Sitefinity releases - May 29, 2019
Obiageli Ogbutor May 29, 2019In the May 2019 sprint; at the request of the University Leadership and the Board of Regents, OIT devoted considerable effort on the relaunch of the new CU Online website expected to launch on June 5th.This impacted the development of other features and some items have been added to the June sprint.
New features:
Parent or Sponsor Link
The “Parent or Sponsor” field in the page header has a linking capability now. We received a request form the School of Medicine and we have added a new “Parent or Sponsor URL” field in the page properties.
DigiArc (formerly NewEd) Degree Finder Coming Soon!
OIT has been facilitating the process of getting the University’s academic program data to our Program Finder vendor. CU Online will be the first site to use this feature in the upcoming months. OIT will continue to iterate on this web module and it will be available for use by the the wider community in the near future.
Helvetica Neue Web Font
The University has purchased a web license for the brand complaint Helvetica Neue font. After conferring with CU Boulder and CU Colorado Springs, we applied the new font to all the heading tags (h1-h6) on the Sitefinity website. The font will not be used in SharePoint.
Improvements:
People Widget
We have changed the “Education” accordion heading to “Education, Certifications and Licensures”.
Call to Action Button in the Content Block Widget
Based on feedback received in May, we revised how the CTA Button within the Content Block Widget functions to a great extent. Editing a button is now more robust. The proper color of the button is not previewed until builders have saved the widget – this is a feature that we are still working on. All the fields in CTA button in the content editor are required so the site builders must fill out all fields including More Options-> Margins.
Hero Image Heights
We added more height options to the Hero Image widget at the request of CU Online to meet site builders need.
Enhanced Card Link Target
At the request of the School of Medicine, we have added the ability to open a link in a new window to the Enhanced Cards.
Classification Field in People Content Type
At the request of the College of Nursing, we have added the “Categories” classification field to the People content type. This allows for custom filtering and categorization.
New Template for Academic Program
At the request of the School of Public Affairs, we have added a new template to Academic Program. The new template does not include a link to the detailed program page. This is for use on the detailed program pages, they should not link to themselves. When selecting a single Academic Program, make sure to follow the steps on the @Web Resource site: https://www.ucdenver.edu/atweb/support/current-workarounds/reusable-content-type-bug
Disabling the Attachment field on Forms
We have disabled the attachment field on the Sitefinity form builder due to security risk.
Bug fixes:
Linked Header Colors
Styling for linked header tags (h1-h6) have been strengthened to avoid having blue appear on the linked headers.
Groundwork for future improvements:
Hero Carousel/Slide Show Widget
The Hero Carousel/Slideshow widget did not pass the quality assurance testing in May. We want to release a reliable version of this widget so we have rescheduled this improvement to be part of the June 2019 releases.
Digital Experience Cloud and A/B Testing
OIT has begun the initial exploration of the Digital Experiencer Cloud which will allow enhanced features for marketing through Sitefinity. A/B testing is one of the features we are exploring.
Infographics
The term infographic can be extremely subjective. OIT has received several requests for an infographic feature in Sitefinity but the requirements have been varied. We are compiling requirements so that we can find a solution that best fits the needs of the wider community.
Article Card Template, Event card Template
We have finished the Prototyping to provide a “Card” template for news articles. The next step is to integrate it into Sitefinity.
Prototyping was also completed on a similar template for Events.
Highlight Box for Enhanced Card
We have designed and prototyped a new template for the Enhanced Cards. The next step will be the integration into Sitefinity.
https://www.ucdenver.edu/prototypes/development/enhanced-card/highlight-box-template
Research Lifecycle Content Type
OIT has been facilitating a discovery process between the Research Administration and a vendor to define a Research Lifecycle content type. The content type will allow the Research Admin team to show the structure, features and layout of the complex content relating to the lifecycle of a research project.
Hero Video Redesign and Theater Mode
The Hero Video widget template has been redesigned to be more accessible. It is now in the Prototype stage and features a larger play button. The next step is the integration into Sitefinity.
https://www.ucdenver.edu/prototypes/development/hero-video/hero-video-theatre-mode
https://www.ucdenver.edu/prototypes/development/hero-video/hero-video-hover-button-denver
Additionally, we have added the option to allow a video to appear in “theater mode”. This will stop videos from distorting at certain screen sizes.
Partnerships Content Type
At the request of the School of Education & Human Development, we are gathering requirements on “Partnerships” content type. The content type would allow for the dynamic and template display of information concerning organizations partners such as schools and clinics.
Bootstrap 4 and Sitefinity Version 12
In anticipation of Sitefinity version 12, we will be updating our codebase from the Bootstrap 3 framework to the more modern Bootstrap 4 framework.
Type-In Filter
OIT has begun discovery on a dynamic type-in filter that will work with various widgets. Our initial exploration has been with Academic Program data. We will continue to look at options and plan to develop features in the upcoming releases.
Deactivating Inline Editing
We are evaluating whether or not to turn off inline editing. Despite being a popular selling point in our initial purchase of Sitefinity, our site builders do not use it regularly. The inline editing has an impact of slow page load time on site. For these mentioned reasons, we may turn it off to improve the site speed and performance for all site builders.
Multiple Buttons for Hero Image Widget
We are in the planning phase of a feature that would offer multiple buttons on the Hero Image widget.
Possible Salesforce Integration
The OIT Web Services team is exploring the University’s needs for an integration between Salesforce and Sitefinity.
GDPR for Sitefinity
The OIT Web Services team is exploring options to align with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. Sitefinity has some functionality built in and we look forward to updates in V12.
Sticky Sessions Reexamination
As part of our continued efforts to improve performance, we are working with the OIT Network and Infrastructure team to implement smarter sticky session on the load balancers.
Changing Number of Horizontally Aligned Enhanced Cards
We have received multiple requests to allow the site builders to change the number of enhanced cards that appear side by side. Some builders requested a two side by side while others requested a four side by side. We are working on a solution that allows the site builders to make these changes on their own. This will be a phase approach where we start with the CSS classes that can be added through a widget’s CSS Classes field.
Known Issues
Top Nav Flyouts not working in Edge
The Edge browser is not working with our top navigation animation. We are working to resolve this issue.
Current Workarounds
Be sure to check out https://www.ucdenver.edu/atweb/support/current-workarounds for the latest on known issues.
CTA, Testimonial, and Enhanced Card changing title of the page
When a single item of content is specifically selected, it changes the title of the page. There is a work around to avoid this issue. Please see https://www.ucdenver.edu/atweb/support/current-workarounds/reusable-content-type-bug
May 2019 site launches
The School of Medicine main site launched on May 8th:
https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/
The CU Denver Career Center site launched on May 15th:
https://www.ucdenver.edu/services/career-center
The College of Architecture & Planning launched on May 22nd:
https://architectureandplanning.ucdenver.edu/
The Center for Preservation Research launched on May 22nd:
https://www.ucdenver.edu/centers/center-of-preservation-research
The Colorado Center of Community Development launched on May 22nd:
https://www.ucdenver.edu/centers/colorado-center-of-community-development