Unfortunately for many tech enthusiasts, the vast majority of web developers in Canada currently trying to implement AI, Blockchain, or IoT want them for their novelty rather than for the genuine purposes they can serve. So what happens when you do have a creative use for one of these technologies?
For many development houses, the choice between investing in emerging technology capability or staying on top of the vast set of platforms users choose from is an easy one — more platforms means more clients, and you can usually find a way to fill most functions using traditional technologies.
At OPTASY, however, we knew we wanted to push the boundaries of what was possible. By focusing on Drupal development, we have been able to become leaders in our field, enabling our clients to take control of far more powerful technologies than have ever before been available.
That attitude, combined with our attention to detail and customer service, has landed us a series of excellent reviews on Clutch.co, placing us in the top 10 web developers in all of Canada.
Clutch promotes leading agencies by collecting verified, unbiased feedback on vendors and displaying it in the form of written ratings and reviews.
In one of our most recent projects, we built the Drupal 8 website of an equal opportunity community nonprofit. Our team worked hard to provide iterative design and development that incorporated all of the client’s feedback throughout the process. Their team was particularly impressed with our professionalism and openness to input.
“We would definitely choose them in the future and recommend them to any individual looking for a website that leads to conversions and conveys a message in a smart format. They welcomed our feedback but also balanced our ideas with conversion principles. The site’s beautiful and performing exactly how we’d hoped it would.” - Sean Kelly, Executive Director
Feedback like this from our valued clients demonstrates one of the biggest reasons we love what we do so much.
Development may be our selling point, but building meaningful business relationships is what makes the world of tech go ‘round. We really appreciate the chance that Clutch provides to learn from our past engagements and reach potential future customers.
We are also featured highly on The Manifest, a platform that hosts industry-organized company rankings alongside business insights and articles explaining a variety of topics. On Visual Objects, customers have the chance to look through portfolio items to help inform their decisions, helping them to get a sense of what their project might look like with any particular team of web developers in Canada.
If you’re looking for a development partner to help make your business dreams come to life, check out our profile on Clutch or reach out to us! We’re always looking for exciting new partnerships to take on, and would love for the next one to be you.
Image by Tomislav Kaučić from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Jan 27'2020
Powerful, full-featured media handling in Drupal. This has been your, our, and all the content authors and Drupal site builders' wish for a decade now. And it has just become reality: Drupal 8 Media Library is now a stable core module shipping with... WYSIWYG embedding support.
You just click that shiny and new button added to your CKEditor and add your media. As simple as that!
And there's more:
You can embed media assets in your content in a... finger snap. No mouse needed.
A bit overwhelmed?
Now, let's see how we got this far. How was the life of an editor before Media in Drupal 8 core and how it came to improve?
And, of course, how these 2 major media improvements in Drupal 8.8 impact your content creation experience.
1. Drupal 8 Media Library: Why Was It Necessary in the First Place?
Since we already had the Drupal 8 Media module in core, right?
Yes, but it lacked an UI...
So, any time an editor needed to add/reuse media file to a... blog post, let's say, he/she had to type in that file's name in the entity referenced field, triggering its auto-complete functionality. He could not visualize those media items before selecting them. There were just plain-boring forms, a table for all the media files and administrative views...
Therefore, the team behind the Media Module in Drupal 8 created Media Library, which was meant to provide precisely that visual experience that was missing.
In short: Drupal 8 Media Library was meant to add a nice UI to Media.
Editors could browse though all their media assets, then quickly select and upload, right from their media libraries, the ones they wanted to reuse across their websites.
It would open up a visual grid display of all their media items, with built-in filters to narrow down their options.
The result? A far better editorial experience.
2. Media Management in Drupal 8: From None to... a Full-Featured System
How did we get this far? From almost no media support to a modern ecosystem of powerful media handling features?
It all started in 2007, when Dries first outlined the need for “Drupal’s core features for file management and media handling... generic media management module with pluggable media types” in his “State of Drupal” talk.
Since then, decent media handling support in Drupal has been one of the most requested features:
Source: Drupal.org
Now, putting the whole “Media in Core Drupal 8” process on high-speed we get to:
the release of Drupal 8.4, when the Media module was first added to core
Drupal 8.5 with Media working right out of the box
Drupal 8.6, when the Drupal 8 Media Library module “stepped into the spotlight” as an experimental module
Drupal 8.7 with significant improvements to the Media Library visual interface (e.g. bulk uploads)
Drupal 8.8 with WYSIWYG embedding support
Now, can you imagine the life of a Drupal site builder/content author, back in those days? The “before Media” days?
