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Aptify e-Business 5.5 Release Notes

Owned by admin (Deactivated)
Last updated: Jun 08, 2016
40 min read

First published March 2012.

This document contains the release notes for Aptify e-Business version 5.5. The new features, resolved issues, and notes in Aptify e-Business version 5.5 are found in the following sections:

Important Notes

Note to Clients Using Dot Net SMTP Client Message System

Aptify 5.5 added a new message system called Dot Net SMTP Client, which supports authenticated SMTP servers. This new message system uses a comma separator to distinguish between multiple email addresses whereas the original Dot Net Mail Message System (which Aptify continues to support in 5.5) uses a semi-colon separator.

With e-Business 5.5 and earlier, the Send eBusiness Order Confirmation Email process flow assumes that you are using the Dot Net Mail message system. When reviewing an order confirmation page, a Web User has the option of specifying one or more recipients for a confirmation email. The page instructions the Web User to separate email addresses with a comma. In the Parse Email step of that process flow, the system converts any comma from the email address list into a semi-colon for processing by the Dot Net Mail message system.

However, this step is not appropriate for installations that are using the Dot Net SMTP Client rather than the Dot Net Mail client. If your organization is using the new Dot Net SMTP Client, follow these steps to update the Send eBusiness Order Confirmation Email process flow so that it can send multiple emails using the new message system:

  1. Login to Aptify as an administrator.
  2. Open the Send eBusiness Order Confirmation Email process flow.
  3. Select the Send Email step and review the value for the step's Message System property. If set to Dot Net Mail, then no additional steps are required. If set to Dot Net SMTP Client, then continue to step 4.
  4. Select the Parse Emails step and click the Rule tab in the Properties grid.
  5. Comment out the following line by adding an apostrophe before the first letter. This will prevent Aptify from converting the comma to a semi-colon if you are using the Dot Net SMTP Client message system: EmailAddressString = EmailAddressString.Replace(",", ";")

     
     
  6. Save and close the Process Flow.

Notes Concerning Starter Message Templates

In e-Business 5.5, every client who plans to use the Starter Message Template functionality will need to modify the template or create their own since the starter templates provided are Aptify-themed (images, website links, message appearance, and company names all need to be modified). While modifying the template, review the Message Parts referenced within the Message Template to verify that they link to the correct Message Parts record in your Aptify system. For example, the New Message Alert templates for sending out discussion forum alerts contain a link to the Current Discussion Forum Messages message part as follows:


APTIFY_PART9 "Current Discussion Forum Messages"
If the Current Discussion Forum Messages message part on your system is not Message Part ID 9, then you need to update the Message Template to refer to the correct Message Part ID. So, if the Current Discussion Forum Messages message part is ID 16 on your system, you would update the message template's HTML to read as follows for the part reference:
_APTIFY_PART16 "Current Discussion Forum Messages"

New Features

New features have been added to the following areas in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Redesigned Sample Site

Aptify e-Business 5.5 includes a redesigned e-Business sample site for the Sitefinity 4.4 platform. This sample site is for a fictitious association, International Coffee Executives (ICE), and better showcases the e-Business controls and functionality than previous iterations of the sample site. Note that Aptify e-Business 5.5 also includes the ASP.NET sample site, which leverages the same underlying user controls as the ICE site.
Highlights of the ICE theme sample site include:

  • New sample theme and style sheets
  • Redesigned pages with new and updated controls in these areas:
    • Home Page
    • New User/Edit Profile Pages
    • Shopping Pages (Store home page, Product Catalog page, Product page)
    • Meeting Pages (Meeting grid and Meeting page)
  • To support an improved look and overall site presentation, text on the ICE site uses the Segoe UI font family
  • Profile and other controls use Update Panels for an improved browsing experience
     

Important Note

To install the new ICE site, you need to install Sitefinity 4.4 and then the e-Business site, as described in Installing the e-Business Sitefinity Sample Site. Aptify does not provide a utility to upgrade an existing Sitefinity 4.0 SP1 sample site (as released with e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3) to use this new sample site. 

(Issue 12201 and others)

Framework

The following features were added to the Framework application in Aptify e-Business 5.5.

Streamline Bin

In e-Business 5.0 SP3, some clients may experience longer loading times due to the large number of objects included in the bin. In addition, some users may experience debugging issues with the website in Visual Studio 2010 due to the presence of certain DLLs. With e-Business 5.5, Aptify deploys a streamlined set of files to the website's Bin folder so it encapsulates only the functionality used by the out-of-the-box user controls and clients can add additional DLLs to the list as needed.

The set of Aptify Object Repository Objects required by e-Business are specified in the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record. Whenever you run the Object Repository Synchronizer utility against an eBusiness website, you should choose the Specify a Sync Repository Objects Record option and select and the e-Business entry (or your site's Sync Repository Objects record if you create one, as described below).




Note that the set of objects in the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record represents the objects required by a baseline e-Business installation. Depending on the controls you have developed and the types of configurations you have applied to the site, you may find that your site fails to load due to missing objects. In that case, you should:

  1. Identify the name of the missing object. The exception recorded to the Error Log should identify the name of a missing file.
  2. Locate the missing file in the Aptify Program Files folder from a computer that connects to your database with the Aptify Windows client.
  3. Copy the missing file to the web site's Bin folder.
  4. Launch the site again. Repeat steps 1 through 3 until you resolve all of the missing file errors and the site loads as expected.
    • Typically it will be a manual, iterative process to identify missing files. In other words, as you resolve one missing file error, you may then encounter the next missing file error. Also, you may not learn of a missing file until you browse to a particular page. So, be sure to test all of your pages prior to go-live.
  5. Log in to Aptify as an administrator and browse to the Object Repository application.
  6. Open a new record in the Sync Repository Objects service. If the service does not appear in the application, you may need to add it from the Application Services selection dialog.
  7. Clone the e-Business Sync Repository Objects record. Before saving, change the name of the new record (for example, by adding your organization's abbreviations as a prefix).
  8. After saving the record, click the Sync Repository Object Files tab and add the files required by your website to the list of objects. (That is, add all of the files you had to manually drop into the web site's Bin folder in steps 1 to 4 above.)
  9. Anytime you need to run the Object Repository Synchronizer to update your site's Bin folder with the latest object, select the Specify a Sync Repository Objects Record option and choose your organization's e-Business Sync Repository Objects record so all of the objects for your site are updated as expected.

