Release 6.8.17 - mini release - 2024 March

1.0 Campaign Manager module enhancements

1.1 Accessibility WCAG 2.2.1 (A) compliance: Introduced ‘Session timeout’ pop-up

We have continued to make progress in improving Webex Campaign’s accessibility for visually impaired users and users with limited finger dexterity.

As part of this journey to improve the product’s accessibility, we have introduced a pop-up informing the user that they will soon be logged out if the user has been inactive for 25 minutes. The user is also given the option to extend their session by clicking on the ‘Stay signed in’ button; however, if the user clicks this button after 5 minutes of this pop-up appearing, then they will still be logged out.

This feature was introduced in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG v2.2) criterion “2.2.1 (Level A)”. This requirement arises from the principle that ‘users should be given enough time to perform their tasks within an application’.

More information is available on W3C’s Accessibility website :
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#timing-adjustable.

2.0 Email Composer module enhancements

2.1 Ability to add clickable ‘anchor tags’ linking to email sections further down

This feature is very useful if you have a long email (e.g. a newsletter) with many different pieces of content and if your customers are more interested in some pieces of content than others.

You will now be able to create a sort-of ‘table of content’ at the top of your email newsletter with clickable links using ‘anchor tags’. When a customer clicks on one of these anchor tags, they will jump directly to the corresponding linked section (‘Structure’) further down the email which might be of more interest to that specific customer, rather than having to scroll through a long email.

How to use this feature:

a) In this release, we have introduced a new text-input property called ‘Anchor tag ID’ on the right-side properties-panel for a ‘Flexi-Structure’. The ‘Anchor tag ID’ can be thought of as a sort-of ‘title’ for this structure.
b) You will need to first enable the checkbox ‘Add anchor tag’.
c) In the above example screenshot, the user has given an ‘Anchor tag ID’ of ‘Section1’ to selected ‘Structure’.
d) Similarly, you will need to add anchor tag ID’s for each structure to which you want to link to.
e) You will need to create a structure near the top of your email template which you want to use as a sort-of ‘table of content’. In the above example screenshot, this structure contains a textblock.
f) Within this text-block, you will need to select the text-fragment to which you want to associate the anchor tag ID of another structure placed lower down in the email template. In the below example screenshot, the user has selected the text-fragment ‘Section 1’.

g) Then the black floating text-formatting toolbar will appear. Within it, you need to click on the ‘link’ button.
h) On the pop-up, enter the anchor tag ID that you have previously created – with a prefix of the ‘hash’ symbol (‘#’). Then click on ‘Save’ button on the pop-up.

i) You will then see another pop-up asking whether the link should be automatically prefixed with ‘http://’ or not. In the case of anchor tags, you should select ‘No’.

Usage notes:

1. The maximum allowed length of the anchor tag ID is 32 characters.
2. The only special character allowed within the anchor tag ID is ‘underscore’ (‘_’).
3. If you try to assign an anchor tag ID to a structure that has already been assigned to another structure, the system will clear the text entered by you in the input field and display an alert message as follows: “ is already assigned to another structure. Please assign unique anchor tag IDs to each structure.”.
4. If you duplicate a structure that has been assigned an anchor tag ID, then the duplicated structure will also have the same anchor tag ID. In this case, it is your responsibility to update it to ensure a different unique anchor tag ID is assigned to the duplicated structure.
5. As of March 2024, only the following email apps/inbox providers support this ‘anchor tags’ feature:
   a. iOS – Outlook app
   b. iOS – iOS native Apple Mail app
   c. MacOS – Outlook app
   d. MacOS – Native Apple Mail app
   e. Android - Outlook app
   f. Web-based – Outlook Office 365
6. As of March 2024, following are some of the email apps / inbox providers which did not support this ‘anchor tags’ feature. Please keep this mind while planning your email campaign. When the email recipient clicks on the anchor-tags within these email clients, they are not redirected to the linked structure further down the email. We hope these email clients will begin to support this standard HTML feature in the future.
   a. Windows – Outlook app
   b. Web-based – Gmail
   c. Android – Gmail app

2.2 Apply ‘Headings/Paragraph’ tags within the Text Block to improve accessibility compliance

Before this release, you could apply formatting and style elements to the text within the Text Block in the Email Composer (such as bold, underline, italics, and font size). These visual cues would enable a sighted reader to understand the hierarchical structure within a text block. However, these visual cues were of no use when a visually disabled email recipient is reading your email using their screen reader software (e.g. JAWS on Windows desktop or VoiceOver utility on Apple phones / MacBooks or Google TalkBack on Android phones).