Whenever he needed to reuse an image media, previously uploaded on the website, but on a different page, he had to... re-upload it.
There was no way of reusing and embedding it into the text, quick and easy. And no way of using remote media, either (Instagram, Youtube...)
Now, back to the present, when we (finally) have Media and Media Library in Drupal Core:
You get to add different types of media items — audio files, remote video, images, documents — store them in your library and reuse them in your content whenever you need.
Furthermore, you get to bulk upload media files, filter them by specific criteria, display them in a table or a grid view, you name it.
Managing and reusing your media resources in Drupal has never been easier.
3. Media Library in Drupal 8.8: The New “Add Media” Button
Drupal 8.8 came to “seal” a whole decade of efforts put into building and implementing a robust media handling system in Drupal.
And the last improvements that it brings to the entire core media in Drupal 8 ecosystem are just... mind-blowing:
Media Library is officially a stable module in core
it comes with an “Add Media” button added to the CKEditor panel
keyboard accessibility: entity embed is possible without using a mouse
Source: The Drop is Always Moving
And there you have it! The last “roadblock” on Drupal 8 Media Library's roadmap to the status of a stable core module has been overcome:
You have WYSIWYG integration in Drupal 8.
Meaning that now you can embed media in your content types by simply clicking on a button, right in your editor. And all that with a... finger snap. No mouse needed.
Source: Drupal.org
In other words, Drupal 8 Media Library means, since Drupal 8.8's got released:
A quicker, simpler way for everyone to add media from the media library directly to the text editor.
The END!
We're a bit curious:
With powerful media handling now in Drupal core, what's the next “nice to have” improvement on your wishlist?
What other critical feature, that Drupal currently lacks, would significantly improve your developer/site builder/admin/editor experience?
Image by Pettycon from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Jan 15'2020
"Our goal is to have you relax and know that your tax and regulatory compliance are on cruise control." Just mind you don't... relax too much, as one of Capex CPA's clients, for you risk waking up to a brutal reality: huge payroll year-end mistakes.
It's your choice:
you learn from our immense mistake of hiring this Chartered Professional Accounting firm Brampton
you knowingly expose your company's accounts to a level of incompetence that's... off the charts
Until here, I might sound to you just like another revengeful former client of a Chartered Professional Accounting firm in Mississauga, am I right?
Especially since it's one of the 5-star teams of Chartered Professional Accountants that I'm referring to. A highly reputed, high ranked Chartered Professional Accounting firm in Toronto according to its clients' reviews.
Well, we've already taken the "reputation" bait, ourselves, so... we get you:
The impeccable reputation forms a thick concrete wall around this team of Brampton Accountants, hiding their incompetence from the public eye.
But now, let's talk facts. Real facts, shall we?
Here are the reasons why we decided to fire our accountants, Capex Brampton, after no less than... 11 months, during which we "relaxed, knowing that your tax and regulatory compliance were on cruise control":
1. Capex CPA Bampton Got Our Payroll Wrong... 3 Times in a Month
Just make sure you don't rely... blindly on their "experienced and professional staff", for, unfortunately, they live by this motto:
Practice makes it perfect.
Well, in the case of our payroll it didn't make it perfect. It was all wrong, every single time.
We're talking here about a team of Chartered Professional Accountants in Toronto who's repeatedly provided us with the wrong payroll 3 times during the same month.
3 might be a magic number for some, at least in fairytales, but it did not guarantee us any... happy ending.
They "stubbornly" tested our patience and just... shocked us with their incompetence, which is, we have to admit: out of this world!
2. They Overlooked the Fact that Our Funds Were Both in CAD and USD
And we're talking about a Chartered Professional Accounting firm who has been having access to OPTASY's accounts for... 11 months.
This was, indeed, a masterpiece of incompetence mixed with... an overdose of irresponsibility.
But hey, who needs responsible and accountable... accountants, right?
We just need to... "relax knowing that our tax and regulatory compliance are on a... cruise".
Now, there are at least 3 different answers to our legitimate question:
How could this team of Chartered Professional Accountants Mississauga, one with an irreproachable reputation, not see, while managing our accounts for 11 months, that there were 2 different currencies in there? Both CAD and USD...
they're shockingly incompetent (sorry, but it seems to be the keyword of this blog post)
they're dangerously negligent: they just didn't care what currencies the funds in our accounts were... USD, CAD... potato, patato
they knowingly neglected even their very basic responsibilities as a team of Toronto accountants
Pick any answer or pick them all. There's no wrong one here.
3. They Exposed Us to the Risk of Not Being Able to Pay Our Year-End Taxes
The blunders of this Chartered Professional Accounting firm Mississauga kept piling up till we ended up with a year-end payroll filled with mistakes.