(Issue 11318)

Support 64-Bit Application Pool

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify's e-Business supports running the e-Business application pool in 64-bit mode on 64-bit hardware. In other words, with e-Business 5.5, you can run the e-Business application pool with the Enable 32-Bit Applications option set to False.
(Issue 11403)

New Footer Control Replaces Static Content Placeholder for Footer Menus

Currently in e-Business, the Sitefinity footer control is static based on content block, which may not be the ideal architecture configuration. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify converts the Sitefinity control from static to a footer control and pulls menus from the "web menus" entity similar to what is being used for navigation, providing a more flexible solution. The ICE site demonstrates the use of this footer control.
(Issue 12396)

Add Support for Synchronizing Aptify Groups with Sitefinity Roles in SSO Model

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify includes updates to the Aptify and Sitefinity 4 integration to synchronize a Sitefinity user's roles with the corresponding User Groups in Aptify. Updates to the overall workflow are as follows:

  • Aptify includes a new check box on the User Link tab for the Content Management Systems record called "Synchronize Groups". This check box allows an administrator who wants to synchronize Sitefinity roles with Aptify Web Groups to do the following:
    • Create Web Groups in Aptify
    • Create Roles in Sitefinity that have the same name as the Web Groups in Aptify

    • Check the Synchronize Groups box on the Sitefinity Content Management Systems record.
       

      Note

      Aptify supports the use of the Synchronize Groups check box only for the Sitefinity CMS in e-Business 5.5. This option is not applicable to the Aptify/Ektron integration

  • When the Synchronize Groups option is checked, if a Web User creates a new account in Aptify, it automatically creates a new user account in Sitefinity.
    • The e-Business and Sitefinity integration automatically adds the new Sitefinity user to the roles that correspond to the groups in Aptify.
  • If an existing Sitefinity user is linked to an existing Aptify Web User, then the Sitefinity user's role updates automatically.
  • Each time a Web User logs into the e-Business site and then into Sitefinity, the e-Business/Sitefinity single sign on (SSO) integration resynchronizes the Sitefinity roles with the user's current Web Groups.
    • This means, removing the user from roles if the user is no longer linked to the corresponding Web Group, or adding the user to roles he/she is not already in if the user is now in a corresponding Web Group.
    • The only exception to this is the built-in Sitefinity administrator role. The e-Business/Sitefinity integration does not set or modify a user's membership in the administrator role.

(Issue 12416)

Provide Support for Grid View Pagination

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business supports the ability to create multiple pages for grids that have multiple entries that you do not want to display on screen in one long list. As a user navigates across the pages of the grid, the grid area refreshes but not the entire page. Aptify has added paging support to all Aptify User Controls that render a grid. The default page size is 10, and it is defined in the site's Skin file if you want to specify a different page size. The page size defined in the Skin file applies to all of the grids for the Aptify User Controls used in your site, unless you disable it at the specific control level. Also, you can modify the Skin file's settings as needed to format the appearance of alternating rows, the header/footer style, and the row style for all of the grids in the controls and sample site. Note that certain controls that act upon selections in a grid have pagination disabled, including: the Shopping Cart grid, Download products grid and Forum Subscriptions grid.
(Issue 12436, See Also Issue 11032)

Set Application Pool to e-Business After Install

When the e-Business setup program installs either of the sample sites, it creates an e-Business application pool as part of the install process. However, the setup program doesn't configure the new site to use that app pool in all cases. Beginning with 5.5, the installer sets the application pool to the new or existing e-Business app pool after a sample site is installed.
(Issue 12765)

Updates to Non-CMS Site to Showcase New Controls

With the introduction of the ICE site in e-Business 5.5, Aptify has developed new controls and updated existing controls to provide an updated user experience. Since Aptify leverages the same user controls on the ASP.NET site, we have modified the design and layout of the ASP.NET site to accommodate the formatting and style latest controls. The most significant change from e-Business 5.0 SP3 release is that the ASP.NET site's Web menu is now horizontal across the top of the page rather than vertical across the right side.
(Issue 12580)

Usability Updates for Web User Related Data

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business provides a number of updates to the Persons Records, Web Users Records, and Person External Accounts to improve the overall usability of these records. These updates include:

  • A new list view appears at the bottom of the Person External Accounts form that provides an easy way to identify and access the Persons record associated with the Person External Accounts record.
  • The addition of Basic Search criteria for the Person External Accounts entity so you can search for records based on Person External Account ID, Web User ID, or Web User Name.
  • A new Person External Accounts tab on the Web Users record that displays a list view with the Person External Accounts linked to this Web User.
  • A new read-only "Record Last Updated" field on the Web Users form's General tab that identifies the date and time when the Web User's information was last updated.
  • The addition of Basic Search criteria for the Web Users entity so you can search for records based on Web User name (that is the Web Users.User ID field), the linked Person's name (First/Last format), the Web User's company, or the Web User's email address.
  • A new Web User button appears on the right side of the Persons record to provide easy access to the person's Web Users record.



