What's New in the 20.08 Release of CI360

[lesned]

This release of SAS Customer Intelligence 360 includes the following new features and enhancements.

Enhanced Locking Management

When you edit an input data item or a scenario, it is locked for other users in order to prevent simultaneous edits to the same item or scenario. With this release, users with the Lock Manager role can view all locked input data items or scenarios and have the option to release locks. After a lock is released, another user can open and edit that input data item or scenario. If the user who originally opened the item still has it open and another user opens the item for editing after releasing the lock, the first user cannot save changes.

This new functionality provides greater flexibility to manage cases that are related to concurrent usage. For example, if you open a scenario and then close the browser without closing that scenario, the scenario is locked for a certain period of time. Now, a user with the Lock Manager role can release the lock so that other users can open the scenario and edit it in order to complete desired functions.

(Available in SAS 360 Engage: Optimize)

Filter on Custom and Missing Values

A new option is available that enables you to filter on custom values and include missing values in the filter criteria that are used when defining constraints or suppression rules in scenarios. This option can be useful for a recurring scenario for which the data might change periodically. In that case, you might not want to have to update the scenario every time the data changes.

For example, if the data contains a value that you want to include in your filter criteria, you might choose to add custom values to the filter criteria to support this use case. The filtering functionality also now allows the addition of missing values to any other specified filter values.

These capabilities provide more flexibility in defining filter criteria for constraints or suppression rules in scenarios.

(Available in SAS 360 Engage: Optimize)

Import Scenarios from SAS Marketing Optimization

You can now import scenarios from SAS Marketing Optimization for use within SAS 360 Engage: Optimize. The process is initiated by selecting the import option from the Optimization Scenarios page. After a scenario is imported into SAS Customer Intelligence 360, it can be accessed from the Optimization Scenarios page. This feature makes it easier to use existing SAS Marketing Optimization scenarios in SAS Customer Intelligence 360.

(Available in SAS 360 Engage: Optimize)

Import Failures and Rejections

With this release, customers that encounter processing rejections or failures when importing data can now retrieve the records as part of the response when checking the status of the import through the importRequestsJobs endpoint of the marketingData API. The response of the API call includes signed URL links that you can use to see which records did not successfully process.

(Available in SAS 360 Engage)

Additional Refinements to Publishing Direct Marketing Tasks Separately from Execution

In the 20.03 release (March 2020), a new feature enabled the separation of publishing from execution for an unscheduled direct marketing task. Then, in the 20.04 release (April 2020), another feature enabled the separation of publishing from execution for an unscheduled direct marketing task at the start of an activity map. In this release, enhanced support is now available for scenarios where a direct marketing task is unscheduled and the Never run frequency option has been selected for the scheduling dependency for the segment map in the direct marketing task. Here are the possible results of the interaction of the Never run option with the publishing and execution status of an unscheduled direct marketing task:

• If the segment map has never run (that is, not executed) for a direct marketing task that is published without execution and the dependency setting is Never run, then the direct marketing task is published but is not executed. (A warning message appears, indicating that the execution of the direct marketing task fails if it is attempted before the segment map has been executed.)
• If the segment map has never run (that is, not executed) for a direct marketing task that has been set to Mark Ready and Publish and the dependency setting is Never run, then the direct marketing task is published with a warning message.
• If the segment map has never run (that is, not executed) for a direct marketing task that is published with a schedule and the dependency setting is Never run, then the publish of the direct marketing task is blocked and the Run Now execution option is disabled.

(Available in SAS 360 Engage: Direct)

Commitments and Invoices on the Navigation Bar

You can now enable separate links on the navigation bar, which display exclusive pages for commitments and invoices. The links on the navigation bar can be enabled from General Settings => Plans => Configurations. The table views that list the commitments and invoices enable users to view, edit, and manage commitments and invoices across planning items. The table views display the list of items and provide the same standard functionality as the table views for other items. Standard functionality includes the ability to search items, filter items, save filters, open items, delete items, and rename items. These table views enable users to view, edit, and manage the associated financial transactions across planning items, and makes it easier for users to perform their tasks.

(Available in SAS 360 Plan)

View Approvers in Planning Items List

After you create planning items, you can submit them for approval. The table view for planning items now includes a column for approvers, which enables you to view the approver for any planning item without opening the item. You can also use the advanced filter to filter items by specific approvers.

Filtering by approvers enables you to easily view a list of items that need to be approved by a specific user. For example, if you are an approver, you might want to set up a saved filter, which lists the planning items that require your approval. The Plans table view also enables you to search and filter planning items by other criteria such as codes, statuses, or tags. This makes it more convenient to access approval items from the Plans table view instead of the My Workflows table view. After filtering planning items by approver, you can open any planning item and navigate to the Approvals tab to complete the approval task.

(Available in SAS 360 Plan)

Export Plan Configuration Items

As an administrator, you can now export these items that are configured in General Settings for Plan: financial accounts, cost categories, cost centers, and vendors. You might want to export these items to a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel. Exporting the items to Excel makes it easier for you to edit the metadata for multiple items simultaneously and import the updated sheet. This feature is intended to reduce the time that is required to add or edit the configuration items.

(Available in SAS 360 Plan)