Explore the highlights from our Q4 2021 software release. We've worked hard to bring you exciting new features and enhancements in order to optimise user experience and keep up with the evolving needs of the marketing community.
In the Orbit online platform we introduced Orbit Venns, helping you to identify, illustrate, and highlight comparisons and similarities in your data, in just a few clicks. We also announced the launch of the new channel editor, which builds on our growing campaigning functionality in the Orbit platform. We've added new features and enhanced the UI of our behavioural modelling functionality in FastStats and in PeopleStage there is a major enhancement to our real-time campaigning functionality (released in beta). To read the full release notes our partners and users can login to the Apteco portal
Need help? For a practical, step-by-step guide on how to use any of the features in Apteco software, visit the Apteco Help Hub.
One of the most exciting additions to Orbit this quarter has been the introduction of Venn diagrams within Orbit dashboards. This release also includes enhancements to the chart naming to allow the user to make their tiles more descriptive.
In the FastStats modelling environment, a number of usability improvements have been implemented for the easier handling of behavioural features (dimensions), including improved menu operation and the introduction of dialogs for creating and modifying behavioural features and transactional combinations.
Building on Orbit's growing campaigning functionality, the addition of the campaigning channel editor, provides administrators with the ability to set up new email channels to enable campaigning in Orbit without the need to load our desktop campaigning product - PeopleStage.
In this release Orbit users can now create new audiences and dashboard filters that reference existing audiences already created within Orbit or URN files created in FastStats. And for added security, zipping and password protecting of exported audiences can now be enabled.
In a major enhancement of our real-time campaigning capabilities, we introduced support for Apache Kafka high performance message queues and an ability to trigger PeopleStage campaigns with data from the message queue without need to reference the FastStats database. This new capability is in beta release in Q4 2021.
'Count distinct' and 'time since first' are two new variables that have been added to the behavioural modelling functionality. These important variables will allow users to measure the levels of engagement and the customer's length of relationship with a business.
Login to the Apteco portal to download the full technical release notes document
Introducing Venn's and new chart naming functionality to Orbit dashboards
Venn diagrams are a new addition to the extensive kitbag of dashboarding and customer data analysis functionality in the Apteco Orbit platform, and are a critical tool in your analytics arsenal. In just a few clicks Orbit Venn can identify, visualise and action data thoughts across your entire dataset.
In the Q4 2021 release, we've also enhanced our tile settings so that users can now easily customise their chart axis and legends to make them more descriptive.
- Turn insight into action by simply selecting the overlapping or non-overlapping segments to create audiences, for further analysis, to export or to use in your Orbit campaigns
- Easily build a Venn diagram by selecting data from an existing target audience, URN file or through a simple set of queries on the fly, connecting your data for smarter decision making
- The Venn diagram tile brings together up to five sets with counts and value aggregations for every intersection
- Drill-down to explore data selections further to discover even more insights
- Our clever zoom functionality allows you to easily interact with your visualisation - click on any segment or intersection and zoom-in to get a better understanding of the data within that section
Behavioural modelling UI improvements
The handling of dimensions within the modelling environment has been improved in several ways. The operation of the menu has been made more streamlined by grouping modelling options together under a single menu which uses more of a dialogue-based interface, the specification of the timeframe is now more flexible, batch processing now makes handling large numbers of dimensions more practical, and we have made an important improvement to the way criteria are applied.
- Where the previous style of menu offers additional functionality, these have been retained
- Users can now set a time frame to restrict which transactions should be analysed
- The time frame can also be modified directly for an existing dimension via the right click option
- More practical batch processing on large systems where many behavioural modelling dimensions have been created.
- Better handling of data absence provides greater insight when using count criteria
New channel editor in Orbit
With the addition of the campaigning channel editor, administrators have the ability to set up new email channels to enable campaigning in Orbit, without the need to access Apteco PeopleStage. Administrators can also check, amend and add email channels, change existing ones, and view existing PeopleStage email broadcaster channels on their desktop, tablet, or mobile device.
Orbit and PeopleStage are fully compatible, so existing PeopleStage users now have the choice of which application they use to access the channel editor. For Orbit users ready to utilise the new campaigning functionality, you can now link Orbit to your email broadcaster to send communications to any Orbit audience directly from the Orbit online platform.
- Administrators can now set up new or manage existing email channels for campaigning in Orbit or PeopleStage
- Channels can be configured to Upload and Broadcast, or Upload Only
- Campaigns created in Orbit can be viewed in PeopleStage and campaigns created in PeopleStage can be monitored in Orbit
- Channel settings created in Orbit can be viewed, edited, and used in PeopleStage
- ESP channels set up in PeopleStage can be viewed, edited, and used in Orbit
Referencing audiences and URN files in Apteco Orbit
When creating campaign audiences or customer segments for analysis it is now possible to reference an existing audience or URN file created in FastStats by simply using the Search function to find and add an Audience or URN file to new or existing Audiences or dashboard filters.
Common selections / segments such as active customers, frequent spenders, dormant customers, or master exclusion lists such as complainers, “do not contacts”, marketing preferences, or deceased lists, can then be included or excluded from the audience you are currently working on.
Orbit users now also have the ability to export and download an audience as a Zip file or choose to add password protection. This can be enabled or disabled in the application settings.
- Users now have the ability to create and maintain one audience as the master copy to be used in other audiences as required
- Modify / update your referenced audiences and have that change automatically apply to audiences where it is referenced
- You can reference multiple audiences within one audience
- Choose to zip your audience files when exporting, or add password protection to keep your data secure
Watch the quick video below to see how easy it is to reference an audience in an existing Orbit audience.
Real-time campaigning capabilities (currently in beta)
In a major enhancement of our real-time campaigning capabilities, we have introduced support for Apache Kafka high performance message queues and an ability to trigger PeopleStage campaign with data from the message queue without need to reference the FastStats database. In tandem with this, we have improved support for the Pull Marketing database so it can now be used as an output channel from a PeopleStage campaign.
- A typical use of these two facilities is to run a scheduled campaign periodically to put to the best next offer details for each known recipient into the pull marketing store and then use a real-time triggered campaign with data from an Apache Kafka message queue topic, optionally enriched with the best next offer data for known recipients
- This new capability is in beta release in Q4 2021 to allow us to tune the performance requirements as we assist our partners and customers learn about and implement this new technology
New behavioural modelling features
Two new features have been added to the behavioural modelling functionality in the FastStats modelling environment, these are: 'count distinct' and 'time since first'
Count distinct
The number of distinct categories that a customer has transacted with is a good measure of a person’s engagement with your business. Behavioural models can now identify people who have a broad range of transactions and engagements with your business, over and above simply a high frequency.
Time since first
It is now possible to measure a person’s length of relationship with your business through use of the “time since first...” behavioural feature. The time can be measured in a choice of units and an appropriate banding is applied to each. By default all historic transactions are considered. A timeframe can be utilised to limit the range of transactions
Take a look at the previous Apteco software release highlights
Q3 2021 release highlights
In this release, we've focused on making the way you use Apteco software even more efficient, by developing dynamic solutions to automate previously manual processes, providing tools to help you organise your resources and enhancing our search functionality to be even more precise.
Q2 2021 release highlights
With over 76% of survey responders in the 2021 Data Trends Report rating customer journey analytics as a key marketing trend, the Q2 release aims to assist marketers to more easily track, analyse and understand the way customers interact with companies.
Q1 2021 release highlights
This release aims to give users even more power and flexibility to customise their Orbit experience, to better refine their custom audiences for social media campaigning, and we’ve added valuable features to FastStats to satisfy the evolving needs of marketing data analysis.