Release notes

August 2016 – released Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 (rev. 160729)

This a feature release. Sitecore recommends that you upgrade to this release if it includes features that meet the specific needs of your organization. This release contains significant new feature functionality, and we encourage you to evaluate it.

Highlights

The Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 includes:

  • Content Foundation improvements (Dependency Injection, Caching and Performance)

  • Support for the Publishing Service (installed separately)

  • Support for Express Migration (installed separately)

  • Enhanced Experience Editor features

  • Marketing Funnels

  • New Experience Analytics reports and charting

  • Improved Content Testing UI

  • Enhanced Path Analyzer component

  • Sitecore Experience Accelerator (installed separately)

  • Includes all the fixes from 8.1 Update-3

Please Note: In 8.2, we have aligned the version policy across all Sitecore assemblies. This effectively means that assemblies are individually versioned in accordance with changes in the code. As a result, you cannot obtain the Sitecore Experience Platform version by browsing the assembly versions.

Documentation

For all Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 documentation, please visit the new Sitecore Documentation Site.

New feature/improvements

Context Description Customer ticket ID (or other) TFS no.
SPEAK SPEAK 2.1 adds support for composite components, which are SPEAK components that are created using other SPEAK components.

SPEAK The SPEAK component guidance pages include improved demos and provide information about more components. Authenticated users can access the pages using the alias: http://<host>/sitecore/shell/speakguidance

SPEAK The SPEAK 2.1 business component library now includes ported versions of the 16 version 1.1 components missing in 8.1 , as well as 9 new components.

Experience Editor A number of enhancements to the Experience Editor have been implemented for the associated content on a page:
  • All page components that have data sources are highlighted with the green frame if the "associated content" checkbox is selected.
  • The toolbar of the component shows the datasource item's workflow and the number of pages that use the same datasource item.
  • For each piece of content used on the page, you can see the content item's details and the other pages that use this content.
  • For each page, you can see all the content items that are used on the page and their workflow states.
  • New notifications have been implemented to prevent authors from publishing broken pages.Data sources move through their workflows together with the context page.
FeatureID 80759. PBIs: 80765, 84955, 88676, 80762, 72842, 80761, 97187, 80763, 103887
Experience Editor The ribbon performance has been optimized for loading in the collapsed state. Now it loads only the required controls when it is collapsed.
80318
Experience Editor To improve performance, the Experience Editor ribbon now loads only the controls required for the activated tab (lazy loading).
83068
Experience Optimization The possibility to start a test without using workflows has been enabled by default.
109699
Experience Analytics Experience Analytics now supports historical re-aggregation. This feature enables any historical data that is added to the xDB after its initial deployment to be viewed in Experience Analytics.

Experience Analytics Dynamic titles are now displayed on charts. On all reports that you can drill down to, a KPI chart with a dynamic title has been added to make it easy to navigate through the reports.

Experience Analytics A simple KPI (Key Performance Indicator) chart has been introduced to provide a simple overview of data.
The chart:
  • Shows the average or sum for the Visits, Value, and Value per Visit metric(s) for the selected period.
  • Enables you to select all the available metrics that you need to personalize the chart.
  • Is available from the Experience Analytics dashboard and all drill-down reports.

Experience Analytics You can now visualize data using a combination chart when you select two metrics in Experience Analytics. This improvement has been implemented based on UX feedback.

Experience Analytics The FusionCharts charting library has been replaced with the D3 charting library, which is used in other areas of the platform. This change ensures consistency and improves performance.

Experience Profile The extended view in the timeline has been redesigned to include color coding that corresponds to the users' activity bars. The data has also been reorganized and aligned to provide a better overview.

Experience Profile As a result of UX feedback, the scale in the timeline has been changed to a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 50 years to make it easier to navigate.

Experience Profile When no data is present, the Experience Profile now shows a hyphen “-“. Previously, the Experience Profile showed an empty field when there was no data, which was confusing to users . The hyphen ensures that there is now a clear distinction.

Experience Profile The date format in the Experience Profile has been improved to make it easier to understand. It now uses the same format as Experience Analytics.

Experience Profile The Experience Profile icon on the Launchpad has been replaced with a new design.

Platform S​​​​​itecore 8.2 now supports .NET Framework 4.5.2 and .NET 4.6. Microsoft no longer supports .NET 4.5. For further information, go tohttps://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2015/12/09/support-ending-for-the-net-framework-4-4-5-and-4-5-1/.