  • This button does not appear on a new Persons record. It only appears on saved records.
  • Clicking the button opens the person's Web Users record.
  • If the person has multiple Web Users records, Aptify opens a list view in a new window that displays the Web Users records linked to the person.
  • If the person does not have a Web User record when you click the button, Aptify displays a prompt asking if you want to create a new Web User for the person:



  • If you select Yes, Aptify opens a new Web Users form and prepopulates the relevant fields with information from the Persons record, as shown in the example below:



(Issue 12562)

Remove Sitefinity Quick Links Controls from New Sample Site But Continue to Support Them

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business removes the Sitefinity Quick Links (AptifyNavBar and AptifyDetailedNavList) from the new ICE site since that control does not fit with the current template design. However, these controls are still available in the User Controls\Aptify_General folder for use on your Sitefinity site, if desired. Note that these controls are specifically designed for use with Sitefinity 4.x.
(Issue 12415)

Show Photo on Profile Page and Allow Users to Upload Photos

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business 5.5 supports adding a person's photo to the profile page of a Persons record. It also allows a Web User to upload a photo to the profile, either for the first time or replace an existing photo. In addition, Web Users who synchronize their e-Business account with their LinkedIn profile can choose to automatically use their LinkedIn photo for e-Business by checking the "Use my social networking photo for this profile" option found on the e-Business profile page. Note that the maximum supported size for a photo upload is 2 MB. The photo sizing criteria is managed using the following attributes, which are standard properties for websites based on ASP.NET:

  • maxRequestLength: This attribute sets the maximum file upload size supported by ASP.NET. The limit can be used to prevent denial of service attacks by preventing users from posting large files to the server
  • maxAllowedContentLength: This attribute sets the maximum file upload size for the IIS server. See Download Social Media Photo to Persons Record (LinkedIn Implementation) for details.

(Issue 11265, 11258, and 12414)

Reduce Size of Session Objects

Within e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, an e-Business user's session object stored all of the fields from the corresponding Web Users record, Persons record, and that person's linked Companies record. While the information available within the session is comprehensive, much of it is not necessary and the presence of excess data can impact performance.
Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify has modified the session object so that it only contains the fields required by the standard e-Business site. The set of fields that are added to the session object are defined in the spGetEBusinessWebUserDetails stored procedure. Note that depending on your website and the configurations you've applied, this stored procedure may not populate the session object with all of the fields your site requires. If you encounter this situation, follow these steps to define your own stored procedure:

  1. Using the spGetEBusinessWebUserDetails stored procedure as your starting point, create a new Database Objects record in Aptify that retrieves the additional fields required by your web site.
  2. In the Web Users entity, update the Value for the GetEBusinessWebUserDetailsStoredProcedure entity attribute to point to the new Database Object you created in Step 1.

(Issue 12545)

Modify Session Object Behavior So Web User Password Is Not Stored Unencrypted

Currently in Aptify e-Business, when a Web User logs into e-Business, Aptify stores information about that user in the Session object. One field stored in the session is the Web User's password, and the password is not encrypted (in plain text). In the event that a malicious individual managed to hack into the session, they would have access to the Web User's password. Beginning with Aptify e-Business 5.5, a Web User's password is no longer stored in the session object (it is not a value retrieved by the spGetEBusinessWebUserDetails; see Reduce Size of Session Objects for details.
(Issue 12547)

Eliminate Application Object Link to Session Object

In previous versions of e-Business when a user is logged in, their information is stored in an ASP.NET Session. In addition a link is created between the Session object and the Application Object. Unfortunately this link prevents the Session Object from being released when the session expires. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify eliminates the link between the Application and Session Objects to improve performance and updates the system configuration to allow the Session Object to be collected at the end of the session.
(Issue 12582)

e-Business: Login via LinkedIn Using Profile ID Token

In e-Business 5.0 SP3, single sign on support with LinkedIn leverages the Web User password stored in the user's session object. However, beginning with e-Business 5.5, the Web User's password is no longer stored in the session object (see Modify Session Object Behavior So Web User Password Is Not Stored Unencrypted for details). Therefore, Aptify has modified the LinkedIn single sign-on functionality so that it retrieves the Web User's password as needed.
(Issue 12866)

Content Management Systems

The following features were added the Content Management Systems application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Support for Sitefinity Version 4.4

With e-Business 5.5, Aptify certifies support for Sitefinity version 4.4. Also, the redesigned e-Business sample site for Sitefinity (the International Coffee Executives theme) requires Sitefinity 4.4.
(Issue 11171)

Ektron Integration Object for Ektron 8.0.2.35

Aptify e-Business 5.5 includes an Ektron integration object that is compatible with Ektron version 8.0.2.35. Aptify has previously provided the object to clients using this version of Ektron. Each version of Ektron releases new DLLs that are incompatible with earlier versions of Ektron. Therefore, each time a new version of Ektron is released, the Aptify e-Business/Ektron Integration may fail if the Aptify integration object is targeting an older version of Ektron. Note that Aptify supports Ektron 8.0.2.35 only for existing sites that are upgrading to e-Business 5.5. The latest e-Business controls assume ASP.NET 4.0., so you may experience errors when working with e-Business controls on Ektron 8.0.2.35 sites and earlier, which use ASP.NET 2.0. For new sites, Aptify supports Ektron 8.5 with e-Business 5.5. Ektron 8.5 uses ASP.NET 4.0. See the Integrating with a Content Management System chapter in the Aptify e-Business Developers Guide for information on the integration features Aptify offers with Ektron. (Issue 11427)

CMS Integration Support for Ektron 8.5

Each version of Ektron releases new DLLs that are incompatible with earlier versions of Ektron. Therefore, each time a new version of Ektron is released, the Aptify e-Business/Ektron Integration may fail if the Aptify integration object is targeting an older version of Ektron. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify supports Ektron 8.5. Note that Aptify also recommends that any new Ektron installs that integrate with Aptify be version 8.5 since Ektron 8.5 uses ASP.NET 4.0 and certain Aptify e-Business controls assume a site is using ASP.NET 4.0.

