• Introduction
• Version: 21.3.0
• New Features
  • Scheduled Product Availability (Open Beta)
• Maintenance & Bug Fixes (General Availability)
• Indexing
• Deployment & Integration

Introduction

These release notes provide an overview of the new features and improvements for the latest Fredhopper version, FAS 21.3.0.

Version: 21.3.0

Release Date: 22/10/21

FAS 21.3.0 is the third major release for Fredhopper in 2021. The main highlight of this release is the introduction of the Date attribute within the Fredhopper Discovery Platform. This enhancement allows users to schedule product launches at specific dates/times to a particular group of customers.

The Query API and Data API are extended over the FAS 21.2 line by the addition of a new attribute type - Date.

The Configuration API is backwards compatible with FAS 8.x.y, 19.x.y, 20.x.y, 21.1.z, and 21.2.z., except for the entities that use the new attribute type. The latter entities will not be backwards compatible, and will not function if the version is downgraded.

New Features

Merchandising Studio & Preview Pages: Scheduled Product Availability

[New] [Open Beta] Scheduled Product Availability is the latest feature available in FAS and introduces the Date attribute in Fredhopper. This allows merchandisers the ability to specify the dates that they want products to be available so that they can schedule launches for future dates.

Merchandisers will be able to pre-merchandise products before they're available to shoppers by specifying their availability via the Data API. Once dates have been specified, users will be able to preview their changes using triggers within the Merchandising Studio. Within the Merchandising Studio, UI improvements have been for Campaigns, Facets (Beta) and Result Modifications to ensure the date attribute is supported.

Scheduled Product Availability will allow users to:

• Schedule product launches with future dates via the Data AP, using ISO-8601 format.
• Launch products in a specific market or region.
• Launch products to all customers globally at the same time across different time zones. The default timezone is UTC.

However, entities that use location, current item triggers, etc. based on the Date type, will not be downgraded successfully and will not be available on earlier FAS versions.

Maintenance & Bug Fixes (General Availability)

Search & Navigation

[Fixed] Handling of missing conflated attributes in breadcrumbs.

(FAS-17592)

[Improved] A/B test-related parameters not included in the response URLs.

(REP-1378)

Indexing

FAS 21.3.0 supports date attributes that are sent through the Data API. The supported format is ISO-8601. The default time zone is UTC. If a downgrade is needed, items containing Date attributes will require a configuration change of the XML loader, so that they are not completely rejected.

Deployment & Integration

Implementations that already consist of date attributes via Text type (or other attribute types) should consult with their Technical Consultants before upgrading. This is to ensure the migration to the new date attribute will be seamless.