To address the above accessibility requirement, we have introduced a new ‘Paragraph / Headings’ dropdown within the black floating text configuration toolbar within the Email Composer’s Text Block.

You can now select a text fragment and then select from this new dropdown any of the following 7 ‘semantic HTML tags’ to be applied to the selected text:

• Headings tags H1 to H6 (<h1> This is a top-level heading </h1> )
• Paragraph tag (<p> This is some text in a paragraph. </p> )

This will result in the corresponding HTML tags being applied to the selected text fragment within the auto-generated HTML code. This will enable the email recipient’s screen reader software to interpret the hierarchical structure of your text and convey that understanding to a visually disabled email recipient.

Usage notes

• When the ‘paragraph’ tag is applied to a piece of text, the system default font size is left unchanged to 12px. However, you can later override this default font size by selecting another value from the font-size dropdown.

  

• When one of the ‘heading’ tags is applied, the system will assign a default font size (e.g., 24px for H1 and 18px for H2 etc.). However, you can later override this default font size by selecting another value from the font-size dropdown.

  

• For your organization’s accessibility compliance requirements, if you do decide to make use of this new feature, then you must apply the ‘paragraph’/ ‘heading’ tags to the selected piece of text before you apply any other formatting to that text from the floating black toolbar (e.g. font name, font size, font color, bold, italic, underline, etc).

• If you apply the ‘paragraph’ / ‘heading’ semantic tags to the piece of text after any other formatting options, then the semantic tags will not be correctly applied to the auto-generated HTML code.

• After you apply one of the ‘heading’ tags or the ‘paragraph’ tag to a piece of text, as a best practice, you should confirm this by placing your cursor on that piece of text and then checking within the ‘Paragraph / Headings’ dropdown. The system will display a tick mark within the dropdown beside the semantic tag value that was applied to that piece of text.

• To apply different ‘heading’ / ‘paragraph’ tags to specific text fragments within the same Text Block, you will need to first add line breaks between those text fragments (by hitting the ‘Enter’ key after each text fragment). Then, you have to select the specific text fragment and apply the ‘Heading/Paragraph’ tag from the newly introduced dropdown. Without the line breaks, the system will apply the ‘Heading/Paragraph’ tags to the entire Text Block.

2.3 ‘Social Follow’ Block: Label changes to reflect the re-branding of Twitter to ‘X’

As Twitter was recently rebranded to ‘X’, we have updated the labels in the ‘Social Follow’ block in the Email Composer. You have to create a new image asset for the new X logo and use it within the ‘Social Follow’ Block.

3.0 Landing Page Composer module enhancements

3.1 Ability to configure a ‘scratch-to-reveal offer’ interactive gesture on a mobile landing page

We are very excited to introduce this interactive gesture capability for our landing pages.

This feature is suitable for ‘mobile landing pages’ which your customers are redirected to from a link within an outbound SMS/MMS message. It allows you to specify an ‘overlay image’ to your landing page such that this overlay image can be ‘scratched’ by your customers on their mobile phones to reveal the underlying landing page – which could then contain any personalized offers for the customer.

This can help you introduce an element of mystery and anticipation to your SMS/MMS campaigns.

📘

This feature is available for ‘1-Column Flexi-Structures only.

How to use this feature:

1. Design your offer content within a 1-column flexi-structure as usual. This is the content that will be initially hidden and will be revealed after the customer scratches away the overlay-image on their mobile phone.

2. On the right-side properties panel for this structure, check the box labelled ‘Interactive gesture’.

   

3. Then, the ‘Gesture type’ dropdown will show with the default selection of ‘Scratch-to-reveal’. At present, this is the only interactive gesture available; however, we plan to introduce other interactive gestures in the future, such as ‘swipe-up-to-reveal’, etc.

4. Next, please click on the ‘Select image’ button to pick the ‘overlay image’ using the usual image selection pop-up screen. Although the system will enlarge or shrink the selected overlay image to cover the full width of the ‘container’ within this 1-column structure, it is your responsibility to ensure that the form factor and aspect ratio of the overlay image is such that it fully covers this structure, i.e. your customers do not see the underlying structure before they scratch away this overlay image.