See the Integrating with a Content Management System chapter in the Aptify e-Business Developers Guide for information on the integration features Aptify offers with Ektron. (Issue 13057)

Social Media

The following features were added to the Social Media application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Download Social Media Photo to Persons Record (LinkedIn Implementation)

Beginning with Aptify e-Business 5.5, if a user links their e-Business profile with a social media site, like Facebook or LinkedIn, and they do not have a photo in the database (as identified by the new Persons.Photo field), then e-Business can download the user's LinkedIn or Facebook photo so it appears on that Person's record in Aptify and within his/her profile on the e-Business site. When synchronizing his/her LinkedIn profile with e-Business, a Web User can choose to automatically use his/her social media photo for e-Business by checking the "Use my social networking photo for this profile" option found on the e-Business profile page. An organization can change the text for that option by modifying the value of the SocialNetworkUsePhotoText parameter in the Global section of the Aptify_UC_Navigation.config file Note that with e-Business 5.5, Aptify provides an out-of-the-box integration with LinkedIn only but the social media photo architecture is a generic implementation that can support future integrations.
(Issue 10258)

Remove LinkedIn Button When It's No Longer Needed and Offer Activate/Deactivate Option on Profile Page

Currently in Aptify's e-Business the LinkedIn button remains visible on the page even after a user has logged in. e-Business 5.5 removes this button if the user has logged on to e-Business via LinkedIn, to prevent confusion about its use. In addition the profile page includes an Activate/Deactivate area so a Web User can control the profile synchronization settings. The Active/Deactivate options enable or disable the Synchronize Profile option on the Person External Accounts record.

An image showing the location of the Activate/Deactivate option is shown below:
 



(Issue 11046)

Download User's LinkedIn Data After User Activates Connection

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, if a user chooses to sync a profile with LinkedIn, after creating the Person External Account record, Aptify runs the Synchronize User Profile process flow but only for that particular user to retrieve the available details for that account, including connections, company history, and education history
(Issue 12341)

Improve Visibility of Connecting to Social Media Account for Existing Web Users

Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 introduced the ability for a person to login into an organization's e-Business site using a social media networking account (like LinkedIn). Beginning with 5.5, Aptify's e-Business updates the registration process to make it easier for existing users to connect their accounts to a social networking account.

With e-Business 5.5, when Web Users click the LinkedIn icon in the login area, users are now redirected to a selection page where they can either enter existing e-Business credentials or specify that they need to create a new account.

 

Note that you can edit the text displayed on the option screen by modifying the SocialNetworkConnectionOptions user control properties and a set of global properties in the Aptify_UC_Navigation.config file.
(Issue 12066)

Add and Populate School Name for Person Education Information Obtained from LinkedIn

In e-Business 5.0 SP3, Aptify's LinkedIn integration takes a person's education history from LinkedIn and updates it to the Person Education subtype on the corresponding Persons record. However, this approach only searches for an exact company match for a person's institution and if it doesn't find one, then it creates a new Companies record. This can lead to many unintended duplicates. e-Business 5.5 updates the design of the Person Education sub-type entity by introducing a new Institution Name text box. Unless the Social Network Integration object can find an exact Companies name match for a particular institution, the InstitutionID link box remains blank and the Social Network Integration object writes the institution name to the new text field only. Note that one side effect of this update is that the PersonEducation.InstitutionID field is no longer required.

 

(Issue 12529)

Add and Populate Company Name for Person Company Information Obtained from LinkedIn

In e-Business 5.0 SP3, Aptify's LinkedIn integration added takes a person's job history from LinkedIn to the Person Companies sub-type on the corresponding Persons record. However, this approach only searches for an exact company match and if it doesn't find one, then it creates a new Companies record. This can lead to many unintended duplicates. e-Business 5.5 updates the design of the Person Companies sub-type entity by introducing a new Company Name text box. Unless the Social Network Integration object can find an exact Companies name match for a particular company, the CompanyID link box remains blank and the Social Network Integration object writes the company name to the new text field only. Note that one side effect of this update is that the PersonCompanies.CompanyID field is no longer required.

 

(Issue 12528)

Add Virtual Entities to Report on Social Media Data

In e-Business 5.5 Aptify includes three virtual entities on the Customer Management Application to provide reporting on Social Media Data. Details about these new entities are as follows:

  • Person Relationship Views: The PersonRelationshipViews virtual entity allows a user to promote Person Relationship data to top-level entity status for reporting and analysis purposes. Creating a view of this virtual entity will display Person Relationship SubType Data.
  • PersonCompanyChangeAnalysis: The Person Company Change Analysis virtual entity allows user to view data related to Persons' Companies data. This may include sub-type data that has been manually created on a Persons record or data that was populated during synchronization with an external Social Media site. In addition the sa shared view included with this virtual entity displays people who have changed companies in the last year based on the Persons Companies start and end date data.
  • Person Relationship Analysis: The Person Relationship Analysis virtual entity displays Relationship data based on counts for connections. It provides totals, in and out of network details and a connectivity index. There are two connectivity indexes – one for in-network connections and one for out-of-network connections. Members who have a high out-of-network connectivity index but a low in-network connectivity index could be ideal targets for increased engagement from your organization.

(Issue 12342)

Provide Process to Make It Easy to Update a Person Based on Social Media Company and Title Information

In e-Business 5.0 SP3, Aptify introduced the ability to pull member data from LinkedIn once a person synchronizes his or her Web User with a LinkedIn profile. However, the functionality that updated a person's primary company affiliation, title, and address can apply unintended updates to existing data and generate duplicate company records.

In e-Business 5.5, Aptify updates the configuration to address these changes and provide tools to monitor updates to a Person's primary information. Using the new Social Network Integration dashboard, a user can easily review and resolve mismatched data between Aptify and LinkedIn. Also, you can enable the ability to update a person's company and title automatically in certain targeted scenarios, which is designed to prevent unintended record updates.

 

See the "Reviewing Mismatched Social Network Data" section in the Social Networking chapter of the Aptify e-Business Developers Guide for more information. (Issue 12581)

Update Web User.Title and CompanyName Field Sizes

Beginning with e-Business 5.5 Aptify has increased the field size for title and company name fields to standardize on 100 characters and to accommodate LinkedIn data. The specific schema changes are as follows:

  • Persons.Title: Increased from nvarchar(50) to nvarchar(100)
  • Web Users.Title: Increased from nvarchar(50) to nvarchar(100). Also, see Title Field Does Not Allow Nulls for a Web User on page for information on another update Aptify has made to this field's definition in e-Business 5.5.
  • Web Users.Company: from nvarchar(80) to nvarchar(100) to match Persons.CompanyName and Companies.Name.

