Release Summary - Nov 05, 2024 (24.21)

The following key features and improvements, along with bug fixes, have been released in Algonomy CXP products in the release version 24.21. during Oct 18, 2024 - Nov 05, 2024.

Engage

Enhanced Tags

To support customers whose CMS lacks specific catalog information, we have introduced an Enhanced Tag Mapping feature that allows users to convert regular tags into Enhanced Tags for improved campaign targeting. Through this feature, users can map tags to act as category, brand, or product attribute references, enabling them to be used in affinity sorting within Engage campaigns.

Available on the Tag Manager page, this feature allows optimization managers to select tags and map them directly to categories, brands, or product attributes. For instance, a tag like "Women's Shoes" can be mapped to act as "category:1234," or a color tag like "red" can be mapped as "attribute:color." The Enhanced Tag Mapping tab provides auto-complete suggestions to streamline setup and lets users create, view, or remove tag associations. This capability enhances targeting flexibility, especially for users with limited catalog access, and displays special characters accurately within the Tag Manager.

Jira: ENG-28706, ENG-29021

Data Engineering, MVT

Find MVT Enhancements: Exclude Region and Base Search Configurations from Testing

To ensure more focused and relevant testing, the Find MVT configuration has been updated to prevent region-based and base search configurations from being included in multivariate tests. This adjustment is designed to prevent clients from inadvertently disabling search functionality for a portion of users during testing.

Key changes:

  • Region options are now excluded from Find configuration tests as they are not applicable for Find.

  • Default enabled configurations for search are hidden from the test setup, ensuring clients can only test among alternate configurations (e.g., Configuration 1 vs. Configuration 2) without impacting core search functionality.

Jira: ENG-29166

Ensemble AI

Ensemble AI: Preview Outfits Across Styles

Merchandisers can now preview personalized outfits for a shopper based on user affinity, helping assess the effectiveness of personalization across different styles. By entering a user ID (such as RR User Guid, External Session Id, or External User Id) and a product ID, merchandisers can view re-ranked outfit suggestions tailored to the shopper's affinity scores.

Key capabilities:

  • Filter outfits by Style Status (Enabled or All).

  • Display relevant outfit categories from all styles, including manually added products.

  • Search for seed products across the catalog and show style names in outfit previews to mirror the shopper’s experience.

Jira: ENG-27898

Ensemble AI: Privacy Mode in Outfit Personalization

Ensemble AI now respects user consent settings by allowing a privacy mode parameter, "privm," in its API calls. With this feature, merchandisers can prevent outfit personalization for users who do not consent to behavioral data tracking. When the "privm=true" parameter is included in an Ensemble AI API call, user affinity data is ignored, ensuring non-personalized outfit recommendations.

This update applies to both client-facing and portal APIs, supporting privacy preferences in server-side and client-side integrations.

Jira: ENG-28939

Other Feature Enhancements

The following feature enhancements and upgrades have been made in the release version 24.21 during Oct 18, 2024 - Nov 05, 2024.

Jira #

Module/Title

Summary

General Availability

ENG-28699

MVT:

MVT - Preview Available Before and After Test Period

To enhance the testing experience, a new preview feature is introduced for Multivariate Tests (MVT). Digital Optimization Managers can now preview test variations before the test activation date and after test completion or cancellation, ensuring variations are functioning as intended without requiring the test to be live.

Previews can be accessed up to 7 days before the test starts and up to 14 days after the test expires, allowing for thorough checks of each treatment configuration.

05-Nov-24

ENG-25686

Ensemble AI:
Ensemble AI Style Performance Reporting

 

Ensemble AI style reporting now includes key metrics at both the style and outfit levels, allowing merchandisers to track performance trends over time. This enhancement provides metrics like Clicks, Orders, Attributable Sales, Conversion Rate, RPV, and AOV, with dimensions such as Date, Channel, Region, and Currency.

The report offers insights on top-performing styles, enabling merchandisers to spot trends and optimize style selections to boost engagement and revenue.

Note: The rollup is complete, but the report is not yet available in the UI.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29221

 

Enterprise Dashboard:

Alphabetical Sorting for DSW Strategies in Configurable Strategies

 

To enhance usability for merchandisers, DSW strategies within Configurable Strategies are now sorted alphabetically. This update streamlines the process of locating specific strategies, making it quicker and more efficient for users to find and apply the desired configurations.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29302

Enterprise Dashboard:

Inline Display of Recommendation Images in Recs Test Drive

To improve usability for email recommendations, images in the Recs Test Drive are now displayed inline, allowing users to view all recommendations at a glance.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29116

Enterprise Dashboard:

Enhanced Feedback for Seed and Rec Fetching in Advanced Merchandising

The Advanced Merchandising UI now offers clearer feedback when fetching products for Seeds and Recs. A loading indicator displays during /getSeeds and /getRecs calls, ensuring users are aware that data is being retrieved. Additionally, if these calls time out, the UI provides a timeout message and an option to retry the call, helping users ensure they are viewing accurate, up-to-date products.