We had no other chance but to quickly replace this CPA in Brampton with a professional ("truly" professional) to address all the serious issues in our accounts, so we could go ahead and pay our taxes.
"Irresponsible" is a too soft term to define their work as our Chartered Professional Accountants Brampton over these 11 months.
4. They Demonstrated Their.... "Professionalism" By Claiming for More Money to Fix Their Own Mistakes
"Mistake is human", right? We, too, as a Drupal firm, make mistakes when working on our clients projects.
But how would you call a long sequence of mistakes? Complacency or pure incompetence?
And fixing one's mistakes is... human dignity, isn't it?
Not the case of Capex CPA, who's genuinely replied, when we asked them to address the issues they had caused:
"5k is not enough money to do the work..."
The "work" here being that of fixing the mistakes they, themselves, kept doing throughout the year as the accountants handling our business tax in Toronto.
How would you call that?
Dishonesty, untrustworthiness, lack of a minimal sense of responsibility for one's actions.
And we're referring here to a team of accountants handling Corporate tax Toronto. Accountants!
So-called "professionals" that deal with:
Real Estate tax in Brampton
Business Tax Brampton
Corporate tax
... on behalf of their clients.
To whom we gave free access to our companies' accounts.
In return, after they made not one, but several mistakes while doing our bookkeeping and payroll and we dared to ask them to... clean up their mess, all we got from this "professional" accounting firm handling Corporate tax Brampton was an:
"Oops!"
And a: "Sorry, but there'll be an extra charge if you want us to... fix our mistakes, as well."
Now, we'd appreciate your "brutally" honest answer to this question:
How would you have handeled this situation if you were in our place?
Would you have fired Capex CPA or not?
Image by Robert DeLaRosa from Pixabay
Adrian Ababei / Dec 04'2019
The waiting is over. We'll have automatic updates in Drupal sooner than we even dared to hope.
Source: Drupal.org
* Since that announcement was made, both an alpha and beta1 version of the Automatic Updates module have been released.
The auto-updater, which has been, in turn, or simultaneously:
an ever requested feature in the Drupal community
a highly anticipated functionality for the Drupal end users
an evergreen matter of debate ("I really need this feature in my life" vs "We prefer to keep the Drupal website up-to-date ourselves".)
a... "mission impossible" type of challenge
a Drupal initiative that seemed doomed to never grow into an actual feature
... is now a work-in-progress Drupal module. Can you believe this?
Now, we can just hear those questions running through your head:
"How/when did this never-ending talk about auto updates for Drupal turned into a module?"
"What are its features/components?"
"Who is it aimed at?"
"How would it benefit me more precisely?"
Let's get you some clear answers:
1. Automatic Updates in Drupal: A Highly Requested and... Ever Postponed Feature
An auto update system has been one of the top requests in the Drupal community since... forever.
"Does Drupal have an auto update?" "Why Doesn't Drupal offer an Auto Update feature like WordPress?"
Simultaneously, many other members of the community adopted:
the "I didn't need it anyway" approach
the "I don't need Drupal to automatically update itself. What if something breaks?" approach
or the "Auto updates would not fit our development workflow" approach
Overall: the need was there, it was growing and the various "no need" reactions to the possibility of implementing such a feature were just:
legitimate paranoia lest those automatic updates should be superficially tested before release
the frustration that the answer to this request was invariably the same: "Not possible in a Drupal context."
Speaking of this standard answer that we've been getting, constantly, over the last years, it looks like automatic updates in Drupal have gone from:
myth: Drupal websites are far too complex to come up with an all-size-fits-all set of updating standards for them all
mission impossible: it's not possible to architect such a solution for Drupal
work-in-progress module aimed at simplifying the whole task of keeping one's Drupal site safely up to date
In short: the automatic updates functionality has gone from "mission impossible" to... "anything is possible with Drupal".
2. Auto Updates: From a Drupal Core Strategic Initiative to a Drupal Module
The community demanded and... demanded (Dries himself drew attention to this need), till their request of an automatic updater turned into one of the 8 Drupal core strategic initiatives.
One funded by the European Commission itself...
Source: Drupal.org
And this switch from request to... well-structured roadmap was only too predictable:
proprietary and commercial software companies were already implementing an auto update system
open source projects (see WordPress) were already offering this critical feature: the site owner just clicks a button and the system handles the whole updating process
What was the main goal that drove the Auto Update initiative forward?
To architect a system that would apply Drupal updates automatically.
This way, maintenance costs, particularly for small and medium-sized Drupal projects, would lower and the Drupal adoption rate would rise.