(Issue 12345)

Online Ordering

The following features were added to the Online Ordering application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Provide Ability to Download Item After Purchase

Beginning with Aptify e-Business 5.5 includes functionality to allow users to download electronic files after a purchase has been made, including software or documentation. By creating a Download Items record and configuring the necessary details on the Products form, a user can create a product that is tied to an item that is available for download. If an order is placed, when the product is shipped a Product Downloads record is created to track the purchase and the Order recipient receives an email including the URL for their product. See the "Configuring Items for Download After Purchase" section in the Configuring e-Business through Metadata chapter in the Aptify e-Business Developers Guide for more information.
(Issue 9388)

Do Not Require Checkout/Payment for Free Products

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, if a Web User is signing up for a free product Aptify bypasses the checkout process since it isn't necessary (assuming the product doesn't require a physical shipment). If the product requires a physical shipment but the order total is zero (that is, it's free), Aptify continues to the Ship To check out information but skips the billing page.
(Issue 10287)

Support for Order Line Description Functionality Added in 5.5

Prior to Aptify 5.5, the default system behavior flows down a product's Description to the Order Line. However, certain products, particularly extended products, have additional information that users want to see directly in the order line grid. Beginning with version 5.5, Aptify has implemented functionality to allow an organization to define a dynamic product description that can pull in relevant information from a current order line and extended order line automatically. With e-Business 5.5, these dynamic order line descriptions appear in the e-Business shopping cart.
(Issue 9901)

Update Web Site Controls to Support Reference Transactions

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify updates the e-Business user controls to support reference transactions. This includes:

  • Support for payment types that use the Credit Card Reference Transaction base type on an e-Business site. From a Web User perspective, the experience of using a credit card reference transaction is identical to using a standard credit card payment type.
  • The addition of a new Web Enabled field for Payment Types record to control which payment types are visible on an e-Business site.
  • Support for generating a zero dollar authorization (ZDA) when a Web User submits a new Marketplace Listing. A ZDA is required in this case because Aptify does not generate an order and payment for a new Marketplace Listing until a staff member changes the listing's Status to Approved within Aptify.
  • Note that the reference transaction payment type is not supported for Classes linked to products with a type of General. Rather than use Education Management with General products, Aptify recommends using Class or Meeting product types. Using General products with Classes is depreciated functionality. See Managing the Classes Service for details.

(Issue 11986, See Also Issue 11904)

Supporting Images for Product Category

Beginning with Aptify e-Business 5.5 the Product Category will support images, similar to that of the support for images on regular Product records. These images appear in the product category menu control as shown in the examples below.

 

 

(Issue 12745)

Meetings

The following features were added to the Meetings application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Meeting/Class Integration

Aptify 5.5 introduced an out-of-the-box integration between meetings and classes. This integration provides the ability to leverage meeting functionality while creating and managing Classes. For e-Business 5.5, Aptify updates the Education and Meeting user controls to support the integration of these services.

In addition, Aptify provides a new global attribute in the Aptify_UC_Navigation.config file called ShowMeetingsLinkToClass. By default, it is set to False, which means that meetings linked to a class will not show up in the Meetings Center or meeting calendar. With this setting, the relevant meeting information will only appear in the Class Schedule within the Education Center. However, if you set this attribute to True, then meetings associated with a class will appear as browsable entries in the Meetings Center and calendar.
(Issue 11290 & Issue 13037)

Integrate with Google Maps to Generate Meeting Directions

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, the Meeting page includes a "Get Directions" button that allows a Web User to map out a route between the web user's address and the meeting's location. Note that the Get Directions control requires an organization to generate a Google Maps API key (Google Maps API v2). See the Aptify e-Business Developers Guide for more details.
(Issue 13054)

Topic Codes

The following features were added to the Topic Codes functionality in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Add Web Enabled Option to Topic Codes

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify updates Topic Codes to support a web-enabled option. When set to Global, the Topic Code is visible for all users on the web interface. When set to Not Available, the Topic Code is not visible on an e-Business Site. In addition Topic Codes can be specified for web visibility on a per entity basis, by setting the Web Enabled field to By Service and checking the Web Enabled box as required for individual services defined on the Topic Code Entities tab. This flexibility will allow organizations to expose topics to targeted audiences while keeping some information limited to others.
(Issue 10929)

Support for Multiple Choice and Text-Based Topic Codes

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 and earlier, the e-Business Topic of Interest page does not properly interpret topic codes that are not yes/no. Options like, Multiple Choice, Numeric, and Text do not show an additional text area or drop-down list. Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business updates the Topic Code control to support these additional Topic Code types. Note that to implement this functionality; Aptify has added a new user control called TopicCodeControl that leverages the Telerik RadTree control to render Topic Codes data. The original topic code user control (called TopicCodes), which leverages the Aptify Hierarchy Tree control, remains in the User Control folder structure for backwards compatibility purposes. Note that the original TopicCodes user control does not support the additional topic code types.

 

(Issue 6448)

Chapter Management

The following feature was added in the Chapter Management application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

 

Support for 64-bit Crystal Reports

Beginning with e-Business 5.5, the installation program determines the server's hardware type and installs the appropriate version of Crystal Reports to match (that is, 32-bit or 64-bit).
(Issue 11145)

Resolved Issues

Issues have been resolved in the following areas in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Framework

The following issues were resolved in the Framework application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Update ASP.NET Sample Site to Fully Support .NET 4.0

With e-Business 5.0 SP3, when a user opened the ASP.NET sample website in Visual Studio 2010, it would display a message indicating that the site was using the 2.0 version of .NET, followed by an upgrade dialog, even though the site is designed to run in ASP.NET 4.0. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify has updated the sample site's configuration file so the messages about running in ASP.NET 2.0 no longer appear.
(Issue 10397)

Modify Address via e-Business Doesn't Update County

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, when a web user's address is updated in e-Business, the corresponding Persons record in Aptify still displays the old County information. If a person does not have a company associated with it the County field is blank. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the configuration to ensure that changes to the County information propagate correctly.
(Issue 5051)

