive enterprises such as FedEx, Audi, Condé Nast, SAP to name a few and they are certainly doing a good job at it. Their interface is easy to use, visually attractive and works relatively seamlessly and they are tireless in their desire to continue to advance their product, something that is quite evident year over year.
At this year's summit, we had the pleasure of hearing from a number of innovators and key people that understand the power of marketing such as:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobesummi5t.jpg" alt="Robert Redford Adobe Summit" />
Actor / Director, Robert Redford
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobesummit6.jpg" alt="Richard Sherman Adobe Summit" />
NFL star, Richard Sherman
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/yancey_strickler700x0.jpg" alt="Yancey Strickler, Adobe Summit" />
Yancey Strickler, CEO and Co-Founder of <a href="http://kickstarter.com"> Kickstarter </a>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobesummit2.jpg" alt="Julie Bornstein, CMO Sephora" />
Julie Bornstein, CMO of Sephora
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobesummit4.jpg" alt="Mike Rude Fedex Adobe Summit" />
Mike Rude, Director – Customer Experience Marketing, Fedex
Adobe never fails to impress with the amazing production value and the quality of their speakers. Even as a non-Adobe customer, we can see the incredible value in attending their conference just to stay in tune with the industry and where it's headed.
For those who missed our live tweets during the event, we've put together the highlights from Day 1 of 2 of the General Sessions in the form of a Storify story for your enjoyment featuring some of the best Tweets:
<code>[[storify-adobesummit2014]]</code>
We'll also be sharing some live tweets from the upcoming Adobe Bash featuring a concert by Vampire Weekend! Be sure to stay tuned to our site and <a href="http://twitter.com/cmscritic">follow us on Twitter</a> for the latest CMS Reviews, News and Views on a daily basis. You can also <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/">subscribe to our newsletter</a> to make sure you don't miss any important stories.

Adobe Digital Marketing Summit 2014 - Keynotes

One of the biggest challenges with adopting <a href="https://machalliance.org/mach-technology" target="_blank">MACH</a> (Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native SaaS, Headless) is understanding what you’re in for. After all, going composable and embracing MACH patterns and architectures is not for the faint of heart.
So if you’re seriously considering MACH, is your company prepared for what’s ahead? What resources will you require? And what does success look like?
To help answer some of these foundational questions, the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-expands-advisory-board-launches-new-mach-book-resource/">MACH Alliance</a> – a not-for-profit group that advocates for open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystems – has developed a new <a href="https://machalliance.org/mach-maturity-assessment" target="_blank">MACH Maturity Assessment Tool</a>. This five-minute "quiz" focuses on high-level business considerations instead of just the technical landscape, giving you a quick snapshot of your organization’s MACH readiness.
The online self-assessment provides a step-by-step Q&amp;A that scores your overall readiness to make the MACH shift. The questions focus on six key pillars: Strategy and Transformation, Organization and Governance, Process and Metrics, People and Culture, Technology and Architecture, and Business Intelligence.
I previously chatted with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen/">Casper Rasmussen</a>, President of the MACH Alliance, to ask why this assessment tool is so important.
“What we set as an objective for 2023 is to help buyers make the right decisions,” he said. “We want to clarify the role of MACH and whom it’s for – and this tool plays a vital role in doing that. It allows an organization to gauge its readiness to adopt MACH, but it’s not a technology evaluation. This is a 360-degree view of the actual organizational aspects.”
It’s worth noting that MACH Alliance member Deloitte Digital led the development of this tool, along with a group of Alliance member volunteers and SI reps. The consortium included professionals from commercetools, Capgemini, Apply Digital, Orium, Vuestorefront, Big Commerce, Scaleflex, Vercel, talon.one, Cloudinary, Intive, Bold Commerce, Epam, and Valtech.
<h2>The six dimensions of a MACH-ready business</h2>
The Maturity Assessment questions align with what Casper described as six dimensions of a MACH-ready business – the same dimensions the Alliance has been consistently focused on.
But, as he points out, there’s always a journey element to MACH. Part of that transition is evaluating readiness, but it’s also identifying the gaps to help improve it.
“We’re not expecting companies to be perfect,” he clarified. “Not only do we score based on the answers that brands provide us, but we help them figure out, rectify, and actually improve across the dimensions that might be troublesome or problematic for them. This helps them navigate the journey they are about to embark on.”
The MACH Alliance also released a <a href="https://machalliance.org/thought-leadership/mach-maturity-assessment-whitepaper">white paper</a> covering the six pillars, which pair up to each self-assessment stage. Here’s a brief summary of each dimension:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/07/mach-maturity-diagram-pillars-1024x757.png" alt="MACH Maturity Assessment Diagram" />
<ul>
<li>Strategy and Transformation: As an organization considers a MACH transformation, clearly understanding its business objectives is essential. This initial step of the assessment highlights where a MACH approach may be applicable based on an organization’s current view of transformation across domains and as a whole.</li>
<li>Organization and Governance: This assessment step focuses on the decision-making process and how organizations support rapid change cycles and integrate with multiple external suppliers. MACH may require a business to adapt its operating model or delegate governance around an agreed-upon set of principles. These practices are foundational to supporting an effective MACH transition.</li>
<li>Process and Metrics: As noted in the white paper, any approach to MACH will have “knock-on” effects to process and metrics to support a distributed system of smaller components. Organizations may need to adopt an Agile project management framework, new reporting to span multiple business domains, and business processes for procuring, provisioning, and onboarding external systems.</li>
<li>People and Culture: Having the right distribution of people and frictionless communication between teams is key to a successful MACH transition. These questions focus on an organization’s culture and dynamics, where empowering greater autonomy, collaboration, and personal ownership of decisions can drive success – along with the development of new digital skills.</li>
<li>Technology and Architecture: While the assessment focuses more on business considerations, technology is a cornerstone of MACH and plays a big role in the transition. These questions focus on the shift from large, multi-function systems to more granular components, assessing whether an organization’s engineers and architects are prepared for microservices, APIs, cloud-based systems, and decoupled services.</li>
<li>Business Intelligence: The final stage of the assessment is concerned with optics and KPIs. To achieve and maintain MACH, organizations require tools for analysis and visualization that enable data-driven decisions at technical, operational, and business levels. Also, business intelligence best practices encompass the role of advanced analytics, AI and machine learning, and near-real-time data transparency.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Taking the MACH Maturity Assessment</h2>
Like any objective knowledge-seeker, I took the MACH Maturity Assessment myself.
As billed, I spent just a few minutes from start to finish and found the experience clear, frictionless, and kind of fun. Each question was multiple choice (A/B/C), peppered with intuitive options that use words like “firepower” and “big bang.” This makes the flow easy and highly accessible to business users.
A few questions did meander into techspeak (CI/CD processes, APIs, etc.). As a cloud guy, I easily understood the concepts, but you can pause the assessment and even back up if there are any specific details you need to hunt down. Once completed, you can enter your email address and have the assessment sent to you (not a requirement, BTW).
The final report generates a slick performance chart that maps your maturity as Weak, Immature, Moderate, or Mature. I included mine below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/07/mach-maturity-performance-chart-1024x1018.png" alt="MACH Maturity Assessment diagam" />
I pulled a “Moderate” based on some of my answers, and was given a set of suggestions for improving my performance in the areas that required the most attention. For example, I was stronger in People and Culture but weaker in Business Intelligence – so the tool suggested I invest in improving my ability to track metrics across applications and experiences.
Again, this is a high-level snapshot, so not enough detail to prescribe specific solutions. But certainly enough to plan next steps.
Reviewing my results reminded me of how Casper framed success in our discussion. “The more we can emphasize the potential areas that will end up being problematic and really improve, the better,” he said. “Because it means brands are walking into it eyes wide open.”
<h2>MACHinating the journey ahead</h2>
If you’re considering a transition to MACH – and want an eye-opening experience – I would wholeheartedly recommend the MACH Maturity Assessment. It takes just a few minutes, but it’s a great place to start your journey.
You can access the tool online at <a href="https://machalliance.org/mach-maturity-assessment">https://machalliance.org/mach-maturity-assessment</a>