Not to mention that we would be having far more 100% secure Drupal websites out there.
3. The Automatic Updates Module: Its 3 Main Components
For this long-awaited solution for automatic updates in Drupal relies on a 3-component structure:
the PSAS (public safety alerts)
the readiness checks
the actual in-place updates
Now, let's get into the nuts and bolts of each component:
3.1. Public Safety Messaging
What this feature does is pull alerts on critical and highly critical updates from Drupal.org right into your admin UI.
This way, you can easily check your site's readiness for the update about to be released by the Drupal security team.
3.2. Readiness Checks (or Preflight Checks)
It's a plugin-based feature that triggers warnings and errors on detected issues blocking your website from getting updated automatically.
Let me give you some examples:
"Your website's running on a read-only hard drive!"
" Cron isn’t running frequently enough!"
"The "X" files included in the update process have been modified!"
"You need to run database updates!"
3.3. In-Place Updates
Once your website's level of... readiness has been checked and approved of, it's time to run the Drupal update itself.
Here's how it works:
the update package of files gets downloaded from Drupal.org
the Automatic Updates module (now in its beta 1 version) checks it and creates backups of the files on your website included in the update process
the module performs the update
if something goes bad, it restores your backup files
Note: you're free to set up your own custom workflow for the auto-update process; you can stag the updates for review and approval first, get them through your own CI/CD system or... you can set them to go live, automatically.
4. And How Does It Work? The Automatic Updates Module "In Action"
Let's imagine this scenario:
You already have this automatic functionality implemented into your website. How would it work in case of an "upcoming critical security update" situation?
it pops up the message alert in your admin interface
next, you run several checks on your website to... check whether there are any issues that you'll need to address before updating it
then you trigger the in-place update
That's it.
5. Who's It For? Is It Aimed at...You, Too?
It is if:
you're a small or medium-sized business owner
you don't have a custom development workflow and pipeline set in place (with Git, Drush, and other tools included)
people in your team with no development background are responsible for maintaining your Drupal site up to date
you don't have a solid routine of checking and running Drupal updates as soon as they get released
Source: Drupal.org
In other words: automatic updates in Drupal aren't aimed at enterprise-level websites.
The module targets small Drupal projects, where:
running security updates on a regular basis
staying vigilant, lest you should miss them once released, is THE main cause of stress for site owners
The END!
This is the new auto updates feature in Drupal, along with the answers to some of your valid questions regarding this module.
How do you find the project's progress so far?
What other features would you like this module to include? And what are your concerns about integrating such functionality into your own build workflow?
Image by krzysztof-m from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Nov 29'2019
"What's new in Drupal 9?" or "What are the new features in Drupal 9?"
These 2 questions are on everyone's lips these days, both Drupal teams and organizations using Drupal.
How about a... shiny new main theme?
For, let's face it: we've been longing for a new default theme in Drupal for some time now...
The current one, Bartik, hasn't got an update since... 2011 and it has started to show: Drupal 8's outgrown its core theme.
The new one, Olivero, which is still just design with a proof of concept, is expected to address all of Bartik's limitations:
to be more simple
to be more modern
to be more flexible
to support Drupal's increasingly powerful functionality
But let's dig in for some more info about this initiative:
why do you need a new default theme in Drupal?
the key design principles established for this theme
the main components of the new design system
1. How Does Your Ideal Default Theme for Drupal Look Like?
Does it resemble Bartik?
I'm pretty sure it doesn't, judging by the fact that:
it hasn't seen a major change since January 2011
it still uses gradients, drop shadows and other out-of-date graphical elements
it no longer accommodates all the modern website functionality implemented in Drupal (e.g. Layout Builder) over the last years
Overall: Bartik has started to look a bit... out-of-fashion, while Drupal's back-end has been growing more and more robust.
Therefore, I bet that the words that you'd use to describe your "ideal" default theme in Drupal revolve around these key adjectives:
clutter-free/minimalistic
flexible: to provide plenty of options to choose from
light
modern and fresh
accessible
intuitive
elegant
clean
2. Olivero and The 3 Main Goals Behind this Drupal Core Initiative
No goal no... glory.
That's why the team behind this Drupal core initiative, Lullabot, set 3 major objectives for the Olivero theme:
it should support all the latest functionality implemented in Drupal: embedded media, second-level navigation, layout builder, etc.
it should be WCAG AA compliant from the ground up (accessibility should not be an afterthought)
it should look and feel more modern: all those design elements that made Bartik feel too heavy to be reduced to a minimum, while particular design system parts — color palette, typography, and animation — to be reconsidered
3. What's New in Drupal 9: Design Principles Set for Its Theme
Source: Dries Buytaert's blog
Curious which of the features on your wishlist for an ideal default theme have made it to the list of design principles for Olivero?
