Cascade CMS 8.4

• Concurrent editing notifications
• Asset locks and workflows
• Mentioning users (@mentions)
• Page header improvements

Concurrent editing notifications

To help avoid overlapping edits, users will now be notified if they begin editing an asset which has a recent draft from another user.

Asset locks and workflows

Improvements have been made to the lock and workflow experience to further help with user collaboration. These features address ideas we've heard from you on our customer idea exchange:

• Idea: Allow for Workflow Steps to be reassigned
• Idea: Allow drafting to be turned off when asset is locked

Working Copies of an asset can now be re-assigned to other Users at particular steps of a Workflow. Step re-assignment can be restricted to individual Users or to Users of a particular Group or Role.

Users are no longer able to create drafts when an asset is locked or currently in Workflow. Instead, users are presented with a message indicating who the current owner is, and depending on their Site Role abilities, can quickly re-assign the lock or working copy.

Mentioning users (@mentions)

Ever wish you could easily pull someone into a conversation on a particular page or task? Certain comment areas now support the use of autocompleting "@mentions" as a means to include users in a conversation by simply typing the @ symbol and part of the username, or their full name, to see a list of suggestions.

Current comment fields that support @mentions include:

• Threaded asset comments
• Task descriptions

Page header improvements

The look and feel of the page header has been updated for improved flexibility across all types of devices. Longer page titles are now being truncated better mobile support.

Features/Improvements

• Auto-complete @mentions of usernames/full names in Asset/Task Comments.
• Notify Users of concurrent edits
• Do not allow submitting drafts to a locked asset (manually or through workflow). Also, users can send requests to lock owners to unlock assets.
• Locked assets can be reassigned to other users
• Allow reassigning of Working Copies held at particular steps of Workflow
• Update look and feel of page header for consistency and flexibility
• Support for SQL Server 2016 for on-premise installations. Note that currently supported versions are 2016, 2014, and 2012. SQL Server 2008 is no longer supported.
• Upgrade detects and migrates some common problem assets associated with the Global area when upgrading from 7.x.
• Use full SHA for build id
• Intercom for Cascade Cloud customers
• WCAG accessibility checker when previewing pages for Cascade Cloud customers

Issues Fixed

• Search functionality pegging CPU and possibly causing more widespread performance problems
• Users table takes a long time to load for instances with a lot of audits
• Write access error during assignment of Workflow edit step if Asset lock does not belong to user
• User can not commit changes to their own locked assets if they are required to go through Workflow
• Owned By column in Content Up for Review/Stale Content reports not being populated
• User Comments: it is not possible to mention usernames with spaces
• Content Ownership Report: Created column has same value as Last Modified column
• After deleting Workflow, Lock/Working copy left on asset can't be removed
• Errors encountered when attempting a search/replace are not displayed to the user
• Catch all 403 errors from Google Analytics
• Asset Details menu shows system metadata for the draft
• Tinymce failed initialization in Firefox on consecutive modal open
• Intermittent error when committing locked asset
• Error: "This asset edit was not saved because another edit was submitted"
• Chooser panel does not show details for site management area asset types
• Modal backdrop doesn't get removed after closing second modal
• EmailProvider workflow trigger sends duplicate emails when an error occurs during send
• Viewing draft message is confusing when there is a working copy present
• Start workflow screen throws null pointer when there are no ordered transition steps in workflow definition with default user or group assignments
• Review workflows should create a working copy
• Workflow builder: escalation hours incorrect after submission
• Full Screen Preview when viewing a Page is not taking currently selected Output into account
• Unable to restore assets from Recycle Bin when using custom 7.14.2 build when rolling back from 8.x upgrade
• IE11: Inserting external links in WYSIWYG places content at the beginning of the content. Recommended to use Edge or a different browser
• Dollar signs ($) in title/display name of assets selected in choosers prevent Edit modal from appearing
• Disappearing checkboxes on publish dialog
• Un-publish on move/rename does not work when starting workflow and then selecting "None"
• Disabled outputs are still able to be toggled on publish
• "Welcome" widget missing for users without a full name
• Safari 10.1: Can't scroll vertically beyond viewport
• Allow custom CSS classes within Editor Configruations to contain spaces
• Adding new repeatable groups will no longer duplicate the previous group's values.

Upgrading from 7.x to 8.4

For those who are upgrading from the 7.x series, Cascade CMS 8.4 introduces a new migration tool that will automatically address problematic assets that are commonly encountered during the process of preparing for the Cascade 8.x upgrade. More information can be found on the preparation guide.

First Time Installation?

Be sure to import our default database schema prior to installing Cascade CMS for the first time. Then follow the appropriate installation instructions for your environment.

Upgrade Steps

1. Shut down your currently running Cascade CMS instance.
2. Before you upgrade, we strongly recommend that you back-up your production database. as well as set up a test environment and perform a trial run of the upgrade. All customers are entitled to a test license for this purpose.
3. Read the release notes and upgrade guides for all releases between your version and the latest version.
4. Cascade CMS 8 requires a full installation.
5. Certain versions require that specific steps be taken during the upgrade process. Be sure to read over any and all items that apply to the version to which you are upgrading:

2014-01-01 11:53:25,405 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Clearing orphaned assets...
2014-01-01 11:53:25,405 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Clearing orphaned Data Definition nodes...
2014-01-01 11:54:09,508 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Deleted 7 orhpaned Data Definition nodes
2014-01-01 11:54:09,508 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Repeating the operation until there are no more orhaned nodes to delete
2014-01-01 11:54:57,350 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Deleted 14 more orhpaned Data Definition nodes
2014-01-01 12:02:30,529 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Repeating the operation until there are no more orhaned nodes to delete
2014-01-01 12:02:58,724 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Deleted 0 more orhpaned Data Definition nodes
2014-01-01 12:02:58,725 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Finished clearing 224 orphaned Data Definition node record(s)
2014-01-01 12:02:58,725 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Fixing Structured Data with missing owner entity property
2014-01-01 12:03:29,712 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Found 211 broken Structured Data nodes
2014-01-01 12:03:32,451 INFO  [OptimizeDatabaseServiceImpl] Fixed a total of 9 assets with broken Structured Data nodes