New Feature Releases

Find out about recent Yahoo! Merchant Solutions feature releases.

April 2012

On April 25, 2012, the following updates were made for all stores:

Item options using quotation marks (Catalog Manager and catalog.xml)

Catalog Manager and catalog.xml fixes are being made for an issue encountered when using a quotation mark (") in an item option. The catalog.xml will now display only one option for "OptionValue" when a quotation mark is used, and the quotation mark will no longer be stripped. Catalog Manager will now also correctly display item options using a quotation mark.

Updates to objinfo.xml

Previously, non-orderable items that did not have a value entered for either the "Caption" or "Message" attribute were not added to your store’s objinfo.xml file. Now, only non-orderable items that do not have a value for either "Caption" or "Message," and that do not have an object property of "item," "section," or other default item or section type as configured by you in your Store Editor, will be excluded from your store's objinfo.xml file.

Order API and Checkout API XSD updates

If you are referencing the Order API XSD and/or the Checkout API XSD, these have been updated to include promotions elements for the Promotions Center closed beta that will be released to a small number of store owners in order to collect feedback before a general release. Please note that Order API responses and Checkout API responses are not affected for your store, unless you are participating in the Promotions Center beta.

• Download the updated Order API XSD
• Download the updated Checkout API XSD

In addition, the following updates were made for stores participating in a Promotions Center closed beta release. These updates do not pertain to stores that are not part of this closed beta. If you are not participating in the Promotions Center closed beta release, no changes to any third-party integrations you may have for your store are needed. If you are participating in the Promotions Center beta, please note that these updates will not take effect until Promotions Center has been enabled for your store.

Order Manager updates

New fields for store promotion discounts will be added to your full order and invoice format printed order information, and to order email information for readable, Adobe PDF, and XML format emails. In addition, a new "Promotion Discount" column heading will be added to your order export information for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and generic CSV export formats; a new "<Promotions>" element will be added to the XML export format; and a new "Promo Discount" line will be added to plain text export format. New information has not been added to the M.O.M., QuickBooks, PC Charge, or UPS WorldShip® export formats.

• Sample updated CSV order export format
• Sample updated XML order export format
• Sample updated plain text order export format

Yahoo! Order format and XML order format updates

If you are using the Yahoo! Order format for real-time order posts or real-time tax and shipping calculation, please be advised that the Yahoo! Order format will be updated with the new fields listed below. Download an updated sample Yahoo! Order format script.

New fields added to the Yahoo! Order format: Promo-Count, Promo-Id-N*, Promo-Type-N*, Promo-Discount-N*, and Promo-Message-N*

* "N" in all instances represents a numeric character, such as Promo-Id-1, Promo-Type-2, Promo-Discount-1, Promo-Message-2.

A description for each field is below:

Promo-Count—number of promotions applied (e.g. 3)
Promo-Id-N—promotion ID (e.g. 2)
Promo-Name-N—name of promotion (e.g. promo-40%)
Promo-Type-N—type of promotion (e.g. percentage)
Promo-Discount-N—discount applied with this promotion (e.g. 5.00)
Promo-Message-N—promotion message (e.g. 40% off)

If you are using the XML order format for real-time order posts or real-time tax and shipping calculation, please be advised that a new "<Promotions>" element will be added to this format. (Please see the sample XML order export format.)


Order API and Checkout API response updates:

Order API responses will now include a new "<Promotions>" element under "<OrderTotals>," while Checkout API responses will now include new "<PromotionsDiscount>," "<AppliedPromotions>," and "<QualifiablePromotions>" elements. Updated API documentation will be available in online help prior to the Promotions Center beta being enabled for your store, which is when these changes will take effect.

February 2012

New Site Search enhancements:

• Categories to show in the search bar category drop-down list may now be specified using the "Categories for category drop-down" option.
• A "quick look" view of items on the search results page may now be enabled (requires items to have an item image).
• You may now specify items to appear first in search results when a search term matches an item, using the "Enable promoted items" option (also requires the new "promoted" attribute in Catalog Manager to be added to Catalog Manager tables and applied to individual items).
• The letter casing of brand names shown in the brand filter can now be made consistent using the "Use titlecase for brand names" option.
• Div codes can now be used to display Customer Registration and/or Floating Cart links on the search results page (custom templates only). These features are no longer automatically enabled for stores using custom templates.
• The new Site Search is now supported for Web Hosting stores.
• Customers may now search for items by UPC code.

Catalog Manager enhancements:

• The "promoted" attribute is now an available Shopping attribute, and must be added to tables in order to use the new Site Search "Enable promoted items" feature.
• The "keywords" attribute may now be added to Catalog Manager tables as a custom attribute.