Issues When Committee Term Has No Start And/Or End Date

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, a Committee Term with no Start and End Date only appears when the "All" filter option is selected from the drop down on My Committees page. In addition when the term has a blank start and end date, the start date appears incorrectly as 1/1/1900. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates this functionality to display the date correctly and these types of committee terms now appear for the other filter options (Past, Current, and Future).
(Issue 6454)

Attached Documents Do Not Show File Size

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, there is a problem with the result of attaching a document. The column for the file size is not being populated as expected and is only showing the measurement but not the actual size of the file. For example, when a user associated with a committee adds a file to the Committees's Documents page, the file is added but does not display the size. Aptify e-Business 5.5 corrects this issue and displays the file size as expected.
(Issue 8269)

Problems Related To Attachments in Discussion Forum

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, there are issues with the Attachments functionality not performing correctly in Discussion Forums. For example, when there is an attachment included on a forum, the page still indicates that there are "No Attachments". In addition the Attachments grid and file descriptions also need to be expanded. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the configuration for the Attachments functionality in the Discussion Forum to address the problems described above.
(Issue 8252)

Children Topic Codes Do Not Collapse to Their Parent

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, when a user tries to expand or collapse topic codes in the topic code tree control, the topic codes may not collapse as expected. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates this functionality to ensure that the feature works as expected.
(Issue 8998)

Broken Link When Column Headings are Clicked from the Subscriptions Page

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, when a user clicks the "Name" and "Category" link on the Forums/Subscriptions page, it takes the user to a server error page. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates this functionality to ensure that the feature works as expected.
(Issue 9238)

Local User Does Not Get Created in a DMZ environment Using ASP.NET Sample Site

When a user attempts to install an e-Business site in a DMZ environment, the installation program should create a local web user that is a mirror of the local database machine user. However, with Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3, the installer does not create a local user on the Web server when installing the ASP.NET Sample site in a DMZ. Note that the user is properly created when installing to a CMS site. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, the installer now correctly creates a local user on the Web server as expected.
(Issue 11217)

Remove Unused and Duplicate User Controls

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business removes unused and duplicate user controls to prevent confusion about available functionality. The following controls have been removed as part of this update:

  • Profile control in the Product Catalog Folder
  • AptifySynchProfile Control

(Issue 11227)

Cannot Debug Site in Visual Studio 2010

With Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3, developers cannot debug the ASP.NET sample site in Visual Studio 2010 due to certain unnecessary DLLs in the website's Bin folder. Beginning with 5.5, Aptify's e-Business supports debugging in Visual Studio 2010 with the introduction of the streamlined bin. See Streamline Bin on page for details.
(Issue 11261)

Replace Unsigned Assembly in Setup Programs

In Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 there is an unsigned copy of the AptifyMarketPlaceListingsUI.dll included in one of the folders of the SP3 Setup program, which may be deployed during an installation depending on the installation path. e-Business 5.5 updates the setup program to replace the unsigned DLL with the latest signed version of the DLL.
(Issue 11271)

Title Field Does Not Allow Nulls for a Web User

With e-Business 5.0 SP3 and earlier, the Title field in the Web Users entity does not support NULLs. This means that if a staff user changes the Title to NULL on a Web User's corresponding Persons record, the Web User will be unable to log in to e-Business, because the Web Users record does not support NULL in the Title field. e-Business 5.5 updates the title configuration to prevent this issue from occurring by setting the Web Users.Title field to Allow NULL.
(Issue 11282)

Fields That Use the Date Picker Control Do Not Open on e-Business 5.0 SP3 Sample Site

With e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3, a Web User cannot enter values in the date fields on the CEU Submission page, and the calendar does not open when a user clicks the date icon. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the date picker user control to function correctly.
(Issue 11365)

Housing Control Update and Implementation Update

Aptify's e-Business 5.5 removes the non-functional user controls related to Housing Management from the standard deployment to eliminate potential confusion.
(Issue 11536)

Only Selected Topics Should Appear on Website

In Aptify e-Business5.0 Service Pack 3, there may be some instances when certain topics appear on a Product or order when they are not selected. e-Business 5.5 updates the configuration of topic codes to ensure that only the appropriately selected codes appear.
(Issue 11893)

Populate PersonID in e-Business User Object After Web User Save

In earlier versions of e-Business, when a Web User is initially created, a developer needs to query the value of the Web Users.LinkID field to determine the web user's corresponding PersonID. Beginning with 5.5, e-Business now populates the Person ID in the e-Business Users object immediately after a Web user is created so the separate call to retrieve the LinkID value is no longer required.
(Issue 11979)

Content Management Systems

The following issues were resolved in the Content Management Systems application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Sitefinity Single Sign On Does Not Work With LinkedIn

With e-Business 5.0 SP3, if a user logs in to e-Business via LinkedIn, that user is not also logged into Sitefinity. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the single sign on configuration to address this issue so that a Web User can now log on to e-Business and Sitefinity using LinkedIn credentials.
(Issue 11221)

Sitefinity 4 Search Index

The Sitefinity search feature does not work with the e-Business 5.0 SP3 sample site. When attempting to generate a search index in Sitefinity, the process fails due to files in the site's Bin folder. Beginning with e-Business 5.5 and the introduction of the streamline bin (see Streamline Bin on page for details), the Sitefinity search feature now can compile an index for an e-Business site and search across pages containing e-Business controls.
(Issue 10955)

Sitefinity Sample Site Template Cleanup

Beginning with 5.5 as part of the sample site redesign, Aptify e-Business updates the Sitefinity sample site to improve performance by removing unused files, removing duplicate entries, deleting used pages, and repairing broken links. See the Redesigned Sample Site section for more information.
(Issue 10234)

Modify Sitefinity Settings As Needed to Support Page Refresh After Login

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business updates the ICE sample site for Sitefinity so that the home page and login page refresh automatically after a user logs in, showing the appropriate menu options and login status for the user. To support this functionality, Aptify has disabled the Output Cache Settings options within the Sitefinity settings for the ICE site.
(Issue 12452)