Platform Solr 5.1 is now shipped and supported by default​.

Platform General performance improvements:
  • The Cache API has been updated
  • Cold start-up times have been improved

Platform Support for Oracle 11g has been added, but only when Sitecore is deployed in Experience Management mode – there is no support for Oracle in the xDB.

Platform Support for SQL Always On has been added.
This add support for a SQL Server 2012 feature that enables high availability and a disaster recovery. SQL Always On availability groups allows a group to have a set of failover databases so that if a database is unavailable, this fails over to a secondary database.
We will support the following scenarios:
  • In Datacenter 1 – Primary DB + Sync Secondary DB
    • Commit mode: Synchronous - Fail-over: Automatic - Read-only secondary: Off
    • Availability Group Listener: Configured
  • In Datacenter 2 – Async commit with manual failover
    • Commit mode: Asynchronous - Fail-over: Manual - Read-only secondary: Off
    • Availability Group Listener: Configured

Platform Support for Dependency Injection (DI) has been added, including the following features:
  • The Configuration factory which can resolve types from the DI container
  • A container that can be configured with configuration files and using code
  • A ServiceLocator for wiring up legacy code
  • Abstractions for most static managers

Platform Search and indexing no longer requires a third-party DI container to enable Solr and there is no need for a Solr support package.​

Content Editor In the Content Editor, the UI in the Personalization dialogs has been improved:
  • The Rule set editor dialog has been redesigned to include collapsible sections for easier navigation and improved rule editing functions.
  • The Rule set editor dialog has been improved to allow easire data input.
  • The predefined rules have been given increased prominence to allow for easier reuse.
  • Engagement automation and the Segment builder dialogs have been redesigned.
  • The Marketing Control Panel now has a new tab for Rules and Predefined Rules to enable users to see which pages have personalization rules applied.
​

Marketing Foundation Marketing Funnels have been added to the Sitecore platform.
A Marketer can define and track specific steps that a visitor makes on their website within a funnel, with the end result being a desired outcome, such as a financial outcome in a purchase.
Integrated with the Path Analyzer:
  • Funnel steps are shown in a dedicated report
  • Each funnel step displays the visitor traffic drop between fulfilling each step.
  • Individual steps can be analyzed, and the path that the visitor takes to reach each step is displayed.

Marketing Foundation Sitecore now supports the following MongoDB versions:
  • Mongo 2.6
  • Mongo 3.0 with the MMAPV1 and WiredTiger drivers
  • Mongo 3.2 with the MMAPV1 and WiredTiger drivers
  • Mongo 3.2 Enterprise with data-at-rest encryption, WiredTiger driver only

List Manager First name, Last name, and Preferred Email conditions have been added to the segment builder.

Social Connected Search indexes have been updated to include the Facebook ID field.
77763
Marketing Foundation The navigation of the Rule Set Editor dialogs has been made easier with collapsible sections, and the rule editing functions have been improved.

Marketing Foundation The Segment builder dialogs have been redesigned to give predefined rules increased prominence to enable easier reuse of rules.

Marketing Foundation Marketing Control Panel UX improvements, including a new tab on Rules and Predefined Rules items that allow the user to see on which pages the rules have been applied for personalization.

MVC EditFrame support is now availalble in Razor views 402755, 422360, 444391 58151
MVC Improved support for statically bound controller renderings via SitecoreHelper.ControllerRendering
55924
MVC Sitecore now supports precompiled views with the Razor Generator view engine.
88817
MVC The performance of assembly scanning has been improved on startup.
55919
MVC MVC ​integration with Sitecore's built-in Dependency Injection
108312
Path Analyzer Horizonal, Vertical and Table views have been added to make it easier to read the maps.
98118, 103329
Sitecore Services Client Sitecore Services Client supports token authorization
65655
Path Analyzer The path filter has been added, which provides advanced sequential filtering.
102599
Path Analyzer You can now apply a Metrics filter with data visualization to easily find outliers or interesting correlations between key node metrics.
108501
Sitecore Services Client Assembly scanning performacnce at startup has been improved.
76239
Path Analyzer You can now create and explore funnels in the Path Analyzer.
98166
Path Analyzer The Dashboard is the new default view for marketers that showcases the KPIs from a selected map, top landing pages, featured paths, and favorite funnels.​ 106644
Path Analyzer A context-sensitive help window has been implemented in the Path Analyzer.
98124
Path Analyzer The map selector has been improved to enable favorites, show status, and display metadata.
102597
Path Analyzer The Date range selector has been redesigned to display date intervals for the the available map data.
102598
Path Analyzer The Reports feature has been redesigned and now includes more categories.
98119
Path Analyzer You can now see a list of contacts who visited a particular path.
103318
Path Analyzer You can now export map data into a CSV file using download or copy commands.
98156
Sitecore Services Client ​Sitecore Services Client and Web API is now integrated with Sitecore's Dependency Injection.
108278
Path Analyzer All nodes now have labels which you can switch on and off.

