New features and changes in 10.0

This section describes the new features and changes that are introduced in the 10.0 version of Distributed Marketing.

New and discontinued platform support

For a list of newly supported and discontinued platforms, see the document Recommended Software Environments and Minimum System Requirements.

REST APIs

Distributed Marketing introduces REST APIs for templates, template folders, forms, form folders, Lists, and On-demand Campaigns. Information about the Distributed Marketing REST APIs is provided in IBM Knowledge Center.

IBM® Marketing Platform provides the security framework for the API. Choose Settings > Configuration and use the configuration properties in the IBM Marketing Platform | Security | API management category.

Context-sensitive help for Configuration properties

When you view configuration properties under Settings > Configuration, you can choose Help > Help for this page to display context-sensitive help. For example, if you request help for the Campaign | caching page, you see a help topic that specifically describes all of the caching options. You must have an internet connection to use this feature.

EMM files and directories renamed to IMS

Files and folders that included "EMM" have been changed to IMS. For example, the default top-level directory is now C:\IBM\IMS and the names of the installers are IBM_Marketing_Software_Installer_10.0.0.0_linux.bin, IBM_Marketing_Software_Installer_10.0.0.0.sh, and IBM_Marketing_Software_Installer_10.0.0.0_win.exe.

New option during installation to create a system table data source connection in the web application server

You can allow the installer to create the connection to the Distributed Marketing system tables in the web application server. To enable automatic data source creation during installation, on the Datasource Creation panel, select the Create Distributed Marketing Datasource check box and supply information about your application server.

  • The installer creates the data source using campaignPartition1DS OpDetectionDS collaborateds plands UnicaPlatformDS as the JNDI name.
  • The installer creates the data source connection for one partition only. If you have multiple partitions, you must create additional connections manually.
  • Note that, if you are using WebLogic, you must add the JDBC driver to your web application server classpath manually even if you allow the installer to create the data source. The installer does this automatically for WebSphere.
  • The installer adds the JDBC driver to your web application server classpath automatically.

Ability to disable the recreation of a non-recurrent workflow stage already started

Changing recurrence settings would result in the recreation of non-recurrent stages if any of tasks of a non-recurrent stage were not in a pending state. Only recurrent stages are cloned, and non-recurrent stages are kept as is when recurrence configuration is changed on the instance side. A column flag_recurrentStage is added in the system table uap_workflow for this purpose.

Support for dependencies between recurrent and non-recurrent stages when recurrence is enabled from the Recurrence tab

If a template workflow was configured to have dependency between tasks of recurrent and non-recurrent stages, creating an instance of this template would result in a 5000 error. There are now dependency between tasks of recurrent and non-recurrent stages.

Ability to restrict task access by role

There was no control of the individual task update on a workflow and a lack of granular permissions for Start, Stop, Skip, and Finish tasks for the user and system tasks. New granular permissions for the workflow tasks are added along with a revamp of a few existing security permissions to allow non-administrative users to be able to work with task from a task pop-up window. Also, the workflow task access is controlled by member roles assigned to them.

Restrict access to the Skip link

You can restrict access to the Skip link for a flowchart run task on the Summary page through the Skip Flowchart Task granular permission.

Template graphic for previewing On-demand Campaign templates

The field marketer had to select a template based on the text description while creating an instance as it was not possible to preview the campaign's creative while choosing a template. To allow easier template selection, graphical representation is implemented for templates while creating an instance. You can attach an image file to a template, and the image is rendered while creating an instance.

Enlarged windows template box to enable the user to see the full titles of the templates

The pop-up window that allows you to select a template for a List, On-demand Campaign, or Corporate Campaign instance creation is revamped. The pop-up window size and template listing are enlarged to display the full template name.

Ability to import a list into the List Manager

For adding records to the List Manager, you had to open the Search and Add Records page and add each record individually. It was a time consuming process. This behavior is enhanced by providing an interface to import a list of records directly from a CSV file. Each row of the CSV file must have an ID, which can be single column or combination of columns, that identifies a row in the master customer table uniquely.

Ability to export an entire list

The List Manager export functionality was exporting only the current page of records and not the entire list. The List Manager now exports all the entire list records applicable to the current search criteria.