Show All Aptify User Controls in Sitefinity 4 Toolbox

With the Sitefinity 4.0 SP1 sample site in e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3, the controls that were migrated to the 4.x site by the Sitefinity migration utility do not show up in the Sitefinity toolbox. Aptify updates e-Business 5.5 to include all e-Business controls in the toolbox. Note that you can easily add other controls to the toolbox by modifying the Sitefinity ToolboxesConfig.config file. See the Sitefinity documentation for details.
(Issue 11260)

Reset Permissions for Sitefinity Backend Pages in Sample Site

In the Sitefinity 4.0 SP1 sample site distributed with e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3, the Sitefinity group page in the Backend area of the Sitefinity admin site is not inheriting permissions from the parent. Permissions are configured to allow anonymous viewers but administrators with backend access are unable to access the site and receive an error or a blank view. e-Business 5.5 reinstates the default inherited permissions for the sample site.
(Issue 11270)

Remove All Languages But English from Sitefinity Sample Site

Beginning with 5.5, Aptify e-Business removes all languages other than English from the sample site data to improve site performance.
(Issue 12199)

First and Last Name Appear Blank on Edit User Page in Sitefinity

Currently in Aptify e-Business users created in the CMS site are added in Sitefinity but the first name and last name appear blank on Edit User page. Aptify updates the e-Business 5.5 configuration to correct his issue and display the user details as expected.
(Issue 12533)

Remove Test Users and Duplicate Role from Sitefinity 4 Sample Site

The e-Business 5.0 SP3 sample site for Sitefinity 4.0 SP1 includes several unnecessary test users and duplicate Sitefinity roles. This unnecessary data has been removed from the ICE site provided with e-Business 5.5.
(Issue 11272)

Set IsObjectDownloadActive Web Config Attribute to False By Default for CMS Installs

In the current e-Business Full Setup program, Aptify deploys web config updates to the CMS sites that have the IsObjectDownloadActive attribute set to True. However, since e-Business is a multi-user environment, Aptify recommends that the automatic object download functionality be disabled with clients using the Object Repository Synchronizer utility to update objects as needed in the e-Business site's Bin folder. Therefore, beginning with 5.5 Aptify updates e-Business to set the ObjectDownloadActive default to False.
(Issue 13083)

Sync Repository Objects Unique Constraint Allows an Object to Exist in Only One Record

Beginning with e-Business 5.5 the unique constraint on the ObjectID has been removed. With this constraint in place, a single object could not appear in more than one Sync Repository Objects record. However, note that as a side effect for this update, there may now be duplicates within a particular Sync Repository Objects record.
(Issue 13067)

Form Loaded in Preview Pane Does Not Use Layout Control

Currently in e-Business if a user specifies a form as preview pane and that form has a layout control, the layout control logic won't be used when the form is loaded in a view's preview pane. Beginning with 5.5 Aptify updates the layout control logic to ensure that it is applied appropriately.
(Issue 12824)

Remove Find a Product Page and Web Menu

In e-Business 5.5, Aptify updates the Product Catalog configuration to remove the Find a Product Page and Web Menu, since these tools are available on the main catalog page. Note that this issue only applies to new installations of the e-Business baseline data.
(Issue 12824)

Social Media

The following issues were resolved in the Social Media application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Social Network Process Components Fails When No IDs are Available to be Synched

In Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3, if no user has the Synchronization Profile checked in the Person External Accounts service and the "Social Network User Profile Synchronization" or "Social Network Expire Token" is executed, then the process flow fails. Beginning with e-Business 5.5, the process flow will return a successful "No Action" result code in the situation described above.
(Issue 10761)

LinkedIn AccountID Overwritten by Skill IDs

LinkedIn introduced the ability for a person to specify his or her skills after the development of the e-Business/LinkedIn integration was complete for Aptify e-Business 5.0 SP3. However, since the e-Business XML parser was unaware of the Skills feature, Web Users whose LinkedIn profile contains Skills may be assigned the wrong Account ID in the Aptify Person External Accounts record. The most obvious manifestation of this is some external account IDs are simple digits (like 12 or 3) when the string should be more complex. Also, people who have the same number of skills specified in their profile may overwrite each other's external accounts based on the matching logic, which uses Account ID as the match criteria. e-Business 5.5 updates Aptify's configuration to prevent the LinkedIn account ID from being overwritten by the Skills data.
(Issue 12299)

Redirect Social Media Login to Original Page

Currently in e-Business if a user who already has a LinkedIn Person External Account record logs into e-Business using LinkedIn, they are always redirected back to the homepage. However, there are instances when the user is trying to access other content and it would be better for them to be directed to the page they were trying to access. e-Business 5.5 updates Aptify's configuration to redirect an existing user to the page originally requested, and for instances when that information is not available then the system redirects to the URL defined for the SocialNetworkIntegrationControl control's SocialNetworkExistingUserHomePageproperty.
(Issue 12372)

Page Contains SocialNetworkingIntegrationControl Control Register Tag, but Actual Control is Missing

This issue only affects the ASP.NET sample site delivered with e-Business 5.0 SP3. Within that site, the page containing the SocialNetworkingIntegrationControl container page includes the control's register tag, but the actual control is not placed on the page. Sites that use the ASP.NET sample site master page work as expected but the Social Network Integration will not work if you use a different master page. Beginning with Aptify e-Business 5.5, Aptify has updated the ASP.NET sample site so the sample page hosts the SocialNetworkIntegrationControl correctly.
(Issue 12585)

Retain Relationship Type on Existing PersonRelationships Records Updated via Social Network Process Flow

With e-Business 5.0 SP3, if the Social Network User Profile Synchronization process flow locates an existing Person Relationships record for one of a user's LinkedIn connections, the process flow updates that record by adding the relevant LinkedIn data. The process flow also overwrites the Person Relationship Type to use the default relationship type for the process flow (as identified by the DefaultPersonRelationshipTypeID entity attribute in the Person External Accounts entity). However, in many cases, it is important to retain the original relationship type, which will typically be more meaningful than the social network integration default.

