Alive Platform Bulletin #31
- Nikoleta Perry
- Iveta Dvořáková
Dear Alive Platform User,
We hope this email finds you in good health, already finishing your last business tasks and looking forward to the festive season.
First and foremost, we would like to wish you happy holidays from all of us at GTS Alive! We hope this special time of the year is filled with warmth and blessings. We are looking forward to successful cooperation in the following year 2024.
Before we start listing the improvements within the Alive Platform, we would like to highlight the support service during the end of the year.
Our Prague office will be closed from December 23rd, 2023 until January 1st, 2024 (inclusive). However, in case of any urgent technical issues during this period, please do not hesitate to submit your query via the IT Service Desk or send us an email to support@aliveplatform.com. Our IT support team will assist you as quickly as possible. All other topics and requests that do not require any urgent technical support will be addressed at the beginning of 2024.
Last, but not least there are the latest changes within the Alive Platform. We hope that you find these improvements useful as we do. This time we have focused on Vertical cards, Discount Manager and related WordPress plugin.
The next release is scheduled to be deployed to the production environment during the first week in January 2024. We will inform you before it happens.
For now, you can check all the changes on the testing environment ALIVE Platform TEST .
In case you find some discrepancies, or you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us until 2nd January 2024.
As always, please have a look at the new and changed text strings in the Localization Manager and translate them to your local languages until 2nd January. (You can find below each section, if the localization is needed and if it applies to you.)
Vertical card designs in NCDB
As you are all already aware, we have recently started to support vertical card designs in NCDB. That means you can completely manage the card designs from NCDB. Detailed instructions for setting up card designs in NCDB can be found in our knowledge base article.
How to set new Card Design for purely Virtual cards | 🔃 Vertical card design
Where: NCDB - visual wizard for orders
Affected markets: All
Required actions: No
Translation required: Yes - Localization Manager
Discount Manager Improvements
Pictures in DM
Are you worried if a picture you uploaded in the Discount Manager is in a good quality and looks good in other customer facing applications? We had similar worries therefore pictures have gone through a tremendous change itself.
We have focused on the size, image quality and format. For the details, please check our knowledge base article. How to manage discount providers | 📷 Image Sizes
Here is a summary from the top changes:
GIF image file format will not be supported anymore.
There is minimal required size for each image type.
Automated image scalability for WordPress discounts plugin and Alive App will be changed from current 416x208 px into 1080x540 px what will secure better quality of images shown in the customer facing applications. We will regenerate all the images on our end, no action required from your side.
Discounts and competitions can have newly only one image and you’ll be able to upload it directly at the form for creating/editing the discount or competition.
| Max. count of images to upload | Aspect ratio and minimal size for upload | Size for displaying in customer facing applications |
|---|---|---|---|
Provider‘s logo | 1 | 1:1 | 100x100 px |
Provider‘s banner | 1 | 2:1 | 1080x540 px |
Additional provider photos | unlimited | 2:1 | 1080x540 px |
Discount‘s image | 1 | 2:1 | 1080x540 px |
Competition‘s image | 1 | 2:1 | 1080x540 px |
Where: Discount Manager – edit page of discount provider, discount, competition
Affected markets: All markets that use Discount Manager, Competitions are only relevant for markets using the Alive App.
Required actions: Please make sure that your staff is informed about these changes and how to handle them.
Translation required: No
Discount categories
We have updated the icons and added some new icon categories (some new icons were added, and the old ones were marked as deprecated). Details about new categories and their icons can be found in our knowledge base article. How to manage discount providers | 🔍 DISCOUNT CATEGORIES
Do you want new icons as well? Let's read further. There are some new icon rules:
Icon is obligatory only for main category - subcategory does not have to have an icon.
Each icon can be linked only with one main category.
Where: Discount Manager – Settings – Categories
Affected markets: All markets that use Discount Manager and WordPress DM plugin
Required actions:
Update icon categories in Discount Manager. The old set of icons will be removed by the end of July 2024. We will remind you about that prior the removal.
Install the newest version of WordPress DM plugin. New icons and new icon categories are supported from a version 1.29.0 further.
Translation required: No
Limited offers
Limited offers can be newly fully managed from Discount Manager.
There is automatic export of this parameter to Benefit Manager so the limited offers set in Discount Manager will be shown as limited offers also in the ISO’s Discount widget and ISIC global app.
Online verification of cardholder
It is possible to set up on the side of Discount manager if the verification of the cardholder is required before redirecting on the partner’s website
You have to only tick the checkbox available online and card verification required and insert the website for redirection after successful verification
This feature is also compatible with the ISO’s Benefit Manager so you can start to manage discounts requiring card verification solely from Discount Manager.
Please note that this does not apply for discounts redeemable with voucher codes. Their export to ISO’s Benefit Manager is not supported yet.
GPS coordinates
Please make sure you have correctly set up GPS coordinates for branches (locations) in Discount Manager. Branches without valid GPS coordinates will not be visible in the Alive App.
WordPress DM plugin news
As mentioned, WordPress DM plugin has been updated for some new features which might come handy to you. There is a list of all news:
Online verification (details above)
Formatted description of discount provider (as per formatting set up in DM)
Formatted description of discount (as per formatting set up in DM)
New icons of the discount categories
Dynamic loading of categories to the legend in map view
To obtain all these improvements, please download and install the newest WP plugin version 1.30.0
If you do not use WP plugin yet, but you would like to, get in touch with us for more information.
Competitions
Adding competitions into Alive App has been optimized and can be managed from Discount Manager. Please check the manual in knowledge base for detailed instructions. https://gtsalive.atlassian.net/l/cp/gFK71aJU
Have any features which are part of the Discount Manager or WordPress DM Plugin caught your attention? Do you want to find out more about them and their implementation for your market? Please contact us through IT Service Desk.
Thank you for using the Alive Platform.
Do you need some improvements in the Alive Platform? Something what would help the others as well? Please do not hesitate and let us know using the IT Service Desk.