05-Nov-24

ENG-28294

Data Engineering:

Enhanced Visit Schema for Ensemble AI Reporting

 

The visit schema has been updated to enhance Ensemble AI reporting by capturing style and outfit details viewed and clicked by shoppers. This update enables more precise tracking, attributing purchases to specific styles and outfits. Style and outfit parameters are now recorded for both views and clicks, supporting detailed insights into shopper engagement with Ensemble AI collections.

05-Nov-24

ENG-28533

Find:

Discover Call Separation for Reporting and Billing

 

Discover API requests within the "new discover on find stack" have now been separated from Find requests for accurate reporting and billing. Since Discover operates on a flat fee model, while Find is billed based on request volume, this enhancement ensures precise data segmentation for billing and analytics, with all data routed through Avro for reporting consistency.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29345

Disable Supporting Index Job Trigger

The dashboard now includes an option to disable the trigger for new supporting index jobs, enabling better control over index builds. Supporting indexes can still be created successfully for both batch and streaming clients as expected.

05-Nov-24

ENG-26341

Recommend:

DSW Workflow Engine Migration from Oozie to Airflow

 

The DSW workflow engine has been migrated from Oozie to Airflow, specifically impacting the relevant StrategyFeed workflow. This enhancement streamlines the workflow process, aligning with the other major Oozie workflows as part of the transition.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29035

Enterprise Dashboard:

Allow non suggested values for attributes in Rec Restriction and Advanced Merchandising rules

Users can now manually enter attribute values for Rec Restriction and Advanced Merchandising rules without relying solely on auto-suggestions. This enhancement addresses intermittent autocomplete API timeouts experienced by users with large catalogs, allowing unrestricted attribute input by pressing ENTER.

05-Nov-24

PLAT-3940

Streaming Catalog:

Establish Dedicated Kafka Partition for Solar Streaming Sites

A dedicated partition in Kafka has been established to streamline data flow for select Solar production sites migrating from "Feed" to "Streaming." All updates for these sites will now route through this specific partition on the streaming.engine.in and streaming.engine.out topics, enhancing data management and processing efficiency.

11-Nov-24

Bug and Support Fixes

The following issues have been fixed in the release version 24.21 during Oct 18, 2024 - Nov 05, 2024.

Jira #

Module/Title

Summary

 

ENG-29321

Find:

Batch Catalog Index Failure Resolved

 

Some catalog index deployments were failing due to an indexing error in Solr 9, resulting in missing catalog indexes. The error was related to offset values in the search_product_description field, which needed to follow specific constraints. This issue has now been fixed, and catalog indexes are being deployed successfully.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29338

Production CatalogEmbedding Job Failure Resolved

 

The CatalogEmbedding job in production was failing due to missing parameters in the trigger command. Specifically, the command needed -b postgres for query vector embeddings and -d full -b postgres for Find catalog embeddings. The DAG code was updated to include these parameters, ensuring proper execution. The issue has now been resolved, and the jobs are functioning as expected.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29273

Enterprise Dashboard:

Dashboard Display Issue with Special Characters Resolved

The Dashboard UI was updated to correctly display special characters, such as apostrophes, ensuring accurate representation of all text elements. The issue has been fixed now.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29293

Updated Label for Multiple Conditions in Merchandising Rules

 

In Merchandising rules, the label has been adjusted to accurately reflect the logical relationship between multiple conditions. Previously, the label displayed "AND," implying a combined condition, but each condition is treated independently. The label now correctly represents this setup, reducing potential confusion.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29245

Fix for NullPointerException with Missing Child Category in Primary Categories

 

A NullPointerException occurred when attempting to populate primary categories with missing child category information. This issue has now been resolved, ensuring stable API responses even when child categories are absent.

05-Nov-24

ENG-28614

Engage:

Fixes for Targeting by Product in Context Builder

An issue affecting product name targeting in Dynamic Experience (DXP) campaigns has been resolved. Previously, products with special characters, such as pipes in their names, and non-recommendable products with "(N/A)" appended, failed to match correctly. This fix addresses the encoding problem for names with pipes, ensuring accurate matching for targeted products in the front end.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29263

Find:

Fix for Find Deployer J11 Status API and Service Context Path

The Find Deployer J11 status API and service context path have been updated to address functionality issues. This fix ensures that the Find-deployer operates as expected.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29332

 

Find:

Fix for Find filter that was not working in Solr 9

The "Find Filter" functionality was not working as expected in Solr 9. Users experienced issues where the filter failed to return accurate or any results when applied to queries. This impacted search accuracy and overall query performance.

The issue has been addressed with the necessary updates to the Language Service and Solr configurations. The Find Filter is now functioning correctly in Solr 9.

05-Nov-24

ENG-29337

 

Find:

Fix for bug in nested query component in Solr 9.

A bug was identified with the nested query component in Solr 9, which impacted query processing and resulted in incorrect or incomplete results when using nested queries. To resolve the issue, updates were made to the Language Service configuration. This bug has now been resolved.

05-Nov-24