Server 4.2

January 24th, 2019

Release Highlights:

• Device Observer,
• In-app Templates (Pop up Format),
• Some Improvements and Issues Fixes,

Device Observer

While integrating FollowAnalytics SDK within apps, it’s important to be able to register test devices, to test E2E integration and analyze device communication with our servers. We are now proposing a new section in Administration menu, to be able to:

• Manage test devices,

• Add test devices for a specific app,

• Test push notification on test device,

• Display device logs.

In-app Templates (Pop up Format)

In order to keep enriching our templates library, we've added 3 new default templates, in Pop up format :

• Basic template with title, body, a library of icons and buttons,

• Customized template that has images for background and as illustration, they can be uploaded through the editor,

• One image template, that has only one image and a close ‘x’ action.

This release is bringing also the following improvements to the editor:

• Enabling new lines in multi-lines fields in default templates,

• New color picker to better choose colors and save recently used ones,

• Improving the display of the close 'x' according to device size.

Some improvements

• Enabling to export apps in the administration section frontend side,

• To better analyse and understand the path to crash, that page has been simplified. It has now 3 depths instead of 5 and the number of events at each step has been limited to 2,

• On Deep-backend and API side, we've added Optimal Time delivery logic and improved the process of device targeting for broadcast contextual campaigns.

Issues fixes

• Implementing a workaround to display Close ‘X’ in in-app templates for old iOS sdk,

• To improve global user experience in the platform, refine app picker default selection while going from one page of the platform to another,

• Fixing a formatting issue in export files process,

• Fixing an Issue with ‘targeted devices’ storage in case of contextual campaigns.

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Server 4.1

December 26th, 2018

We are happy to announce this new server release that contains the following:

• Default Templates,

• Templates library & editor improvements,

• Operational population,

• More improvements and issue fixes,

• Upcoming releases,

Default Templates

Now that template library is launched, we are proposing three default templates in Fullscreen format:

• A Basic template which has a library of icon, text blocks and custom buttons, so that you do not need any asset on your end.

• A Custom template which includes images, text blocks and custom buttons.

• An Interstitial, made up of one image, an action can be configured and applied on the whole area of the image.

All those templates are now available in our platform for all users!

We propose also a git repository dedicated to default templates: https://github.com/followanalytics/fa-templates. It will keep evolving in the future, with more and more templates for both fullscreen and pop up formats. Feel free to create your own templates by editing these ones!

Templates library & editor improvements

We keep improving our template library and editor, here are some important points:

• Logging of campaign actions and displaying them properly in campaign results page,

• Handing of templates duplication in the library,

• Adding the option of displaying many fields in the same line of the editor,

• Handling of close ‘X’ in the editor.

We are also planning a new feature for the next release, to be make it possible to save the changes made on the template from the editor, in order to have it in the library and use it again if desired.

Operational population

To be precise on opt-in percentages displayed in Segments & Campaigns, we are now updating the population to take into account only active devices, which excludes all devices we detect as uninstalled.

This will be visible on segments analytics, segment population will decrease and opt-in percentages will increase significantly.

More improvements

This release brings in many improvements in various sections of the platform:

• Administration:

• Upload a custom app icons to the platform for apps added manually,

• Display a warning while uploading an iOS push certificate when the bundle ID doesn’t match with the one of the app.

• For User Analytics, we are able to make the export displaying data per day, and only for the selected events from the UI.

• On the Backend side, we are optimizing the new Kafka pipeline. We have also added monitoring for campaigns, exports and other features.

Issues fixed

• Fixing some translation issues that were occuring for special browser and preferences configurations,

• Changing how agregation are done for Heatmap, to be able to display correct heatmap regardless of the timezone set on the browser,

• Fixing a frontend issue about display timezone of dynamic campaigns,

• Handling the combination of silent push with multilingual campaign,

• Managing default values for campaigns after saving them as draft,

• Fixing the behaviour of ‘back’ action after selecting an app from search results list.

Upcoming releases

We are looking forward to delivering many new features in early next year, here are some:

• Brand location management,

• Device Observer: Manage test devices and display device observer,

• Template library improvements: Save edited templates, More default templates, Support pop-up format...

• Advanced campaign analytics.

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Server 4.0

November 29th, 2018

Here are the release Highlights:

• In-app templates library and editor,

• User permission management (app access),

• Some improvements and issue fixes.