Well, here they are:
simple: clutter-free; by "clutter" they mean all colors, effects and visual elements that are irrelevant and make the theme look and feel too heavy
modern: support for modern browsers' features and interaction modes
flexible: presents Drupal (front-end) developers with multiple options to choose from
focused: includes all those design elements, like negative space and high contrast, that grab user attention
accessible: it's designed with WCAG AA conformity in mind; from functionality to layout, to colors, all elements should be thought out to be accessible for everyone
4. The Olivero Design System: Key Components
"What's new in Drupal 9?" Look forward to a new, promising design system.
I'll highlight just 5 of its components, so you can get an idea of what the team behind this initiative mean by "modern" and "flexible" in relation to the Drupal 9 default theme:
Source: Drupal.org
4.1. Color Palette
They chose:
bright blue as the base color
neutral grays to counterbalance the design elements and layout
darker colors to enhance accessibility
lighter colors in the layout to highlight the design elements
4.2. Typography
They used the size 18px for the base font in the body copy, to be leveled for metadata, headers, quotations, etc. and adapted to smaller viewports, as well.
Consistency, throughout line-height and spacing, has been a key goal when setting the scale for typography.
4.3. Header & Navigation
The flexibility principle is best reflected in the header of the future default theme for Drupal 9:
it's designed to incorporate, seamlessly, all logo types and text titles
it comes in multiple versions to choose from, one for every site identity type
it turns into a hamburger menu once the user scrolls down
4.4. Sidebar
The news factor is that in Drupal 9 you'll have one sidebar region instead of two competing for space on the screen.
A single spacebar, next to the primary content, where your content team can display related posts and all kinds of utility blocks.
4.5. Site Branding Variations
The Olivero theme will ship with background-color and width settings that you can configure in order to fit any text length and logo type.
5. Final Word
"What's new in Drupal 9?"
I think this question is not quite accurate, in relation to this upcoming front-end theme.
"What's bound to be new in Drupal 9?" is more appropriate.
For the Olivero theme is not yet... a theme in itself, but work-in-progress.
A proof of concept, a core initiative that's still calling out for contributors. One that's expected to become the new default theme in Drupal, that should:
accommodate all the new powerful features implemented in Drupal these last years
be accessible from the ground up
be (more) intuitive
Why would you care for this initiative if you were a Drupal developer?
Because it would improve your entire experience of working with Drupal.
Why would you care about this work-in-progress theme if you were considering Drupal for your next web project?
Because all visually-appealing websites have one thing in common: a modern, accessible and flexible theme.
Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay
Silviu Serdaru / Nov 13'2019
What Is Acquia Developer Studio?
Acquia Developer Studio is a collection of tools designed to simplify and streamline all building, testing and deploying processes in Drupal.
Or, here's another equally valid definition of this new product:
It's a command-line tool that provides developers with all the tools they need to build digital experiences in Drupal... fast. A handy toolbox that boosts their productivity.
In short: Acquia Dev Studio enables developers to get a Drupal application up and running — locally and in Acquia Cloud — in... no time.
It Provides You With...
1. A Browser-Based Remote Development Environment (IDE)
The integrated IDE “spoils” your Drupal developers with a browser-based UI that speeds up all those common setup tasks they handle in each new project.
Take it as a “cloudstation” for all your Drupal-related processes; one customized to each one of your different Drupal projects.
2. A Command Line Interface (CLI)
Storing +200 Acquia Cloud API commands and an entire toolbox, this CLI enables any Drupal developer to build a new Drupal 8 project within... a few minutes.
Just try to step into your developers' shoes:
You have all those tools that you depend on for building, testing, and deploying your code — Acquia Pipelines, Lightnining, Landom BLT — conveniently at hand in one connected toolchain.
Why Would You Want to Use Acquia Developer Studio?
Here's a quick empathy exercise for you:
Say you're one of the developers working on your current Drupal project. You're eager to implement those cool features that you have in mind, but as you delve in, you realize that there are some critical security patches to handle ASAP. Next, you need to address a software upgrade issue...
Not to mention that you constantly need to make sure that all those tools in your heavy toolbox — Drush, Composer, Git, etc. — work perfectly together.
How do you manage to speed up all the tedious, repetitive tasks that “kill” your enthusiasm and to focus more on the exciting, more rewarding ones instead?
Source: Acquia.com
On those that add true value to your project?
How do you juggle with so many tools needed for getting any Drupal app up and running? With so many Drupal processes: building, testing, deploying, monitoring?
