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What's new and changed in SmartTarget 2011

This section describes what is new and what has changed in the 2011 release of SmartTarget with regard to the previous version of SmartTarget (SmartTarget 2010 SP1).

SmartTarget 2011 incorporates the following changes with regard to SmartTarget 2010 SP1:

Fredhopper changes: FAS version
SmartTarget 2011 runs on Fredhopper Access Server (FAS) version 7.1.2.
Fredhopper changed: dropped functionality
FAS 7.1 has dropped support for the Business Reporting module.
Fredhopper changes: new functionality
Triggers—the following new triggers have been introduced which you can use when defining promotions:
  • Dominant Category trigger—triggers a promotion using the most commonly used category of content items returned in a search query.
  • Dominant Attribute Value trigger—triggers a promotion using the most commonly used Schema fields used in content items returned in a query.
  • Number of Results trigger—triggers a promotion, or uses a ranking, based on the number of results returned by a query.
Rankings—Ranking functionality has been introduced to allow you to order content items returned by navigation and search functionality. You Manage Rankings in the Manage Targeting section of the SmartTarget Manager.
Data model changes
In SmartTarget 2010, single-value text fields whose value was chosen from a list of Keywords were mapped to the Fredhopper text basetype.
In SmartTarget 2011, single-value text fields whose value is chosen from a list of Keywords are mapped to the Fredhopper list basetype. The change enables you to use these fields in OR operations within the <tcdl:attribute> to filter out content.
Configuration: abbreviating Schema field and Segment names in SmartTarget Manager
By default, the full Publication name is affixed to Segment labels in the SmartTarget Manager. You can configure an abbreviated name to use instead of the Publication title in the <ShortPublicationName> section of the smarttarget_conf.xml configuration file. If you specify a short Publication name it is also added to labels used for Schema field labels.
Configuration: excluding Schema fields
You can now configure <ExcludeFields> to exclude certain Schema fields, Metadata Schema fields, and Embedded Schema fields from being published to Fredhopper in the SmartTarget smarttarget_conf.xml configuration file. When content is deployed to Fredhopper, that is when Fredhopper XML is being generated from the transport package, the list of <ExcludeFields> is checked to see whether or not a field should be added to the resulting XML file.
Configuration: adding SmartTarget data to Claim Store
You can configure whether to add SmartTarget data to the Ambient Data Framework Claim Store in the <DefaultValues><AddSmartTargetDataToClaimStore> section of the smarttarget_conf.xml file.
Configuration: allow duplicates
You can set the default value for the Allow duplicates across regions setting (see below) in the <DefaultValues><AllowDuplicates> section of the smarttarget_conf.xml
Allow duplicates across regions
A new setting, Allow duplicates across regions, has been added to the following Template Building Blocks provided by SmartTarget: Add SmartTarget search promotion, Add SmartTarget facet promotion and Add SmartTarget item promotion.
The Allow duplicates across regions setting controls whether or not SmartTarget filters out promotional items already displayed in preceding regions on this Page.
Segments as triggers for promotions
A Segment is an Audience Manager item that defines Contact preferences, interests and characteristics that represent a target audience of known Contacts accessing content on your Web sites.
The Audience Manager cartridge (for the Ambient Data Framework) has been updated so that Segments are now available for use as triggers in promotions. Fredhopper receives its list of available Segments from the presentation server; when the Segments available on the Content Manager are synchronized with presentation server, the list of available triggers in the trigger-types.xml configuration file is updated.
Field names used in SmartTarget Manager
The labeling of fields for Schemas has been changed to improve usability. A field in the SmartTarget Manager used to use the XML name of a field. A field is now identified using the Schema description field. For example, a field in an Embeddable Schemas uses the following format: SchemaName - FieldName - EmbeddableSchemaFieldName.
SmartTarget Deployment Web Service
The SmartTarget Deployment Web Service configuration file is now called SmartTargetDeploymentWebService_conf.xml. In the previous version, SmartTargetDeploymentWebService.properties file.
Performance improvements
The speed of publishing of large packages to Fredhopper has been improved significantly, as has the speed of query handling on busy Web sites.
SmartTarget Ambient Data Framework cartridges package names
The package names used to define the following cartridges provided with SmartTarget have been standardized:
  • smarttarget_cartridge.jar
  • session_cartridge.jar
  • audiencemanager_cartridge.jar
The following list describes the changes in package names:
  • com.tridion.ambientdata.cartridge.session in 2010 has been changed to

    com.tridion.smarttarget.ambientdata.session in 2011

  • com.tridion.ambientdata.audiencemanager in 2010 has been changed to

    com.tridion.smarttarget.ambientdata.audiencemanager in 2011

The package name com.tridion.smarttarget.ambientdata has not changed.
Due to the package name change, you may need to update your logback.xml file.
Content Deployer cd_deployer_conf.xml
A Phase attribute has also been added to the Processor element. The setting Phase="post-transaction" ensures that the processor is executed after data has been committed to the Content Data Store (and so is available for sending to SmartTarget).
You configure processors in the Content Deployer cd_deployer_conf.xml configuration file.
TCDL changes: deprecated and new tags
In the following table, the left-hand column describes the TCDL tags generated for SmartTarget that have been deprecated and the right-hand column describes the tags which replace these tags.
SmartTarget 2010 SP1 deprecated tagsSmartTarget 2011 replacement tags
<tcdl:itemContent> <tcdl:items>
<tcdl:itemContentInfo><tcdl:itemsHeader>
<tcdl:itemContentTemplate><tcdl:itemTemplate>
<tcdl:promotion><tcdl:promotions>
<tcdl:promotionContent><tcdl:promotionalItems>
The functionality remains unchanged, except for the <tcdl:promotions> tag which loops through all the promotions returned so that you can perform additional actions such as adding headers (the <tcdl:promotion> tag in the previous release returned a flat list).
TCDL changes: tcdl:navigation
Navigation functionality allows you to display links relating to what the user is searching for or where they are in the Web site (location). You implement navigation:
  • in Dreamweaver Templates, by adding <tcdl:navigation> tags to your templates. The <tcdl:navigation> generates navigation links to related content in your published Web pages.
  • In the SmartTarget Manager, by adding attributes to the navigation index (live attributes) and then defining facets (a facet is an attribute that can be used for navigating content).
TCDL changes: tcdl:attribute tag
The <tcdl:attribute> tag, which defines a name and value pair that you can add to a query to filter a result set on attributes, has changed.
In SmartTarget 2010 SP1, you specified the name and value as attributes in the <tcdl:attribute> tag and if you used multiple <tcdl:attribute> tags these were treated as AND operations. For example:
<tcdl:attribute name="templateid" value="tcm:5-1001-32"/>
<tcdl:attribute name="templateid" value="tcm:5-1002-32"/>
In SmartTarget 2011, you add the values as subelements within the <tcdl:attribute>. The following is the same example in 2011:
<tcdl:attribute name="templateid">
   <tcdl:value>tcm:5-1001-32</tcdl:value>
</tcdl:attribute>

<tcdl:attribute name="templateid">
   <tcdl:value>tcm:5-1002-32</tcdl:value>
</tcdl:attribute>
You can now create OR operations by adding the multiple values as subelements within the <tcdl:attribute>:
<tcdl:attribute name="templateid">
   <tcdl:value>tcm:5-1001-32</tcdl:value>
   <tcdl:value>tcm:5-1002-32</tcdl:value>
</tcdl:attribute>