In-app templates library and editor

This release introduces a new UI and UX for a template library, and also a brand-new template schema that offers many customizable parameters.

In-app templates library

In the ‘Message’ step of in-app campaign creation, the user first chooses a notification layout in the library of templates. The library has a tab for each layout format (pop up and fullscreen for now) and is composed of native layouts, default templates and templates added to the library.

While hovering the items of the library, the user can see the device preview, view template information, download or delete added templates when they have template management permission, and also select one to start editing it.

The user has also the ability to upload a new template, to use it within the campaign or to share it in the library. This feature is only available for fullscreen format for now, and will be extended to pop up formats as well in future releases.

Users who have appropriate permissions can change sharing options of added templates, to make them available only for the current campaign, or to share them within the currently selected app or with all apps. This feature is available while uploading a new template, in the library, editor and review pages through ‘Template info’ pop up.

In-app templates editor

In order to allow platform users to use templates with editable fields that can be customized in the editor page, we are introducing a new templates schema.

Therefore, template .zip files include an updated version of the ‘definition.json’, that has different types of ‘input’ parameters, enabling users to define the template fields to display in the editor.

A detailed documentation will be available in dev portal in the next release.

User permission management (app access)

With the app access management feature, you will be able to fully manage user and team permissions in the FollowAnalytics platform UI.

This feature provides a full view of users and teams app access status, and gives you the possibility to override those permissions, and deny or allow app access for all apps, app groups or single apps.

Improvements

This release includes some frontend and backend improvements:

• Backend: complete the ingestion of logs and sessions into the new kafka-based pipeline,

• Provide exports of downloads, engagement and crashes data for the selected period of time from the UI,

• Prevent user enumeration and improve password policy as part of platform security audit,

• Reduce the delay to display AB testing statistics in the frontend.

Issues fixed

The main fix in this release is to properly manage copy pasting formatted content into fields in the UI.

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Server 3.12

November 8th, 2018

Here are the release Highlights:

• User permission management,

• Session Heatmap,

• Simplified chinese support,

• Auto-filling filter on string attributes,

• In-app templates library & editor,

• Some improvements and issue fixes.

User permission management

Users permissions were managed by Followanalytics teams so far. In this version, we’ve allowed platform users that are admin to manage those permissions for both platform users and teams.

And we continue the work on this feature in the next release to provide also app access management in the UI.

Session heatmap

In order to have a better visibility of app and website usage over hours of the day across the days of the week, we’ve added a session heatmap graph to the user analytics dashboard.

The heatmap can be filtered by dates and by segments.

Simplified chinese

For some of our clients that have chinese users, it is important to handle separately simplified and traditional chinese users, for better segmentation and campaign targeting.

In this release, we made it possible to filter by simplified or traditional chinese

Auto-filling filter on string and set attributes

It is important for platform users to know the values of set and string attributes when filtering on them, and to know their distribution over the population.

Therefore, we are adding in this release auto-filling on filters for these attributes as shown below:

In-app templates library & editor

In server release 3.10, we’ve introduced a first step in the In-app templates library & editor feature deployment by updating the Message step in campaign creation flow.

In this release, we’ve made a step forward by making it possible - for users with appropriate permissions - to manage template sharing options.

We keep up the work to deliver the complete scope in the upcoming releases, including improvements on the library, new templates schema, editor and default templates.

Improvements

This version brings many improvements in user analytics, segments, user selfcare and also a good progress on the new data pipeline. Here are the main changes:

• Provide more operators on Date Attributes: ‘is before the last‘ and ‘is after the next’ X days,

• Enable to copy an existing segment as draft in the frontend,

• Let users change their password in preferences section,

• Improve the management of special cases when data is not available,

• Reduce the size of the delivery type block in campaign creation, as part of UI optimization in the creation flow,

• Backend: adding attributes to the new kafka pipeline.

Issues fixed

Here is a summary of the issues resolved in this new release:

• Do not show more days than the requested period for event details analytics,

• Fix an issue with first and last seen dates for crashes,

• Handle labels with special characters in the frontend,

• Improve the creation and update of apple store account when ‘validated’ is set to true.

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Server 3.11

October 15th, 2018

This release introduces 3 new features:

• GDPR polling API,

• Segment-based analytics on more pages,

• New permissions model,

In addition to that, we keep improving analytics pages, campaign exports and we’ve added more granularity in push frequency limitation as part of the administration section.