Well, you use the Acquia Developer Studio to streamline all the processes and automate all the... mundane tasks.
Source: Acquia.com
Take it as your all-in-one-place suite of tools or your “productivity booster”.
As a company, you'd want to use it because you'd:
cut down on your costs: the development cycle is shorter
gain more flexibility in customizing your products to your users' needs: with all your disparate tools centralized in one central ecosystem and all your processes significantly streamlined
And How Do You Install It?
It's as quick as entering the following command in your terminal window:
https://downloads.acquia.studio/install-standalone.sh | bash
Then, provide the information for sudo access, next just carry out a few more easy steps indicated to you on the corresponding Acquia Docs page.
The END!
These are the answers to your legitimate “What” and “Why” questions regarding the Acquia Developer Studio.
How do you find these benefits? Are they relevant enough for your own developer workflow?
Image by rawpixel from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 28'2019
What is Acquia Cohesion? What challenges that you're facing nowadays does it help you solve?
Or, if you want to put it this way:
How does this Acquia & Cohesion DX8 solution enable your organization to align with the "do more with less" agile trend?
In this respect, in today's blog post we'll:
define this Acquia product focusing on what sets it apart from other website builders out there
identify your organization's specific needs, that Acquia Cohesion's designed to addresses
highlight some of its most powerful and... empowering features
1. What Is Acquia Cohesion?
It's a low-code Drupal add-on that empowers less technical people in your team — content authors, marketers, designers — to build websites faster and cheaper via a simple drag-and-drop user interface.
In short: it simplifies the whole Drupal site-building process.
It gives power to non-dev teams to:
come up with new designs
set up new layouts
create web pages
use components site-wide, while selecting different styles to boost the user experience
assemble new Drupal websites from scratch
No CSS, PHP, HTML or Drupal theming knowledge required...
Now, just imagine:
how much time your developers would gain, time that they could then invest in more innovative work instead
how much easier it'll be for your non-developers to be 100% brand compliant
how much faster it'll get to launch new websites whenever needed
how much simpler it'll get for your non-technical team to manage hundreds, even thousands of Drupal websites
2. Why Did Acquia Acquired Cohesion?
Well, for 3 obvious reasons. Acquia wanted to enable organizations to:
launch their Drupal websites faster (up to four times faster)
achieve brand consistency across their ecosystems of websites
grant their non-dev teams more freedom and more control over the website infrastructures that they manage
In a few words: Cohesion DX8 makes Drupal (even) more accessible to companies worldwide.
3. 4 Signs that Your Company Needs this Low-Code Site Builder
Quote's source: Dries Buytaert's blog.
Let's take these 4 scenarios and see if you can relate:
your team's striving to "juggle with" 100s of Drupal websites, each one carrying its own network of e-commerce and social media tools and integrations
your short-term strategy includes launching... a few more scalable 100s websites
your marketers and content creators always need to wait in line for the development team to do its own work before they get to add any content to your new websites
your non-technical team depends on the development team for every content update they need to make (swapping a text box with an image, updating the layout...)
Are these challenges all too familiar to you?
Then you're definitely one of Acquia Cohesion's target users:
An organization looking to reduce their build times dramatically and to streamline the management of hundreds or even thousands of Drupal websites.
4. Real-Life Example of Acquia Cohesion "In Action"
Quote's source: Information Age.
Bayer is such an organization that recognized this site builder's potential and used it to overcome the challenges that it was then facing:
building thousands of standardized websites fast(er)
granting their non-dev team "independence" from developers to create Drupal websites at scale
5. Features You'll Want to Try First
Now that we've tackled your "Why" questions, let's address your "How" question, as well:
How do you make the most of Acquia Cohesion?
Therefore, we've hand-picked the 3 of its most powerful (and empowering) features that you'll be tempted to explore and exploit first:
5.1. In-Context Editing
In-browser, on-page editing couldn't get any more convenient than this:
Your content editor would just need to click anywhere on the web page where they need to make the update, hit the "Quick Edit" button and... edit it.
From making changes to the content itself to updating the layout of the page and settings, your editorial team can make changes on the fly.
Where do you add that the permissions control system helps them keep track of who has access to what.
5.2. Style Builder
The style builder that Acquia Cohesion ships with provides your design team with minimal coding experience components that they can easily:
drag and drop
arrange
assembly
... to their liking to create unique page layouts.
Thus, they get to put together their own templates right in the browser.
Note: feel free to go beyond the built-in styles and to get the most of the CSS properties and selectors.
5.3. Design Replication
Just imagine: what if you could reuse one of your current Drupal site's design and style configuration across your other hundreds of websites?