Therefore, beginning with e-Business 5.5, Aptify has updated the Social Network User Profile Synchronization process flow so that it no longer overwrites the existing Relationship Type for Person Relationships it matches with LinkedIn connection data.
(Issue 13119)

Make AptifyLinkedInIntegration.dll and AptifySocialNetworkIntegration.dll Serializable Objects

With e-Business 5.0 SP3, social network properties from the AptifySocialNetworkIntegration object are stored in an e-Business user session. This prevents e-Business from running in a multi-process state server environment because the AptifySocialNetworkIntegration object does not support serialization. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates AptifySocialNetworkIntegration.dll and the AptifyLinkedInIntegration.dll so that both objects support serialization in a state server environment.
(Issue 12210)

Online Ordering

The following issues have been resolved in the Online Ordering application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Payments Made With Non-US Currency Produces an Error

Currently in Aptify e-Business Service Pack 3, a user cannot make a payment in a non-US currency from the Make a Payment control. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the currency configuration to ensure that a user can make payments no matter if the currency symbol is there or not for non-US Currencies.
(Issue 11147)

Move ID Check from Shopping Cart Code to Stored Procedure

In e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3, Aptify abstracted out the code that performs the Campaign name match in the e-Business Shopping Cart to a stored procedure (spGetCampaignCodeID) and included an entity attribute so clients could modify the logic without overriding GetCampaignCodeID function. The default stored procedure in e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 assumes the campaign code value entered by a user is a string and does an exactly matches check against Campaign names. However, after that sp call, there is code that evaluates if the value entered by the user is numeric and if so, it checks against the CampaignID. This means that there is no way for a client to override that secondary ID match check without overriding the object. In e-Business 5.5 Aptify includes the ID check but it is now performed by the default spGetCampaignCode stored procedure rather than in code. This updates allows a client to remove the ID check by creating another stored procedure, if desired.
(Issue 11264)

Cart Totals Not Refreshed When All Products Removed

Currently in e-Business if you add a product to a shopping cart, the total grid updates automatically (Sub-Total, Tax, Shipping, and Total). However, if you remove all of the items from the cart, the cart page says the cart is empty but the total grid still shows the old values and is not updated to $0. Aptify's e-Business 5.5 updates the shopping cart configuration to properly update the cart total.
(Issue 11858)

Duplicate Sessions Get Added In the Shopping Cart

In Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 and earlier, there are scenarios where duplicate sessions may be added to the Shopping Cart. In one scenario a user registers for a meeting including sessions and selects the details button on the Shopping cart page, the sessions are unchecked and when the user attempts to check the sessions again, duplicate sessions are added. In another scenario when a user adds sessions and then uses the Back and Forward buttons, the sessions are added as duplicates. Aptify 5.5 e-Business updates the shopping cart configurations to address these issues and prevent the addition of duplicate sessions.
(Issue 10944)

Price Does Not Get Updated Upon Changing the Shipping Address

Currently in e-Business, a product's price that is based on shipping address may not update when the shipping address changes. e-Business 5.5 updates the pricing behavior so that prices based on addresses update as expected when the shipping address is changed. (Issue 12355)

The Product Gets Removed When Back and Update Buttons Are Clicked

In Aptify e-Business 5.0 Service Pack 3 and earlier, there are instances where an incorrect product can be removed from a shopping cart but reappears when the page is reloaded via the back button. For example, a user adds three items to the shopping cart and then chooses to remove one of the items. The shopping cart updates and correctly displays the remaining two items, however if the user clicks the back button on their browser the shopping cart refreshes and displays the original three items and not the updates quantity as desired. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the configuration for this functionality to ensure that the appropriate number of items are displayed even if the back button is used.
(Issue 10053)

Andrew (3/19/12) – This should move to the feature section. We should also include a screen shot.

Meetings

The following issues have been resolved in the Meetings application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Meeting Conflict Functionality Does Not Work As Expected For Back to Back Meetings

In Aptify, a meeting can be configured so that a registrant cannot register for two or more meetings that take place at the same time. However, when ordering a meeting through an e-Business site, there is a scenario where meetings are in conflict, even though the meetings do not overlap. This occurs when the meetings are back to back. For example, if the first meeting is from 10AM to 11AM and the second meeting is from 11AM to 12PM, a registrant should be able to register for both since the first one ends when the second begins. However, when ordering a meeting through an e-Business site, a conflict occurs. e-Business 5.5 updates the meeting configuration to prevent this conflict from occurring.
(Issue 11488)

Meeting Registration Fails if Attendee's First Name or Last Name Has a Different Format

In earlier versions of Aptify e-Business if a meeting attendee's name is entered in a non-standard format, the Meeting Registration process fails. For example, if a Meeting Attendee's name is John A Smith and John A is provided as the first name in the registration, when a user reaches the end of a Meeting Registration an error is generated. Aptify e-Business 5.5 updates the Meeting Registration configuration to support variations in the name formatting and prevent the error from occurring.
(Issue 12468)

LoadMeetingInfo Method Logic Update

Currently in e-Business, the Meeting Registration user control's LoadMeetingInfo logic tries to look at the count of order lines before first determining if any order lines exist. This configuration may cause unnecessary exceptions. Aptify's e-Business 5.5 updates the configuration to modify the logic and prevent these exceptions from occurring.
(Issue 12352)

Chapter Management

The following issue was resolved in the Chapter Management application in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Chapter Proximity Search May Fail When Returning NULL

Currently in Aptify e-Business, the spGetChapterProximityList stored procedure does not properly handle NULL values for the Distance column (which is calculated through the DistanceFromInMiles function). If NULL is returned for that value, then the stored procedure may fail to execute properly. e-Business 5.5 updates the "spGetChapterProximityList" procedure so it properly handles NULL values.
(Issue 12541)

Sample Site

The following issue was resolved in the Sample Site functionality in Aptify e-Business 5.5:

Update to ASP.NET Sample Site

e-Business 5.5 includes several updates to the ASP.NET sample site to resolve certain broken links and formatting errors on the Instructor and Class Registration pages in the Education management area. Note that e-Business 5.5 also changed the alignment of the menu bar from horizontal to vertical to better support the updated design of the new user controls developed for the ICE site, but which are also showcased in the ASP.NET site.
(Issues 11870 & 11275)

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