We’ve also continued working on improving the token pipeline, refactoring the backend and fixing platform issues.

GDPR polling API

In addition to sending data access and erasure requests by email to our customers, we are offering in this version a new open API to allow our customers to get the list of data access and erasure requests, received by Followanalytics within the last 7 days.

You’ll find all technical information about this API here.

Segment-based analytics on more pages

As promised in previous releases, segment based analytics feature has been launched on ‘events & errors’ and ‘crashes’ analytics pages.

You can simply select a saved segment that has analytics previously enabled, and it will filter the KPIs presented in those analytics pages.

New permissions model

To prepare the launching of user permission management in the UI in the next release, we’ve been working on updating the existing permissions model to make them more precise and simple to manage.

Improvements

Unlimited languages for multilingual campaigns

Before, when setting up a multilingual campaign, we were limited to 5 languages while composing In-app and push messages. In this release, we’ve added a horizontal scrolling system to allow you to add unlimited number of languages in message page.

Alphabetical sorting for events & errors page

In this version, you have also the possibility to sort the events and errors graphs by alphabetical order in user analytics page.

Message frequency limitation per day

Up to now, as part of app administration options, message frequency limitation could be set to a limit per week or per month, now it becomes possible to set a limit per day as well.

Backend improvements

On the other hand, we keep up the work on the backend:

• Refactoring of DB,

• Fine tuning of token pipeline,

• Attribute workflow refactoring,

• Simplify timezone handline in the backoffice.

Issues fixed

Here is a summary of the issues resolved in this new release:

• Improve technical details display for crash analytics,

• Improve dates filtering for analytics in the backend,

• Fix an issue happening after refreshing attributes page,

• Improve the display of silent push options,

• Fix an error happening when trying to activate Transactional campaigns,

• Improve the UI of edit page for transactional campaigns,

• Correctly handle some exceptions in the backend.

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Server 3.10

September 24th, 2018

We are currently building a new In-app template library and editor to offer editable In-app templates to our users. This feature will be available by the end of this year.

In this release, we’ve started preparing for the In-app template library by updating the message step in campaign creation flow, and also by increasing the width of the interface.

This release introduces also an important change in token ingestion pipeline and some improvements in the frontend and backend.

New in-app layout choice flow

To create an In-app message, first you choose either Pop up or Fullscreen format, and then you choose your layout.

For Fullscreen format, the layout can be either a web URL or a template to upload.

After choosing a layout, it’s always possible to change it using the "Change layout" button.

Wider interface

Increasing the width of the platform interface will allow us later to display more templates in the library we are building, besides having more space for template editor items.

It also improves the user experience overall the platform.

Before:

Now:

Improvements

• Enrich campaigns export data with open rates,

• Include all store comments in the export file,

• Handle new Google Play app statuses when parsing the store,

• Backend: Replace old token injection pipeline with brand new kafka-based pipeline.

Server 3.9

September 11th, 2018

This release introduces a new major feature: Multilingual campaigns.

This new version also includes some significant UI changes in campaigns results statistics, besides some important bug fixes related to campaigns, sessions recording and last user-id to be set for devices.

Multilingual campaigns

With this feature, you will be able to add up to 5 languages while composing your Push and In-app messages.

Default language is set by default to your browser language and can be changed easily for your campaign to your convenience.

This feature is available for all delivery types and is also compatible with muli-app campaigns. Once all required languages are added, you can review all the messages in Review page and then launch your campaign.

In upcoming releases, we are aiming to remove the limitation of the number of languages.

Campaign results statistics

We keep improving campaigns section in this release where we propose some UI improvements on campaigns results page.

Push and In-app statistics are now splitted in two different tabs. Each statistics page has two main blocks; the first one provides global statistics from Initial audience to push opened or buttons clicks.

For contextual campaigns, we enhance relevant statistics such as moment reached, and unless occurrences. The second block provides a zoom in a specific period of time. For AB testing, it allows also to focus only on either the sampling or optimization phase.

Issues fixed

Here is a summary of the issues resolved with this release:

• Improved push sending reliability,

• Some campaigns labeled as failed were actually sent,

• For scheduled campaigns, if 0 push is sent, it would remain with ongoing status,

• Avoid displaying that the user has restricted rights in administration section,

• Fixed last user-id not set for some devices,

• Fix on sessions occasionally not recorded after aggregation.

