It’s time to gear up for the February 2024 (24.2) release of Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud! With the arrival of this latest release, let’s look at what’s new and exciting!
You can always check out last month’s release notes by clicking here if you missed it.
Platform
Partitioned Cookies
Please turn it off until you have completed all necessary testing.
Concerning browser vendors’ ongoing deprecation of third-party cookies, a new feature in Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud affects how cookies are handled: “Partitioned Cookies“
Cookies that are sent by controller code, such as via response.addHttpCookie will now have the Partitioned flag set.
Most people won’t notice a difference, but this change may have side effects if you have more complex custom cookie logic. However, a feature toggle called Partitioned Cookies defaults to true – you can turn off this new behaviour there, but be sure to read the description carefully, as it is necessary for Page Designer and Toolkit when third-party cookies are disabled in the browser.
Allow Duplicate Terms in Search Phrases
B2C Commerce search now accepts long-tail search phrases with duplicate search terms. When an exact match for a given phrase is found, the suggestion processor returns highly relevant search results.
Previously, duplicate words in long-tail search phrases were autocorrected to slightly different versions. Autocorrecting terms in the search phrase can result in irrelevant search results.
Improvements in the built-in search engine are always welcomed. A reliable search function across all channels enhances user experience and increases conversion rates.
Get a Higher Level of Time Stamp Accuracy with Inventory
ProductInventoryRecord.AllocationResetDate now supports a higher level of accuracy in the database. The change is backward-compatible.
When dealing with various sales channels that impact inventory, multiple stock modifications may occur within the exact second.
Previously, we were unable to differentiate at the millisecond level, but that is no longer the case! With the database modification that allows for milliseconds in the timestamp instead of seconds, we can now more effectively handle this particular use case.
XML Import example
// example import with seconds
<allocation-timestamp>2023-11-22T06:56:01Z</allocation-timestamp>
// example import with milliseconds
<allocation-timestamp>2023-11-22T06:56:01.567Z</allocation-timestamp>
OCAPI
// Request body example with millis
{ 'allocation': { 'amount': 17, 'reset_date': '2023-11-23T08:39:23.456Z' } }
// Response always with millis
.... 'reset_date': '2023-11-23T08:39:23.456Z'
// Request body example with seconds
{ 'allocation': { 'amount': 17, 'reset_date': '2023-11-23T08:41:23Z' } }
// Response always with millis
.... 'reset_date': '2023-11-23T08:41:23.000Z'
Business Manager
Specify a Date Format for Locales
You can now modify the date settings format in Business Manager so that the script API method dw.util.Calendar.getFirstDayOfWeek() returns the first day of the week in the date format used by your site locale. Previously, you couldn’t modify the date format to match the local or regional context.
Development
Custom SCAPI Endpoints
The promised helper functions have arrived with the new custom endpoints going GA, making creating scripts for your endpoints easier!
OCAPI & SCAPI
Custom SCAPI Endpoints
Although this option has existed since September last year, this feature is now officially out of BETA and can be safely used in production environments.
It is important to note that a few things have changed in this release that might break your current customisations, so verify that all endpoints still behave and work the way you intended.
The documentation has been updated to include these changes. It’s time to read up!
SLAS Updates
- Improved error handling for TSOB(Trusted system on Behalf) for "customer not found" user scenarios.
- Support added for using SAP Customer Data Cloud socialize REST endpoints.
- IDP configuration now allows the IDP client credentials to be added to the POST body. SLAS now supports OIDC client_secret_basic and client_secret_post for client authentication.
- Updated the /introspect endpoint to include a “sub” claim in the response.
- Improved validation in Session Bridge(SESB) flow by checking for the customer_id and failing the request if the customer is already registered.
- Includes SLAS Admin UI and API bug fix to address the cache synchronization issue when a client is edited or deleted.
SLAS updates this month include some critical changes. One of the issues that has been bothering me for the past year was the visual cache of the SLAS admin UI, which caused a lot of confusion by displaying outdated information.
However, I’m happy to report that this issue has finally been fixed, dramatically improving UX.
Account Manager
1.32.0 Release
- Security Fixes
- Bug Fixes
- Infrastructure Updates
- UUID Tokens Switched to JWT Access Tokens: As previously announced in June 2023, Account Manager no longer supports the use of UUID token formats. All new API Clients only support the JWT access token format.
After quite a long warning beforehand, the UUID option is now wholly gone for new API clients!
SFRA v7.0.0
BREAKING CHANGE: SFRA v7.0.0 has been updated to support Node 18
- Setup Github Actions config by @shethj in #1337
- Allow arbitrary-length TLDs by @wjhsf in #1352
- Fix broken locale selector on Page Designer pages. by @wjhsf in #1354
- Fix search with multiple refinements on PLP by @shethj in #1365
- Bug: avoid XSS attacks in addressBook.js by @mjuszczyk1 in #1366
- Update: seo friendly urls for search refinements by @sandragolden in #1331
- Bug: fix transformations not being applied (W-8851964) by @wjhsf in #1183
- Use standard ignore for generated files by @wjhsf in #1182
- Bump version to v7.0.0 by @shethj in #1373
- Add node18 release note by @shethj in #1374
A long-awaited update to SFRA is finally here with the long-promised update to node 18!
PWA Kit v3.4.0
General
- Add support for node 20 #1612
- Fix bug when running in an iframe #1629
- Generate SSR source map with environment variable #1571
- Display selected refinements on PLP, even if the selected refinement has no hits #1622
- Added option to specify isLoginPage function to the withRegistration component. The default behavior is "all pages ending in /login". #1572
Accessibility
- Add correct keyboard interaction behavior for variation attribute radio buttons #1587
- Change radio refinements (for example, filtering by Price) from radio inputs to styled buttons #1605
- Update search refinements ARIA labels to include "add/remove filter" #1607
- Improve focus behavior on my account pages, address forms, and promo codes #1625
Storefront Preview
- We've added a new context input field for Customer Group. This is a text input for now but we imagine a dropdown in the future.
- We know many of you will bring third party CMS's to the mix. We want you to be able to use Storefront Preview with these as well! On that note please check out our new guidance on Preview extensibility. Essentially you can forward context changes onto a third party to set their version of context in the given platform meaning your Previewed storefront can faithfully render all the content relevant to your context settings.
With smaller and larger updates, the 3.4 release is now equipped to support more use cases and stay current with the latest Node versions!
Bugfixes
Someone decided in January to do some cleanup, making it harder to make an overview, but here is a link to make things easier!
Updated Cartridges & Tools
composable-storefront-pocs
This repo is a composable storefront implementation with various proof of concepts baked in. It otherwise closely tracks pwa-kit
A big update to the POC library, such as live editing (custom editors) and Promotional/Sale/list pricing on PLP and PDP.
plugin_slas (v7.2.0)
This cartridge extends authentication for guest users and registered shoppers using the Shopper Login and API Access Service (SLAS).
- Node18 upgrade by @alexvuong in #175
- Bump version to v7.2.0 by @shethj in #177
