Lithium 13.7 enables you to make server-side REST API calls to external services and supports endpoints so you can create dynamic content at specified URLs. 13.7 also includes enhancements to Studio Publish and search indexing of attached files. Finally, this release includes some new features, usability improvements, and a new author report for Lithium Social Web.
New Features and Enhancements
Lithium Communities
- Now GA: Http.client Context Object
- Now GA: Studio endpoints
- Studio Publish improvements
- Improved search indexing of attached files
- HTML 5 video player support
- @Mentions available as an open beta
Lithium Social Web
- Improved agent profile customization
- Portuguese language support
- New Author report
- Direct links to Tribal Knowledge Base
- Improved way to apply sentiment tags
Lithium Communities
http.client Context Object now GA
The http.client FreeMarker context object, introduced as a beta release in release 13.4, is now generally available to all customers. You can read about http.client in the 13.4 release notes. Http.client enables you to make server-side REST API calls to external services, such as Salesforce and SurveyGizmo. While client-side logic is subject to cross-domain and browser compatibility issues, server-side calls provide more reliable and secure integrations with third-party applications and services. Currently http.client methods are used only with Studio Endpoints.
While you will do most of your work with the http.client context object in FreeMarker code in the Studio Endpoints tab, Community Admin includes fields in in Community Admin > System > HTTP Client to configure SSL certification and domain information for your server-side logic.
For details, including use cases and examples, refer to these articles:
- http.client FreeMarker context object
- http.client.reponse FreeMarker context object
- Using the http.client context object to integrate with a third-party REST API
Studio endpoints now GA
The Endpoints feature is now generally available to all customers. Endpoints enable you to create dynamic content at a specified URL. You can think of an endpoint as a custom REST API call that marshals the information from multiple REST calls into a single response, improving the performance over making each call separately.
The Endpoints feature is enabled by default and available from the Endpoints tab in Studio.
For more information about endpoints, refer to these articles:
- Using Endpoints to Condense REST API Calls
- Working with Lithium Studio Endpoints
- Using the http.client context object to integrate with a third-party REST API
Studio Publish improvements
We have made two improvements to Studio Publish.
Previously, when you viewed pending changes to your production environment in the Studio Publish Preview mode, you could accidentally leave Preview mode by clicking certain community links. Now, regardless of the links you follow, you remain in Preview mode until you explicitly click exit preview and return to publishing in the page banner.
Studio Publish is no longer disabled when the stage and productions environments are on different versions during upgrades. You can now publish to your production environment during an upgrade, but you must be very careful about publishing under certain circumstances.
Important: If you have a new feature on your stage server (for example, one introduced in 13.6) and that feature doesn’t exist in the version on your production server (for example, 13.5), publishing that feature could break your production environment.
In this scenario, do not self publish from your stage to production environment until you have confirmation from your Lithium support team that your production environment has been upgraded to the version that supports the new feature.
Improved search indexing of attached files
Community search now indexes attachments for newer versions of common file types, including PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and PDF (later then 2009). When searching the community, search terms found in these attached files are returned in your search results.
HTML 5 video player support
Videos hosted in the community (using Ooyala) now use the latest Ooyala player (v3), which supports video playback on all mobile devices and desktop browsers.
Note: Videos included in posts still under moderation, which normally appear in a private mode to community moderators and admins, still use the v2 player. As such, these videos are not viewable in mobile devices to these users until they are approved.
All Ooyala customers get this change automatically on upgrade.
@Mentions available as an open beta
With @Mentions, users can call out specific users in their posts and invite them to join the conversation or acknowledge their contributions. When users are @mentioned in posts, they are sent emails to let them know. Refer to the 13.3 and 13.5 Release Notes for more information.
@Mentions is now in open beta and available to everyone.
To enable @mentions:
- Go to Community Admin > Features > @Mentions.
- Click Turn on @Mentions.
- If desired, change the Number of @mentions allowed per post value.
- Click Save.
Lithium Social Web
Improved agent profile customization
Agents can upload a personal avatar to their profile as well as choose the preferred language to display in LSW.
Portuguese language support
The Lithium Social Web user interface is now available in Portuguese.
New Author report
The New Author report includes a list of authors who have posted to your company/brand during the specified time period. This report helps identify your most engaged customers and provides lots of author details, including social network handles, conversations they've engaged in, author tags, author notes, and more.
Direct links to Tribal Knowledge Base
Agent responses that point to Tribal Knowledge Base articles now link directly to those articles and no longer require the author to first click through to the Response Portal.
Improved way to apply Sentiment tags
You can now apply Sentiment tags (negative, neutral, and positive) to posts directly from the Available queue, without having to claim the associated conversation.
You Found It. We Fixed It.
- We have relaxed our file upload validation whitelisting so you can upload any file type to Studio plugins or Admin file upload fields. As a result, Admin and Studio no longer throw a file mismatch error when you try to upload specific file types (for example, .owl, .js, .json, .zip). (Community)
- @mentions notifications are now being sent to users who don’t have bypass moderation permissions. When as user is @mentioned, the notification is sent as soon as the content with the @mention has been approved by a moderator. (Community)
- You can now upload users from encrypted csv files that end with the .csv.pgp or .csv.gpg extentions. (Community)
- When using Q&A Post Message, the board drop-down node now displays in the same order as in the community structure. (Community)
- Posts from Windows Phone 8 devices are now properly identified in the when users post using one of these devices. (Community)
- Admin settings are no longer missing in Contests v3. (Community)
- Prior to 13.7, if you ran a community search and the search field included pre-populated text (for example, “Search the community”), you would get results including the pre-populated terms. Now, community searches do exclude the pre-populated terms, so if you don’t enter a search term and click Search, you now perform a blank search. (Community)