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Server 3.8

September 3rd, 2018

This release introduces 2 new major features:

• Segment-based analytics,

• Multi-app campaign creation.

Revamping of the campaign section continues, with a new header style, improving readability and consistency for quick-view stats. The campaign detail page will be reorganized in the next release.

We also improved some of the exports you can get from the interface, as well as fixed a set of issues.

Segment-based analytics

FollowAnalytics already provided a first level of analytics for saved segments. This was however limited to a fixed period of days, on limited KPIs.

We are introducing the ability to filter your Analytics dashboard page using any of your segments. Simply select an analytics-enabled saved segment from the list at the top of the page to filter all the KPIs given below.

In the future, we will roll out this feature to the other tabs of the Analytics section.

Multi-app campaign creation

Many FollowAnalytics users create campaigns meant to be sent to both their iOS and Android apps. In some cases, similar apps are deployed as separate binaries to the app stores.

Thanks to this new product release, you will be able to create your message once and have the FollowAnalytics product create campaigns for up to 3 apps. All delivery types but Contextual are supported.

The process is similar to what you are used to:

• Select your apps (up to 3), delivery type and formats,

• Write your message(s), define general and platform-specific parameters. You can have a quick preview for each platform, and even send previews on any registered device for your selected apps,

• Define the delivery parameters,

• Select the audience to reach. For each app, you can choose to target all users or a list of saved segments. This means you can still leverage user preferences, behavior, and any other targeting you are used to rely on,

• Save your campaigns.

Campaign design updates

Continuing on our efforts to improve the campaign list and reports, this release introduces a new list item view, also used as the header of the campaign view page.

The quick-view stats displayed are better adapted to the type and state of each campaign.

Improvements

Campaign exports

The export file, which you can get from the campaign list, contains new fields:

• app name and platform,
• the app groups the app is in,
• open rate columns for messages.

Usage export

The usage export file, exported from the Analytics main dashboard, now contains the break down of app version.

Issues fixed

Here is a summary of the issues resolved with this new release:

• Fixed occasional failure at loading crash details in Analytics section,

• Fixed a discrepancy in unique users KPI between pages,

• Contextual messages could sometimes not be displayed on Android,

• Fixed display of dashboard when Downloads feature is disabled,

• App message rate limitation could incorrectly be applied to contextual campaign audience calculation,

• Clicking on the User Analytics entry in the main menu while being in one of its page now properly redirects to the analytics dashboard,

• Fixed event details report file generation.

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Server 3.7

July 31st, 2018

The campaign workflow gets a revamping for better consistency.

Campaign creation flow revamping

The flow for creating campaigns gets refreshed for better readability and consistency.

Order of steps

To create a campaign, you will be proceeding through the following steps:

• Select your app, delivery type and formats,

• Configure your message(s),

• Define the delivery details of your campaign: start date, rate capping, and depending on your campaign type: your triggers, campaign duration, and recurrence parameters,

• Define the audience of the campaign. Depending on your campaign type, this audience serves distinct roles (as mentioned in the page):

  • Scheduled: Who will receive your message(s),
  • Contextual: Who is eligible to receive your message, when they perform the trigger you defined,
  • Dynamic: Segment that will be watched to identify new members.

• Review and send.

Please note that the duration of an in-app campaign is now handled using a "Do not deliver after" parameter located in the Delivery step, under "advanced options".

Audience selection

The audience step has been redesigned to make it much easier to select one or multiple saved segments. You can still select custom filtering for one-off targeting.

Data Wallet

• We know setup can be cumbersome. So data elements have been simplified: the list of Follow data is lighter, and when a customer adds external data on a recipient, we suggest items both for easy filling and also to indicate the granularity level.

• New option to export a policy in XLS format from the history tab, to have it easier to read / review.

• Identifiers can now have capital letters and start with a number.

Misc

GDPR

Data extraction for GDPR data access request now contains an HTML viewer so that the data can be easily browsed (in addition to the JSON file for automated processing).

FCM Keys

Customers can now provide their own FCM server key, in case you do not use the default Android SDK configuration.

Fixes

This release ships several fixes, including the following ones on Campaigns: - Push server fix on Android transactional campaigns,

• Hits on Dismiss are now properly computed for in-app messages,

• "undefined" would appear in campaign summary audience details,

• Moment computation.