New MACH Alliance Maturity Assessment Tool Helps Organizations Evaluate Their MACH Readiness

Best Video Experience

Give your audience the best video experience

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<img alt="agile crm app" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-10.png" />
<a href="https://www.agilecrm.com/">Agile CRM</a> has just released their mobile app for iOS (beta) and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=agile.agile.crm&amp;hl=en">Android</a>, making it possible for their users to access their free CRM on the go.
The Agile CRM team recently announced that their platform was now <a href="/agilecrm-free-10-users/">free for up to ten users</a>, so their new app should come in very handy for small businesses and startups who work from the road.
The relatively young platform is winning users from around the world.
<h2>CRM for Mobile: How Agile Are Making it Work</h2>
Agile CRM's mobile app for iOS and Android is a powerful tool that helps marketers and salespeople acquire, retain, and service customers.
<img alt="agile crm app" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-11-1.png" />
Here's a breakdown of the core features found within the app.
<h3>A Simple Dashboard</h3>
The Agile CRM mobile app dashboard gives you quick access to recently viewed contacts, deals and upcoming tasks.
Agile's streamlined mobile dashboard helps you increase sales and track, tag and convert more leads. You can also change your app settings from the dashboard.
<h3>Manage Contacts</h3>
The app also lets you access contact data exactly when you need it.
You can add tags, change lead scores, write notes and check tasks related to your contacts, directly from your mobile device.
<h3>Track Deals, Events, and Tasks</h3>
The app can also be used to <a href="https://www.agilecrm.com/deals">track deals</a>, move relevant milestones, and get a real-time picture of the progress of your leads.
You can also check pending tasks, mark tasks as complete, and create new tasks and events for colleagues to see.
<h3>Google Calendar Sync</h3>
Agile CRM’s app can be integrated with <a href="https://www.agilecrm.com/google-calendar-sync">Google calendars</a> to create a seamless 2-way sync. This enables you and your team to view up-to-date versions of all of your tasks from the calendar within the app.
All in all, this seems like a pretty comprehensive mobile version of Agile CRM, and since it comes at zero cost, it's hard to fault it. It's especially nice to see now that Agile CRM is free for teams as large as ten.
To find out more about the Agile CRM app, <a href="https://www.agilecrm.com/mobile-crm">visit their website</a>. You can <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=agile.agile.crm&amp;hl=en">download it now for Android</a>, but you'll need to wait a short while before it's out of beta on iOS.

CRM for Mobile: The Agile CRM App Goes Live

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

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