   

5. Next, select a % of the overlay image surface area from the dropdown labelled ‘Reveal image after scratching’. The overlay image will be ‘erased’ after the message recipient has scratched this % of the overlay image’s surface area.

   

6. In the mobile preview feature, we have introduced a new checkbox option called ‘Show overlay image (if enabled)’. When you check this checkbox, you will see the overlay image.

   

7. When you uncheck this checkbox, you will see the underlying 1-column structure.

   

4.0 Reports module enhancements

4.1 Reports with ‘dynamic reporting headers’: Date range now restricted to last 90 days

This change is applicable to all the pre-configured summary reports with ‘dynamic reporting headers’. These are advanced reports that have been provisioned for specific clients on request. Webex Campaign has always had only the last 90 days data available for these advanced reports; however, currently (prior to this release going live), users were incorrectly being allowed to select date ranges going back more than 90 days on the UI when configuring these reports and when users were selecting such older dates, many times the UI screen used to become unresponsive or very slow to refresh.

This user-experience issue has been fixed by ensuring that users are only able to select a date or date range within the past 90 days for such pre-configured summary reports with ‘dynamic reporting headers’.

This enhancement is associated with ServiceNow tickets PRB0010537 / INC0202113.

Use case 1: If the user selects the ‘Date Range’ option in the ‘Date Range’ filter dropdown, then the system will first check whether the ‘Start date’ is older than 90 days.

If yes, then:
a) Within the ‘Date Range’ selection, the ‘End date’ will be set to .
b) Within the ‘Date Range’ selection, the ‘Start date' will be set to <Today minus 90 days>’
c) An alert message will be shown to the user as follows: “For this preconfigured report, data is available only for the last 90 days. We have updated the dates accordingly, but you can further update as required.”

Use case 2: If the user selects the ‘Specific Date’ option in the ‘Date Range’ filter dropdown, then the system will first check whether the selected date is older than 90 days.
If yes, then:
a) The selected date will change to ‘Yesterday’.
b) An alert message will be shown to the user as follows: “For this preconfigured report, data is available only for the last 90 days. We have updated the dates accordingly, but you can further update as required.”

Use case 3: If the user selects the ‘Year to Date’ option in the ‘Date Range’ filter dropdown, then the system will first check whether January 1st of that year is more than 90 days in the past.
If yes, then:
a) The filter dropdown value will be automatically changed from ‘Year to Date’ to ‘Date Range’
b) Within the ‘Date Range’ selection, the ‘End date’ will be set to .
c) Within the ‘Date Range’ selection, the ‘Start date' will be set to <Today minus 90 days>’
d) An alert message will be shown to the user as follows: “For this preconfigured report, data is available only for the last 90 days. We have updated the dates accordingly, but you can further update as required.”

4.2 Removed the ‘View report’ option when the results dataset is grouped by ‘Date’ or ‘Deployment and Date’.

This change is applicable to the following two reports:
i) Campaign Deployments Summary report and
ii) Action Fulfilment Summary report.

When you want the results dataset to be grouped by ‘Date’ or by ‘Deployment and Date’, the report typically generates a huge number of records, which when the system attempts to display on the UI screen, many users experience UI issues such as the browser becoming unresponsive or browser crashing – especially when the date range could be as long as 18 months for these summary reports.

This user-experience issue has been fixed by removing the ‘View report’ button and replacing it with the ‘Generate report’ button when you select the ‘Results By Grouping’ dropdown option of either ‘Date’ or ‘Deployment and Date’.

After you click on the ‘Generate report’ button, you will be redirected to the ‘Download reports’ tab. Initially, you will see your report listed there with a status of ‘Processing’ and in a few minutes, the status changes to ‘Completed’. After that, you can export the report by clicking on the 3-dot action menu of the report.

5.0 Maintenance items in this release

The table below lists some of the notable smaller functional improvements, engineering improvements, bug-fixes, and fixes for production incidents / problem tickets that are included in this release.

6.0 Need more information?

Please contact your Cisco Webex client representative if you have questions or would like access to a new feature.

Cisco Webex technical support team can be contacted at any time by phone or email:

• Europe / Middle East / Africa:
  • Phone: +44 (0) 1494 750 600
  • Email: [email protected]
• North America:
  • Phone: +1-855-324-0970
  • Email: [email protected]