Welcome to the Summer '21 Release!
For those of you who are new to Hitchhikers — Welcome to Yext's training platform & community! Hitchhikers is the home for all of Yext's product and release updates so we encourage you to create a free user and check out the platform.
Yext's seasonal releases are always packed with new features and functionality to keep Hitchhikers on the cutting edge of search, and the Summer '21 Release is no different. Across the product suite we have added new features that will help you to drive value and improve your user experience.
Here are just a few of the powerful new features in the Summer '21 Release:
Data Connectors Updates:
As part of the Spring '21 release we launched our Data Connectors framework in order to make it even easier to build your own Knowledge Graph. With the Summer '21 release we are making that framework even more powerful with two key new features: Data Connector Transforms and the API Data Connector. These two features combine to create an easy to use, no code/low code ETL (Extract Transform Load).
Transforms allow you to manipulate incoming data in the Connectors workflow, eliminating the need to perform these actions before the data enters Yext. After choosing a transform action in the Connector workflow, you can preview the changes in real time. These Transforms include the ability to Remove Unwanted Characters, Fix Capitalization, Filter Rows Based on Criteria, Find and Replace, Custom Transforms, and more.
In addition the new API Data Connector will enable admins to easily pull or receive data directly from non-Yext APIs by following the intuitive Connectors workflow. This Connector includes support for Push to API and Pull from API.
With Push to API you can now push data into the Yext Platform and POST data to a schema-less endpoint (Connectors API) either via a regular API call or a Webhook message.
Pull from API adds the ability to pull data into the Yext platform by specifying API details including path, URL parameters, request type, and authentication details, to pull data from an external endpoint into Yext.
Phoenix Algorithm Updates:
Building a powerful algorithm is an iterative process. Over time, it's important to improve performance across certain types of data, add new machine learning capabilities, support new features, and handle brand new use cases. The Yext algorithms are certainly no exception here! That's why we are eager to share all of the optimizations we made in the Summer '21 Phoenix Algorithm Update. This update includes Dynamic Reranking for all entity types, Featured Snippets from Rich Text, support for "Open Now" searches, and so much more.
With the Summer '21 release we are expanding to provide Dynamic Reranking for all entity types using a new reinforcement learning algorithm. Yext can determine the optimal ranking of search results that will maximize clicks by running small, incremental A/B tests over time. We even adjust for the fact that some users may be clicking on a result simply because it is higher in the list of results, not because it's the best result. This intelligent system of reranking results across all entity types will have a significant impact on clicks and conversions, making your search experience all-around more effective.
When it comes to improving performance across certain types of data, look no further than our second highlight: Featured Snippets from Rich Text! When we released Document Search we learned that customers wanted to use this technology to search absolutely everything — including product manuals, recipes, blogs, biographies, ordered lists, and more. Since rich text fields can be a bit more complex with things like unique text formatting, numbered or bulleted lists, and links, we added several enhancements to our algorithm to support that!
And lastly, we want to highlight one more feature made possible by the Phoenix Algorithm Update: "Open Now" status filtering. This powerful feature allows a user to search "restaurants open now" and return a list of restaurants with any locations that are currently closed to be filtered out, with respect to that user's local time zone. It even takes into account holiday or temporary (think: COVID-adjusted) hours to provide the true hours in the moment of the search.
Experience Training Updates, Full Screen Test Search, & Performance Clustering:
We always want to make sure our administrators have the tools they need to optimize their search experiences. In the Summer '21 Release, administrators will be happy to hear we're adding Experience Training updates, a revamped Full Screen Test Search, and Performance Clustering.
Do you remember In Spring '21 when we released our Experience Training feature for Featured Snippets? Time has flown, and we've expanded our Experience Training offering in a few major ways. For starters, we added two new components for training: NLP Filters and Spell Checking. Now, if you notice an NLP filter applied that shouldn't be (example: the query "navy blue shirt," triggers a "light blue" color filter ) or an incorrect spell check suggestion (example: if it said, "did you mean: next?" for the query "Yext"), you can reject these instances, immediately fix the issues, and provide a valuable source of training data for our algorithm.
Additionally, we've updated the Experience Training section of the platform, which will make the tool a lot easier to navigate for users. This includes the following:
- Users will be able see how recently each query was searched in the Experience Training table.
- Users can toggle back and forth between a list of completed training queries and a list of new queries that still need to be trained
Featured Snippets from Rich Text are now visible But what if you're not quite ready to take action, but want to assess the current state of your search experience? Cue, Test Search. Administrators love Test Search because it allows them to quickly test queries in the platform, without navigating to a separate experience. We've given Test Search a total face lift this summer. Most notably, we're allowing administrators to view and copy raw API requests and responses to save time when debugging and sharing searches. The full list of improvements brought to you by Full Screen Test Search include the following:
- A full screen interface (hence the name!)
- Customizable entity previews from Knowledge Graph
- Direct answers in results
- Featured snippets in results
- Labels for the NLP filters applied
- Test searches visible in search log
- Access to raw API requests and responses
And lastly on the analytics front, Cluster Performance will make your life a lot easier. Understanding what users are looking to learn through search, and tracking your performance across those key areas are two very important things for administrators to do at scale. With Cluster Performance, we're equipping administrators with a quadrant analysis tool to divide up their search clusters into groups based on how well they are performing. We use search volume (size) and quality as our two performance indicators. Cluster Performance allows you to get a quick snapshot of the search areas that are most important for you to prioritize, with both search quality and size in mind.
Apps with Configuration:
There are so many ways to build and manage search experiences with Yext. With this release, we're introducing even more ways to save time configuring accounts and build more powerful and functional apps by launching Apps with Configuration.
Apps with Configuration allows you to add Configuration Resources to apps that get applied on install, creating new and exciting possibilities.
If you're unfamiliar, configuration resources are the JSON representation of settings in your account, like Entity Type definitions, Conversion Actions, Answers Config, and more. You can see a full list of Resources in our developer documentation here and can learn more about how Configuration as Code works in our dedicated track here.
This feature unlocks so many new possibilities that previously were not possible programmatically! For example, now you can create an app that:
- Adds a new entity type with custom fields to an account and then syncs data to that entity type from another source.
- Installs premade Answers configurations and frontends to have a purpose-built experience working out of the box
- Applies Page Builder templates that are pre-customized and optimized for specific use cases
- Creates a new Data Connector that syncs data from a third party source into the Knowledge Graph If you're a partner, you'll especially enjoy this new functionality for applying configuration to sub-accounts in just a few clicks! Apps with Configuration make it seamless to package solutions at scale and improve the customer experience when installing apps. The possibilities are endless, and we can't wait to see what you create.
That's not all! To learn more about the Summer '21 Release including demos, deep dives, new publishers and more, check out the Hitchhikers exclusive Sneak Peek: Summer '21 Release webinar recording with Max Shaw, Yext's SVP of Product.
If you have any questions or feedback related to the release, please stop by the Hitchhikers Community. We have specific topics for each release item and will have the experts standing by, ready to answer any questions you have.
We know many of the Hitchhikers will want to check out everything in the Summer '21 release. For the full list of features head to the Summer '21 Release Notes.
