What's New in the 17.09 Release of CI360

[CItechwriter]

Here's what's new in the 17.09 release of SAS Customer Intelligence 360.

 

SAS 360 Discover New Features and Enhancements

Expansion of Identity Events

Send identity events to Discover with an API call

In many situations, website developers might find it difficult to send the correct page values to SAS 360 Discover to trigger an identity event. With this release, users can now send identity events directly to SAS 360 Discover using the generic events JavaScript API. This new event type enables users to more easily embed identity events in their web pages (including single-page applications) and send more precise attributes to define those identities.

SAS 360 Engage New Features and Enhancements

Creatives

New HTML editor for HTML creatives

There is a new HTML editor for creatives that preserves the HTML code that you enter. No additional formatting code is added by the system. The editor provides undo, redo, and find and replace options to help you create HTML code. In addition, you can add images by specifying a URL or by selecting assets from the digital library. You can view your updates to the creative in the right pane of the dialog box by clicking Update Preview.

HTML Editor

Spots

Copy spots

When you create a spot, you can start with a copy of an existing spot. Starting with a copy enables you to create spots without manually re-creating some of the spot properties such as attributes and default content. The copy option is not available for spot sets.

Tasks and Activities

Add events as metrics in tasks and activities

You can add events as well as data views as primary and secondary metrics in tasks and activities. When you define primary or secondary metrics, you can add multiple events, data views, or a combination of events and data views. This enhancement gives you more flexibility in tracking specific metrics of interest.

Access

Manage agents

You can manage agents and agent credentials that help control the processing of data between SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and your site. The agents can be saved in a ZIP file to a file directory in an on-site environment or in a private cloud environment.

Analytics

Addition of product-centric recommendations

There is a new way to deliver recommendations. In addition to the user-centric option, there is now a product-centric option that bases recommendations solely off of the product. Using product-based recommendations when little is known about visitors enables you to deliver recommendations associated with the product rather than behavior.

The steps for creating product-centric recommendation tasks are similar to those used to create user-centric recommendation tasks. Create a web task, choose a spot, and select recommendations as the method to generate content. When you select the new product-centric option, you are prompted to choose a product identifier that identifies a product and the event that defines a product view.

Assets

View details of batch upload job

When you upload multiple assets, you can check the status of the upload job in the job information dialog box. In this release, you can view details for each submitted job to get more information about the status of each asset that was submitted. This additional information helps you identify the cause of any errors or warnings so that you can take corrective action. In the View Details dialog box for a job, you can also download an import summary report to get details about each asset.

Batch Upload Details

Data Hub

New mobile attributes in targeting

For mobile marketing, you can now choose additional mobile attributes based on the consumer. These new attributes are found in the Browser and Device options list in the Targeting selection dialog box. You can now select Mobile App Version, Mobile Device Model, Mobile Device Manufacturer, and Mobile Network Code.

Mobile Attributes

Email

Set up recurrence for your email task

To support recurring communications, email marketers can now set up a recurring task schedule that sends emails on a periodic basis. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 enables you to set up daily and weekly email tasks that run at a specified time of day or day of the week.

Select Recurring Schedule

Select Recurrence Details

Design email content with multi-column layout

Email marketers might need to communicate multiple offers to an audience using a diverse set of creatives. Often these creatives need to be in pairs (for example, an image and corresponding text, a set of two images, or two or more HTML snippets) that are placed side by side in an email. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 now enables you to use multiple columns in your layout. For readability, you can place no more than five columns in a single row.

Within a single column, you can vertically place as many creatives as needed to make your message look clean and clear. You can also individually set CSS properties for every multi-column block.

Execution Engine

Integrating with content management systems

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 can now integrate with third-party content management systems (CMS). The integration enables you to select HTML assets from a CMS and add them as a creative in SAS Customer Intelligence 360. Tasks can use these creatives for targeting to customers on websites and in apps and emails.

The CMS integration requires a plug-in that is created with an agent SDK (Software Developer Kit). The SDK enables SAS Customer Intelligence 360 to share data with third-party systems and services.

This new feature enables delivery of standardized HTML assets from a third-party CMS to websites, apps, and emails. Customers will experience more consistent interactions.

External Applications

Managing on-premises applications

You can now manage on-premises applications that send external events to SAS Customer Intelligence 360. The ID for each application must match the configuration for the application’s on-premises agent.

Mobile

Set up recurrence for your mobile push notification

To support recurring communications, mobile marketers can now set up a recurring task schedule that pushes messages on a periodic basis. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 enables you to set up daily and weekly tasks that run at the specified time of day or day of the week.

Use focus and defocus events in targeting mobile tasks and in triggering mobile in-app messages

You can now select focus or defocus events when you add targeting to a task. You can then choose an attribute such as the Mobile Application ID.

Select Focus and Defocus Events

Use Focus Event in Targeting

For a mobile in-app task, you can now use the focus event as a trigger for an in-app task and use attributes such as Mobile Application ID.

Select Focus Event as Trigger

Specify Attribute Conditions

Web

Ability to enter selector manually

You are no longer required to select a page element in an inline browser before you can add a selector path. If you know what elements are on the page, you can manually enter the selector. A warning advises you if the element cannot be found, but you can still create the spot or event.

Enter Selector

Selector Warning