What if you could sync templates, components, brand styles across your global network of sites... faster and easier than ever before?
Well, Acquia Cohesion stores that kind of power. You just need to... unlock it and use it to your advantage.
The END!
These are the key benefits that you can reap from using Acquia Cohesion within your organization.
Do you find them strong enough to choose this particular website builder?
Image by Chris Wolf from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 14'2019
What Will Be the Chatbot Trends in 2020? From Enterprise Chatbots to... Emotionally Intelligent Bots
How will the chatbot and conversational agents market look like next year? Which are those high-impact chatbot trends in 2020 to expect and to prepare for?
Trends to adjust your customer experience strategy to...
And one thing is for sure: there's no way back...
You either standardize and invest in AI-powered chatbot development and implementation or you're... left behind.
Because experts anticipate that by 2020 approx. 85% of the interactions that customers engage in with businesses will be chatbot-intermediated.
And because the now improved AI-based language capabilities are already paving the way to more sophisticated chatbot solutions for:
user support
customer service
information management
In short: there's no other way but... the “bot way”.
So, what will be the hottest trends of 2020 for chatbot (and associated technologies) development? Keep on reading...
1. Voice-Based Bots
Quote source: Big Data Made Simple
Are you prepared for the... rise of voice?
For a great customer experience will be a great voice experience in 2020...
Get ready to start using voice as the key medium for helping your customers:
find their way on your website/mobile app
find the product/identify the services they need
place an order
check their... bank balance
Voice will become a too important medium to explore and to “exploit” in order to attract new customers and retain your current ones. To send out your updates, deals, and offers...
In other words: you should grant talking bots a central place in your customer experience strategy by 2020.
Note: do not take talking bots or conversational interfaces for merely assisting chatbots, though.
With:
voice language processing, speech recognition and AI technologies getting more and more advanced
skyrocketing consumer adoption of voice-enabled devices
… voice-activated chatbots will be one of the rising trends next year. Your customers will be uttering their queries instead of typing them on your site/app:
Will they be getting a helpful reply or... just the echo of their voices?
2. Enterprise Chatbots: One of the Biggest Chatbot Trends in 2020
Expect to witness conversational platforms take over... the workplaces.
This is going to be another huge trend in chatbot development in 2020. And it's pretty... predictable if you come to think of it:
Agile teams are on a constant quest for ways that could make their collaboration in the workplace more efficient.
Using just a verbal request for accessing a file or triggering a software tool — that would otherwise call for an X-step process — is, indeed, efficiency at its best. And convenience...
Is your team ready to rival these future teams who'll be taking full advantage of business chatbots next year?
Keep in mind: faster and better will be the best 2 words to describe the workflows of the future. So, you might want to consider welcoming enterprise chatbots into your workplace.
3. AI-Powered Chatbots
The future of chatbots is... AI-driven.
Chatbots will generate better customer insights by analyzing past and current data. And so, they'll feature more robust capabilities for identifying customers' preferences and behavioral patterns and for anticipating their future needs.
Now, what organizations wouldn't want to leverage that kind of capabilities to power their own customer experiences with, right?
4. Emotionally Intelligent Bots
IMAGE Image by Lola Kno from Pixabay
Another one of those high-impact chatbot trends in 2020 that you should prepare for.
For we're about to witness some major developments in the field of emotional AI (or emotion-detecting AI, if you wish):
Chatbots will become... artificially empathetic. Meaning that they will be able to properly respond to human emotions, even if they can't replicate the processes behind those emotions.
They will still be able to... mimic the result of those processes.
Hard to imagine it? Well, you'd better imagine and embrace this vision, for in 2020 chatbots will do more than (just) recognize speech: they will detect tone and emotion, as well.
Now, just think about leveraging the power of emotion detection AI in your own customer service department...
The future of chatbots will be dominated by emotional/emotion-recognition/emotionally intelligent/empathetic chatbots — however you prefer to call them.
5. NLP-Based Chatbots
Quote source: Tech Funnel
Lift the language barrier and you'll be rewarded unlimited power to perfect the customer experience that you provide...
Luckily, in 2020 chatbots will be turbocharged with highly improved natural language processing capabilities.
The “usual” obstacles, such as properly identifying a dialect, will be overcome. So, get ready to welcome chatbots capable to interpret your customers' messages with greater accuracy...
6. Automated Call Centers
Put together AI and NLO technology and you get the ideal setting for an automated call center.
Expect visual assistants to become a... “real” presence in the call centers' field in 2020. Sophisticated chatbot solutions will be empowered to assist customers in a human-like manner.
7. “Universal” Chatbots
Multitasking or multifunctional bots will be another one of the hottest chatbot trends in 2020.
