Release Notes

New features:

Relevant Image Sizes

Several preset image sizes have been added to assist builders with using the right size of image for the right purpose.

New Image Gallery template

A new “Thumbnail Row” template has been added to the image gallery widget. This template is designed to provide a graceful mobile experience, it is more accessible, and it allows higher volumes of images.

Site Shield – constituents can review your site before it goes live

We have implemented a feature called Site Shield; this allows a site to be previewed by specially invited guests before the site is launched to the public.

RSS Feed Reader card template

We received requests from the CU Denver and CU Anschutz Communications teams and we have added a new display template for the RSS Feed Reader widget. The new format displays horizontal cards now.

Improvements:

Unlocking Pages

The ability to unlock pages is coming soon. We gained the ability to allow select permission groups to unlock pages and other resources in the upgrade to 11.2 version. This requires an update to the configuration of each site in Sitefinity. We will gradually roll out this change where few sites are updated at a time. An announcement will be made on your Sitefinity O365 build group. 

Horizontal Navigation Mobile Behavior update

We improved the mobile behavior of the Horizontal Navigation template to allow a visitor to touch and expand a section.

Priority Plus Navigation Update

The overall performance and load time of the Priority Plus navigation template has been improved.

People Content Type Image

We received a request from the College of Nursing and we have made a change to the image on the People content type widget where it will no longer scale up past the actual size of the image.

Academic Program Content Type Revised

The Academic Program content type has been revised heavily. All related links are now part of the main content type instead of the Admissions requirements content type. Data has been migrated as part of this change.

The detailed program templates have also been revised to incorporate additional information.

Article and Byline Content Types

The fields of the Byline content type have been revised to include a transparent field order, labels, and helpful instructional text as part of the edit form.  Additionally, the field requirements have been relaxed and email is now optional.

The article content type has been revised to add an “Original Publication Date". This allows builders to add a date to an article that won't change when the article is updated or republished. If the "Original Publication Date" field is left blank, Sitefinity will use its own publishing date.

People CT: Add pagination to accordion list widget for people

Pagination has been added to the People widget’s accordion template.

Widget event tracking in Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager has been updated with custom event tracking for several widgets.

Faster sitemaps and People content type

We have addressed some issues around the system performance and the People content type. There is over 40,000 records in our People content type and the system was showing some latency when the People content type was used in a sitemap.xml file or when the People widget was placed on a page. The latency has been greatly reduced by excluding the People content type from all sitemaps.

Warm-up Script

A new and improved server-side warm up script has been added to help cache and compile all of our Sitefinity pages. This process makes Sitefinity pages to load faster for our site visitors.

Accessibility updates

SharePoint Homepage Updated

The ucdenver.edu SharePoint based homepage has been updated to improve accessibility of widgets that link to the newsrooms or calendars.

Hero Video Widget Controls

The Hero Video widget has been updated to include custom video controls. This brings the Hero video widget in line with our goal to have the best accessible user experience possible.

Priority Plus Navigation

The Aria code and the “More” button functionality on the Priority Plus navigation template has been improved.

Fixed

Uneven padding in the “Main Container”

Padding has been standardized in the Main Container content area and builders can now drop widgets in any Main Container area where the alignment will be consistent.

Apostrophes and Quotes in library addresses

Certain images from libraries that contained ‘ or “ in the URL were experiencing issues displaying in hero and card widgets. These issues have been resolved.

Word Wrapping in Internet Explorer

Several updates were made to wrap text more gracefully in the Internet Explorer.

Enhanced Card Templates

Error handling has been added to avoid blank H tags in all the Enhanced Card templates.

Content block multi-level lists and images

Styling has been updated to improve the bullet and the number lists in the content blocks. These lists will no longer overlap images.

All People Indexing on one page

An issue that occurred with the College of Engineering where Google indexed all People in the system on one page has been addressed. People were removed from the sitemap.xml and a Google search cache clear has been submitted.

Event card isn't fully clickable

The Event card template has been revised to be fully clickable.

Vertical Navigation Accordion Template - Active state style not being applied

The side navigation Accordion template has been improved to show accurate active states and to respond appropriately when clicked or hovered over.

Anchor widget - Focus would stay on wrong anchor

The Anchor widget has been updated to highlight the active anchor properly.

CTA Content Type was displaying uneven padding

We determined that The CTA content type was showing a blank secondary text  and we corrected this issue. There will no longer be uneven padding in the widget.

Nested Blockquotes

An issue occurring with the multiple blockquotes on one page has been resolved. Builders can now place multiple blockquotes with the correct formatting on a single page.

Sitefinity Performance Improvements

Network Analysis

OIT recently experienced an issue with a device related to network security. In resolving that issue, some part of Sitefinity’s performance issues were also resolved. We will continue to monitor and adjust as we learn new information.

Groundwork for future improvements:

Customizable Enhanced Card CSS

We have written a series of CSS classes that will be used in the “More Options”-”CSS Classes” for the Enhanced Card widget editor.These classes will be used on a trial basis with the current site builders who wish to change the number of Enhanced Cards that display side by side. Please come to open lab for more information. Here is our schedule:

https://www.ucdenver.edu/offices/office-of-information-technology/get-help/technology-training

Academic Program Data maintenance and other WAC meeting topics

The OIT Data Integration and Architecture team will be working with the registrar's office to develop a process for the maintenance of the Academic program data.  

Additional topics will be discussed at the WAC meeting on March 28th to gauge interest in the following topics: a custom FAQ widget, several requests for the Person Content Type, an update on system performance, adding an image gallery to the Research and Creative Projects content type, citing articles, and the best practices around accessible content.

NewEd Degree Finder Funded and Underway

The NewEd degree finder tool has been funded! We are using the data collected in November to populate these widgets and let them work on our licensed websites. Planning meetings are underway.

Automatic Image Optimization

We are exploring the automatic image optimization that is available as part of Sitefinity. We are looking to work with a group of builders to collect feedback on the automatic resizing of images on upload.

Hero Carousel/Slide Show Widget

The editing experience for the new Hero Slideshow/Carousel widget was planned and wire-framed. Development of this feature is scheduled for April 2019.

New "Hero" template for Research and Creative Project

A new template is being prototyped for the Research and Creative project content type. The integration development will be in the April/May 2019 sprints. 

Research Lifecycle Content Type

The Research Admin enterprise has requested a custom content type to help visitors interact with various research life-cycles. OIT Research Admin and an external vendor are working together to plan the content type and the user experience.

Hero Video Flexibility

Prototypes for an improved Hero Video widget have been completed. The improved Hero Video widget will include choices for height and scaling.

Helvetica Neue Web Font

The University has purchased the web license for the Helvetica Neue font. We have added relevant font faces to our code data base for future use in Sitefinity.

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.

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.  

Extension of the Content Block widget

We have received multiple requests to add a feature that allows a Call to Action button to be added via the Content Block Widget. We have started research to determine what is possible in regards to the widget. We found out that we need more formal requirements to guide our research. Our UX teammates are currently working on specifications.

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

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

March 2019 site launches

The College of Arts and Media launched March 5, 2019: https://artsandmedia.ucdenver.edu

The School of Public Affairs launched March 13, 2019:
https://publicaffairs.ucdenver.edu/

CU Anschutz Campus launched March 13, 2019:
https://www.cuanschutz.edu

Retired Faculty Association launched March 20, 2019:
https://www.ucdenver.edu/offices/retired-faculty

Colorado Living Architecture Center launched March 20, 2019:  https://www.ucdenver.edu/centers/colorado-living-architecture

Food Services launched March 20, 2019:
https://www.ucdenver.edu/offices/foodservices