Customer Registration enhancements:

• A new "Allow Facebook ID" option has been added to the Global Settings section of Checkout & Registration Manager, in the Customer Registration tab. This option allows you to offer Facebook as a provider ID customers may use to register and authenticate with your store. (This option is not currently supported for stores built using Web Hosting tools.) Get help with enabling this feature.

January 2012

Saved Cards enhancements:

• Saved Cards now has two options for informing registered customers about the feature. You may now display information about saving card information as a dismissible information box that appears after a customer completes their order and reaches the order confirmation page, or you may continue to display this information inline on the order confirmation page. Learn about each of these options.
• Issues affecting use of the Saved Cards feature when the "Billing Address" section is hidden in checkout have been resolved.

Customer Registration enhancements:

• Images may now be used in place of text links for the “Cancel” link on the registration form for our Customer Registration system, and on the Account Settings tab of a registered customer's My Account page.
• When accessing the registration form from a checkout page, the "Continue Checkout" button now redirects to the shipping and billing information or shipping information page (depending on merchant settings).
• An enhancement to how Customer Manager references JavaScript has been made to improve the performance of Customer Manager.

Order Manager enhancements:

• Inscription information for items ordered with an inscription option is now highlighted in Order Manager to make it easier for merchants to immediately see this information on-screen and when printed. See what a highlighted inscription looks like.
• Files for orders exported from Order Manager now include date and timestamp information in the following format: Orders-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM. Learn more.
• USPS tracking numbers entered in the order notes for an order are no longer masked.
• The "map" link shown below the ship-to address in Order Manager now passes city, state, and zip code information to Yahoo! Maps, to show the location on Yahoo! Maps.

Floating Cart enhancements:

• The Shipping Calculator for Floating Cart has been updated to display only the United States by default. If you offer shipping to Canada and wish to display Canada as an option in the drop-down list, you must go to your Foreign Orders page in Store Manager, save your settings again, and publish your Order Settings.
• The vwitem, vwquantity, and vwcatalog values are no longer inserted as item options via Floating Cart.

Coupon Manager enhancements:

• Coupon discounts for coupons that exclude items are no longer applied to gift certificates when a gift certificate is ordered.
• The performance of Coupon Manager when a large number of coupons are present has been improved.
• Security warnings are no longer displayed when accessing Coupon Manager after accessing a secure (https://) page in Store Manager.

Page Redirect Manager enhancements:

• Page Redirect Manager now supports redirects for URLs that include tracking strings or other query strings.
• In response to merchant feedback, the "Revert," "Publish," "Upload," and "Download" icons in Page Redirect Manager have been replaced with labeled buttons to make these actions easier to locate and use.

Catalog Manager enhancements:

• A Catalog Manager search issue for stores using Editor 2.0 has been resolved. Merchants who previously experienced search result issues in Catalog Manager when using the "contains" option should now be able to locate items that contained the search criteria, rather than only exact matches.

Database Inventory enhancements:

• Merchants using Database Inventory may now choose to turn off the default message that instructs shoppers to contact the merchant when an item is not available, using a new option in the Settings section of the Configure Inventory page. Read more information.

Risk Tools enhancements:

• Merchants using Risk Tools to block IP addresses may now include up to 150 IP addresses on their block list, and may add 25 entries at once. Previously only 100 IP addresses could be blocked, and only five entries could be added at once. Learn how to block IP addresses.

New Site Search beta enhancements:

• New Site Search beta category drop-down menu alignment issues in Internet Explorer and display issues in Internet Explorer 7 have been resolved.

Yahoo! Merchant Solutions API enhancements:

• Character encoding issues experienced in API responses have been resolved.

Other enhancements:

• Tax and shipping settings are no longer published when publishing Store Editor or Coupon Manager changes. Tax and shipping settings are now only published when Order Settings are published.
• Issues with manual transactions for Diner's Club cards beginning with "36**" are now resolved.
• Serbia and Montenegro are now listed as separate countries in checkout when a merchant ships to these countries, as well as in Shipping Manager and Tax Manager, and on the Foreign Orders page in Store Manager.
• A Javascript array has been added to all checkout pages that allows you retrieve information about what a shopper has in their cart at any given point during the checkout process. This enhancement should eliminate the need to "scrape" the cart page to access this information, and can help provide better flexibility when determining things such as promotional offers during checkout that are based on the information retrieved.
• An alignment issue experienced when printing out order confirmation pages from a web browser has been fixed.

October 2011

New Site Search (beta release)

• Visit the help section

Catalog API (beta release)
The Catalog API is available for Merchant Solutions Standard and Professional accounts

• Read Catalog API documentation

September 2011

Page Redirect Manager

• Visit the help section
• Read the release announcement

August 2011

Saved Cards for Customer Registration

• Visit the help section
• Read the release announcement