Development Update
28th February 2024
In these updates our focus was primary improving the search functionality and returning a more accurate results to users. Outlines below are all the ways in which this has been achieved and information on all other features, fixes and improvements made in this update .
Search Results Overhaul
In this update, we've implemented a significant overhaul of our search functionality to provide users with vastly more accurate results. The focus has been on redefining the product rankings to enhance the user experience along with an overhaul look and feel of the results, which represent our ongoing commitment to optimizing the user experience across various devices and ensuring a modern, clean, and consistent look and feel throughout the platform.
Result Rankings
Notable updates include the introduction of decaying sales rank (formerly an indefinite sales rank), which prioritizes recent sales, thus offering more topical rankings to users. Additionally, titles marked as NYP (Not Yet Published) now receive a boost multiplier on sales and product rankings are also now influenced by the number of stock units available.
Furthermore, we've adjusted the ranking system to de-prioritize certain titles including out-of-print titles and those lacking jacket images.
We have also implemented tracking to effectively gauge our re-weighting efforts and give performance metrics of how easily a user was able to find the title they needed. This will help with further optimisations in the future and enhance findability to all customers.
Look and Feel
Users will now see additional surfaced data such as ISBN (formerly only in flow view), series information, and DVD suitability within the search results. We've also simplified the viewing experience by adopting a single uniform layout for all users, removing the previous “tabular” and “flow” views. The add-to-basket popup has been streamlined to eliminate unnecessary information, making the process more intuitive. Lastly, we've improved the interconnectivity between data points, enabling users to search by clicking on relevant information such as series or author within the search results.
Prioritization of Available titles
Prioritization of available titles has been implemented that will by default only show available & not yet published titles, with OP titles having to be manually selected. The first stage of this was to default this as search preference for all users within their search settings and also apply available & NYP flag to results when selecting the type “Books” from the main search bar.
Further enhancements are planned for this functionality, which involve hiding OP on all results unless specified by the user to include and giving checkbox functionality to “show out of print titles” from within the search results.
Ability to send 1 invoice per email
Based on user feedback of multiple customers that are unable to process PDF invoices that contain multiple invoice attachments via email. An option has been added to enable this on account level. This can be enabled by contacting your customer care representative to active on your account if required.
Alma API enhancement
Alma API messages now pass MaterialType to Alma for API order fulfilment.
Custom EDI fields now able to be mapped to EDI field codes in transmitted messages.
To support EDI fields that we do not currently transmit e.g. LSL, LSC, RIC. We have added the ability to include in EDI outbound messages: quote, fulfilment, invoice (not acknowledgement as that doesn’t include copy level data), we will add in the outgoing copy data the value of that field. This feature can be enabled by request by your customer care representative.
Other Improvements
- Backorders titles not clearing when fulfilled
- DDA fulfillment generating shipping notifications
- Mulit-select add to basket adds to the wrong basket when trying to create a new basket
- Allowing deleting of user accounts connected to punchout order mappings
- *Error when setting order line quantity to 0 (in single product page) to delete line from basket
- Parcel tracking information from BrownsOps not passing to website - Stop auto cancellation of DVDs
- Email invoices sending to users subscribed to any admin reports
- Enhanced ability To Match QuoteLines In ConfirmedOrders for OCLC Users
