Keep a great overview of your assets with Kentico Xperience 13 Refresh 5

It’s time to enhance your Kentico Xperience 13 with new features. Install our new update, Refresh 5, so you can work better with your media files, get more choices for search integrations, and future-proof your website with the latest technology. In keeping with our commitment, installation is easy, secure and keeps your digital experience platform in tip-top shape. 

Keep your media well organized  

Over the years, some of our clients have built extensive Media Libraries with thousands of assets. Media Libraries may include files used in one-off campaigns, such as newsletters or new product announcements, that aren’t needed anymore. But with thousands of files, it may be difficult to keep track of them all. If only you could tidy up and delete some of the media. But how do you know they’re not in use?  

Based on client feedback, we created a new feature, Media Library assets usage tracking, that shows you a list of places where your media is used. The tool searches through the content in your DXP, including unpublished versions, both Page and Content tab in Page Builder (widgets and structured content), marketing email templates and product descriptions. You can go directly to the page or email template and edit the file if you wish.

If you click a file in your Media Library, you can see a list of places where this file is used.   

Imagine that you’ve added a logo to a page. In a few months, you notice there are two files with the same logo in your Media Library. Which one is in use? You click the first one and learn it was part of your newsletter two years ago. The other one is live on your website. Therefore, you can safely delete the first file. This helps you keep your Media Library tidy and organized.

This enhancement will help you:  

• Keep your Media Library organized – you don't have to dig through piles of old files
• Work more efficiently – easier everyday work with the Media Library, smoother onboarding of new members in the team

Personalize your visitors’ search results with Algolia integration

We already provide two options for search implementation in Kentico Xperience—Kentico Xperience’s own Smart Search and integration with MS Azure Cognitive Search (formerly Azure Search). However, many of our prospective clients use Algolia search engine on their website. So, we decided to meet their needs and build an out-of-the-box integration that can be easily plugged into Kentico Xperience 13.  

Algolia is a next-generation search engine operating as SaaS (software as a service). It delivers fast results, offers many customization options, and a pricing scale based on your usage. With the help of AI, it identifies words that users often interchange and suggests synonyms for them. Its power lies in personalized search results, faceted search, typeahead function and typo tolerance. You can improve your content strategy based on reports mapping what your customers look for and how successful they are in their searches.

Algolia Search shows you search results with and without personalization. The products are shown in a different order to users who have visited a section about Coffee brewers.

This integration will help you:  

• Create customized search functionality – Algolia integration is open source  
• Show customers relevant search results – AI powered personalized search shows the best content to every user
• Optimize your search results – marketers can optimize Algolia Search in a user-friendly interface that complements our low-code/no-code strategy

Access the latest features in .Net 6

Building our digital experience platform on the latest technology is key for future-proofing the product. It’s the only way to ensure long-term support and access to cutting-edge features. That’s why with Refresh 5, Kentico Xperience gains support of Microsoft’s newest version of .Net—.Net 6.  

Where is your developers’ favorite .Net Core?  

As you can see in the table below, .Net Core will no longer be supported as of December 2022. The newest version of Microsoft technology with long-term support is .Net 6. It has everything developers like about .Net Core plus a few additional features. What’s most important though, it’s going to be supported for the next two years, so it’s the only way forward if you want to keep your website up to date and secure.  

.NET and .NET Core release lifecycle - Supported versions

Table source: Microsoft

Our tip:

If you’re building a new website, we recommend building it on .Net 6, because it’s also the only supported development model for our new digital experience platform—Xperience by Kentico. Therefore, when you’re ready to migrate to Xperience by Kentico, having your live site already on .Net 6 will speed up the process.

This addition will help you:  

• Ensure the best security and all hotfixes – .Net 6 website is truly future-proof
• Migrate to the next-generation DXP, Xperience by Kentico – your live site will be ready for the next step  

Keep your DXP in tip-top shape

Update your Kentico Xperience 13 with Refresh 5. The enhancement will help you to keep a better track of your assets. You will get more choices for search integration and new technology to make your website future-proof.  

With Refresh 5, you get all the enhancements we have added in previous refreshes, a thorough security check, and hotfixes. Invest a small amount of time compared to an upgrade and get the best value from your Kentico Xperience.

Do you want to find out what Refresh 5 will bring to your business? Talk to one of our experts. Curious about what’s coming next? Stay tuned! The next Refresh will launch in July 2022.