Just take this too common use case scenario:
You have a mobile app incorporating multiple services: schedule, alarm, finance manager, bank account. The user will get to interact with one chatbot (or bot persona or “universal” bot) that will trigger the “service-specialized bot(s) that he/she'll want to use.
Imagine a chatbot acting as an interface for multiple departmentalized agent bots...
The END!
These are the 7 chatbot design trends to expect and to prepare for if you want to deliver the best customer experiences in 2020.
Which of them best fits your business needs?
Let us know and we're ready to turn it into a chatbot that fits perfectly into your company's customer experience strategy.
Main image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 10'2019
Chatbots, wearable apps, immersive apps, progressive web apps, conversational apps... It's a fact: applications as we know them are growing into... multiexperience apps. So you should consider powering your own app infrastructure with a multiexperience development platform.
But first, you may want to reflect on the limitations of your current app development platform: it supports web and mobile applications only...
By comparison, a MXDP would adjust the digital user experiences that you create to a multitude of interaction modalities — touch, gesture, voice — and devices: web browsers, smartwatches, smartphones, voice-driven devices...
And it's complete experiences that users expect these days...
1. But First: What Is a “Multiexperience” in the Digital Realm?
The term “multiexperience” incorporates:
all the different ways users interact with a brand (touch, audio, gesture)
the multitude of physical devices delivering the user experiences resulting from those interactions
Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
“And what is multiexperience development” you might further ask yourself.
Take it as the process where, using a plethora of different technologies, you create multiple fit-for-purpose applications. Apps perfectly tailored to suit different touchpoint-specific modalities (voice, audio, gesture...).
2. Multiexperience Development: Future-Proof Your App Development
According to Gartner Inc's research, organizations face an increasing challenge to create digital user experiences that go beyond those delivered through web and mobile apps.
For data is becoming extremely accessible and being “consumed” in an overwhelming no. of ways: hands-free, mobile, voice, etc. While convenience and personalization are now the key elements of great user experience...
So, you should consider switching from mobile-focused app development to a multiexperience (app) development strategy.
You should consider future-proofing your applications by “injecting” them with multi experiences.
From wearable apps to conversational apps (chatbots and voice assistants), to progressive web apps, and immersive apps... there's a wide range of apps of the future that incorporate and deliver multiple experiences.
But how could you possibly develop apps perfectly adjusted to each channel, each user interaction modality? Apps adapted to the given customer contexts...
You opt for an all-technologies-in-one multiexperience development platform...
"What are they more precisely?" Keep on reading...
3. MXDPs: What Are They? How Are They Different from MAPDs?
A multiexperience development platform is... the mobile app development platform of the future. It enables you to develop one app and then deploy it across a whole variety of devices and platforms.
From AR to wearable, to chat and voices, an MXDP speeds up the development of a plethora of targeted, seamless and highly scalable digital user experiences...
4. Why Shift to a Multiexperience Development Platform? 4 Reasons
Now, let's talk... clear benefits. Are they strong enough so you take the leap from your already familiar mobile app development platform?
Well, judge for yourself. Here are the 4 strongest reasons to move to an MXDP:
4.1. It Speeds Up the Deployment Process
How long does it take you now to deploy an app to Amazon Web Services or to any other cloud services provider?
Now, imagine sending your data straight to your AWS account...
Moreover, when using a multiexperience development platorm you get a full-distributed environment. And that can only translate into better control over your own deployment.
Add this convenience, as well, to the whole cloud-based deployment process and... try to anticipate how much time you'd save.
4.2. It Increases Operational Efficiency Within Your Organization
Faster day-to-day operations...
How does an MXDP help you achieve this goal? It's quite obvious:
A central, interconnected system incorporates and thus streamlines all your internal processes.
As opposed to struggling to orchestrate a heavy network of various different programs, one for each type of day-to-day internal task.
4.3. It Cuts Down Time to Market for Your App
And there are 2 main “culprits” behind this benefit of using a multiexperience development platform:
reusable code
accelerated design processes
Furthermore, if you release faster, you get user feedback faster so... you can apply the needed improvements... faster.
4.4. It Removes the Security Risk of Shadow IT
Have you ever tried to count the apps, IT systems, devices, services, and infrastructure that are being used across your organization? Is it even possible to keep track of them all?
Well, that's one of the strongest benefits of using an MXDP: you get a bird's eye view over your software asset.
This way, you can remove the risk that shadow IT poses.
The END!
Quite curious now: are all these predictions regarding the multi-experiences apps and reasons for switching to an MXDP strong enough for you to... take the leap?
Main Image by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 03'2019