New features and changes in version 12.1.1

Unica Interact 12.1.1 includes a number of new features and changes. These are listed underneath.

Support of offer lists in strategies

Besides using individual offers in smart rules, both static and dynamic offer lists can be used.

Offer lists are applied in rules as same way as offers, so all the currently supported features are available, such as using predicates for eligibility, scoring, and attribute parameterization. This gives a flexibility of reusing same rules with everchanging offers referenced by those rules.

There are also some differences.

  • All of a specified number of offers from the offer list can be selected and join the usual arbitration process with offers from other sources.
  • If there are more offers in an offer list than the specified number, a tie breaker selection policy is applied. Such policy can be one of the following.
    • Most recently updated offers
    • The values of an attribute common to these offers
    • Random selection
    • Custom implementation
  • Offer lists cannot be used in the branches, FlexOffers, and A/B tests.

Enhanced Integration of Interact and Deliver

In addition to sending emails, WhatsApp and SMS messages to Unica Deliver, Mobile Push messages can also be sent to Unica Deliver. The configuration of such message is done using the same easy-to-use user interface, which provides a consistent experience while configuring different types of messages.

In addition, the restriction is lifted so that a Deliver message template can be used in multiple Interact gateways. This provides more flexibilities when reusing templates and gateway configuration

Enhancements to FlexOffers

Several enhancements are added to FlexOffers, which is a relatively new feature by itself, to make the use of it even easier.

  • The rule mapping data can be automatically copied to the target server group during deployment.
  • Updated rule mapping data can be imported into an existing FlexOffers entry from a file or a database table, via UI or a standalone shell script.
  • The reimport of the rule mapping data is can be scheduled through Unica Platform or as a cron job.

More flexible use of segments

  • Segments can be used in the predicated in rule eligibility, offer scoring, and offer attribute parameterization.
  • This support is added to both strategy and FlexOffers.
  • Both strategic and smart segments are supported.

Addition of FORMAT macro

  • String values can be formatted with the same syntax currently supported in Unica Campaign.
  • Numeric values can be formatted into strings with a number of options.

Enhancements to Deployment

  • Old deployment records can be deleted from both the design time and all run time server groups. In addition, the deleted deployment records in the design time can be optionally archived to their respective tables in the Campaign database.
  • Once distributed cache is configured for Ignite in a target server group, only one URL is required to be registered with the design time. This URL can either be that of a run time instance from this server group or that of the load balancer setup in front of all the run time instances.

Enhancements to External Callout

  • An external callout can be implemented and configured to accept a varying number of arguments.
  • An external callout can be configured to be executed asynchronously with a timeout. This avoids the processing of a flowchart and depending requests to be blocked by a long running external callout execution.

Other Miscellaneous Enhancements

  • FlexOffers and Strategies that are not associated to Campaign objects are included in various reports.
  • A list of Insights reports have a refresh look and feel.
  • REST v2 is added to the test client UI as a supported API type.