Path Analyzer Item info for nodes now provides greater detail and includes the display name, template, content tree path, and URL.
98122
Path Analyzer The Notification bar has been extended to display all key app messages.
98120
Path Analyzer The ​Page Analyzer app has been rebuilt on the new technology stack and aligned with the main application.
98378
Path Analyzer API level data compression has been introduced, which reduces payload and improves application responsiveness.
101074
Path Analyzer Map retrieval performance has been improved, reducing the load on the master database and improving API performance.
101900
Path Analyzer The Silverlight dependency has been replaced with a standard HTML technology with great cross-browser compatibility.

Path Analyzer The application has been redesigned for improved usability.​​​

Path Analyzer Duplicate nodes are now removed by default. This behavior is controlled by the PathAnalyzer.Aggregation.CollapseDuplicateRecords' setting.
110185
Platform In 8.2, we have aligned the version policy across all Sitecore assemblies. This effectively means that assemblies are individually versioned in accordance with changes in the code. As a result, you cannot obtain the Sitecore Experience Platform version by browsing the assembly versions.

Platform The Sitecore Support Package Generator was added to the list of available administration tools - this allows the creation of a ZIP package containing important information about the Sitecore installation and how it is configured. The package can further be provided to Sitecore Support to help with investigation of product issues.

Breaking changes

Context Description Customer ticket ID (or other) TFS no.
Platform Projects built on Sitecore must be updated to use the .NET 4.5.2 target framework​.

Platform ​More than 45 abstractions (namespace: Sitecore.Abstractions) introduced to replace static APIs. The static APIs are still available but will be phased out over the next releases.

Platform ​The Cache API has changed:
  • Cache.GetNamedInstance has been moved to CacheManager.GetNamedInstance. There are two overloaded versions generic and common (supporting string keys only).
  • FindCacheByName changed signature, now it has two overloaded versions returning ICache and ICache<TKey> respectively
  • Cache.Add: overloaded methods accepting size of cached object have been removed. Now the cache is able to calculate size using CacheSizeCalculationStrategy.

Platform ​​ASP.NET MVC and WebAPI now use the Sitecore Dependency Injection container by default.​

Platform ​The Solr support package is no longer required and configuring the SOLR.NET DI container is no longer done by changing the application type in global.asax​.​

Resolved issues

The following issues have been fixed:

Context Description Customer ticket ID (or other) TFS no.
AntiCSRF ​Media request protection is not applied to media in a hyperlink within the RTE.​ 438674 96268
Caching ​AccessResultCache indexes are not being entirely cleaned. 452794 96818
Caching ​Imprecise AccessResultCache MaxSize​ 365173 92570
Caching ​Excessive data in AccessResultCache​ 365175 92571
Caching ​[Performance] Sharing 'AccessResultCache' between worker threads leads to significant performance regression in "extranet" scenarios​. 391713 94062
Configuration ​Preview.ResolveSite should be true by default​. 452689 96808
Configuration ​[Security] Change default SQL Membership Provider maxInvalidPasswordAttempts​ 450390 96702
Experience Analytics In a scaled architecture the AnalyticsDataController fails to instantiate. 463752, 469448 110707
Experience Editor ​The_Final Renderings field is not handled correctly in some cases. 461701, 462385, 461790, 461447, 463021, 462366, 463149, 463592, 464153, 464383, 463742, 464469, 463105, 464093, 465757 108023
Experience Editor ​Datasource location is incorrect for component items with the same name in the Experience Editor. 423504, 432919, 443036, 407795, 94856
Experience Editor ​The WebAppCache.cache file in the Experience Editor contains a reference to a nonexistent file. 455598, 465837 84371
Experience Editor ​A page loads with "The layout not found" error after removing a component from the page in the Experience Editor.
102917
Experience Editor ​A validation error can appear after adding a link in the Experience Editor to a rich text field.
112036
Experience Editor ​Personalization variants are overridden by the default datasource item on MVC pages in the Experience Editor. 457914, 459551, 466426, 100803 100803, 116637
Experience Editor ​The content of the Rich Text field is transformed into HTML when added and saved using an inline editor. 462618, 463839, 461844 111388
Experience Optimization ​Screenshot generation can fail in the Create Test dialog when using the scaled setup.
102730
Experience Optimization ​Multiple language- and localization-related issues happen beacause of inconsistent language attributes used in the Content Testing. 456392, 456640, 458774, 458772, 460479, 462058 88040, 88039
Experience Optimization Multivariate testing does not work in the Japanese version of Sitecore. ​ 453814 454423, 83387
Experience Optimization ​A wrong thumbnail is generated for pages to test against in the Page Test dialog. 456392, 456640, 458774, 458772, 460479, 462058 88038
Experience Profile The timeline in the Experience Profile does not show the most recent activity data. 452780 81835
Experience Profile The error: "There is no row at position 0" appears in the Experience Profile for contacts with personal info and when there are no pattern cards. 439278, 437499, 439484, 464381, 465323 60022
Experience Profile ​The engagement values for the latest visit and the total engagement value are incorrect in the Experience Profile. 438890, 452904, 454961 60887
Experience Profile ​Search in the Experience Profile returnes rows with an incorrect value per visit. 452904, 454961 79419
Experience Profile ​The error: "An error has occured" appears when the Experience Profile is invoked.
102884
Experience Profile ​The Experience Profile cannot open the details of the latest contact when the device attribute is explicitly specified for the website in the web.config/sitecore.config file. 433621 60017, 434216
Experience Profile ​The latest visit data in the Experience Profile is not the latest for a contact that has several visits in a day.
15054
Experience Profile ​Users with designer and author roles are denied access to the Experience Profile. 443754, 441625, 443908, 448525, 462338, 465712, 467641 96620, 76284, 448614
Federated Experience Manager (FXM) ​Span tags are visible as raw markup in the Federated Experience manager application menu. 460972, 460966, 461484, 464313, 465605 102071, 105351
Federated Experience Manager (FXM) Rendering cache is not working in FXM. 461681 108135
Federated Experience Manager (FXM) ​Dependency on Prototype.js prevents from using jQuery in FXM: a javascript error "Uncaught TypeError: $(...).ready is not a function" appears. 462368 109589
Federated Experience Manager (FXM) ​The Edge browser stops responding after you click the Add here button in the Experience Editor in FXM.
112290
Item buckets ​The Sync operation relocates every item in a bucket​. 412058 95094
Item buckets Hide second content tree
111647
Item Buckets API ​Content tree search fails with an error if a context item is not included in an index. 425362 95555
Item Buckets API ​SearchStringModel.ParseDatasourceString does not respect the sort order​. 414968 95182
Item Buckets API ​Incorrect values of the boost attributes​ 395754 94306
Item Buckets API ​Startbar search and Search application are broken if no index includes the root item of the master database.​ 417437 95284
Item Buckets API ​Application pool culture affects the sitecore_analytics_index​. 434889 96064
Item Buckets Content Search ​Advanced search in the content tree does not work​.
108397
Item Buckets Content Search ​The Equals method of the DataUri class has faulty logic​. 449997 96688
Item Buckets Content Search Selecting the Associated Content dialog doesn't respect the Datasource Template field. 428783 95758
Item Buckets Content Search ​Search for rendering datasource doesn't search in all Datasource Locations​. 429935 95824
Item Buckets Content Search ​Wrong description of the GetDatasourceDependencies processor​.
103662
Item Buckets Content Search ​The usage of the Lucene.Net.Analysis.AR.ArabicAnalyzer class leads to incorrect indexing of the ar-AE language​. 402185 94653
Item Buckets Content Search ​Items excluded by the inbound filter are not deleted from the index. 415338 95205
Item Buckets Content Search ​TheWeb edit ribbon is broken if no index includes the root item of the master database​. 417434 95283
Item Buckets Content Search ​The location search type prevents the running of the getGlobalSearchFilters pipeline.​ 405528 94831
Item Buckets Content Search ​The incorrect language version is displayed when the search result is opened in a new Content Editor window​. 422018 95425
Item Buckets Content Search Items are not indexed if index has two crawlers
104142
Launchpad ​The login page ignores the RedirectUrl parameter after authenticating the user and redirects all users to the ​Launchpad. 432834, 425607, 432834, 433848 53027
List Manager ​The default index configuration is incorrect.
112004
List Manager ​There is an exception in log file when you add a list from a file with Solr.
108653
List Manager ​List Manager doesn't respect access rights on list items.
81008
List Manager ​JavaScript code can be submitted and executed in the List Manager application.
80139
List Manager ​Count is not shown for segmented lists on the Dashboard page.
102830
List Manager Cannot create list from file if Media.CachingEnabled = false.
103637
List Manager ​Lists with quotes in the name cannot be opened.
98464
Miscellaneous ​EventQueue AddCriteria and GetEventTypeConditions methods build an incorrect sql query clause​. 112951
MVC ​System.Web.WebPages.Html.HtmlHelper errors appear during Sitecore compilation by Aspnet_compiler.exe.​
65207
MVC ​Sitecore CMS exposes information that can lead to server fingerprinting​.
106300
MVC Support for async controllers (does not apply to Controller Renderings) 463539, 437904 55908
Path Analyzer Fatal messages related to ApplicationContainer may appear in the log during startup due to an expected initialization order. 458250 99665
Pipelines ​Find Best Match logic of Item Resolver may return incorrect items​.
110672
Platform ​​When responding to a search request, the Item Web API ignores field values stored in base templates.​​​​ 441481 64610
Platform ​The General Link dialog inappropiately encodes​ the contents of the Query String property. 439119 82835
Platform ​[Debug mode] Some assemblies are built in debug mode​.
108138
Platform ​Item resolver works incorrectly if url/path contains an underscore.​
103063
Platform The Select Item dialog is unusable. 417731 95297
Rich Text Editor ​Text fields become unresponsive after RTE closing​. 405330 94824
Sitecore Services Client ​Sitecore.Services.Client prevents using Attribute Routing with ASP.NET WebAPI​. 431698 59317
Sitecore.ContentSearch ​Lucene: Obsolete 'Sitecore.Search' API must be disabled in version 7.2, 8.0 and 8.1.​
97745
Social Connected The Twitter Share button goal is not triggered by an event.
72582
Social Connected ​Facebook Social connector doesn't work with Facebook API v2.5 (last version) for newly registered applications.
78926
Social Connected ​Unable to post to Facebook pages.
87047
Social Connected ​Social jobs are not started due to library absence.
82884
Social Connected ​Second "Login" into the system via social networks produce the "NullReference" exeption.
103883
Social Connected ​Not possible to add a Facebook account when using Facebook API 2.4; "Invalid Scopes: read_stream" error message is shown.
67975
Social Connected Facebook ​Like and Share buttons are not triggered by an event.
103791
Social Connected ​The LinkedIn Share button is not triggered by an event.
103326
Social Connected ​The Google +1 button is not triggered by an event.
106418
Social Connected ​Possible NullReferenceException in ConnectorClientManage.
68917
Solr ​Automatic type conversion for IEnumerable<T>​ 401515 94608
Solr ​Two or more negative clauses in a query cause an empty result​. 398622 94448
Solr ​Optimize command timeout prevents swapping cores of SwitchOnRebuild index​. 405677 94842
Solr ​Search limits results by _language filter query when the client language differs from the default language​. 426036 95597
Solr ​TheSolr SwitchOnRebuild mechanism does not use a swapped index but rather only rebuilds it​. 442441 96429
SPEAK ​The title bar in some dialogs are not correctly positioned in the Edge browser.
112150, 112634, 112645, 112877, 112894, 74331, 83177
SPEAK ​After authenticating users, ​the login page ignores the RedirectUrl parameter and instead redirects all users to the ​Launchpad. 53027
SPEAK ​When responding to a search request, the Item Web API ignores field values stored in base templates.​​​​ 64610
SPEAK When a user clicks Browse on an Image field that already contains a selected image, Sitecore opens the Media Browser dialog with only the selected image displayed in the list and the dialog does not allow the user to locate other images, which makes it impossible for the user to change the image once selected. 82830
SPEAK ​The General Link dialog inappropiately encodes the contents of the Query String property. ​ 82835
Update Installation wizard ​A number of items have been removed from the PathAnalyzerDictionary​. 456432 97037