Now Available: Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1
It’s official: Magento has released Enterprise Edition 1.14.1! If you work with Magento, you know why this is cause for excitement. Some may be asking, “So what?” Yes, it’s an update, but this particular update comes with a lot of new features and additions, which will make Enterprise Edition much more powerful, efficient, and better than previous versions. How? Well, if you read onward, you can get a taste of what this upgraded version has to offer:
Swatches:
Swatches have been added to product images, so customers can see color, fabric, and other variations with a product. Essentially, when a customer clicks on a product, it takes them to the product page that displays the product, gives information, shows price, etc. Right now, there are not many options for the product image, outside of zooming in. Swatches will allow a customer to select from the colors (or other options) available for a product and update the image with the new selection. For example, if a customer is looking at a t-shirt and it’s blue, but he/she wants to see it in red, the customer can select a red swatch and the t-shirt color will change to red. This gives customers more confidence with their purchases and will boost conversion rates.
Visual Merchandising Tools:
A new drag-and-drop visual merchandising tool has been added to the new version. It allows admins to see exactly what a category page will look like for shoppers, which in turn makes it easier to edit, fix, or make any adjustments to a page. Product information is included with the tool, such as pricing and inventory, which helps admins make better decisions when creating a section for products. This tool also allows admins to automatically assign rules to products or categories, or to create dynamic categories. The tool will allow admin to bulk-add or remove products as well.
Responsive Design:
Magento’s responsive design reference theme now includes all core Magento features. This means it includes gift registries, downloadable products, multiple wish lists, add-to-cart by SKU, and responsive email templates. It’s now much easier to create a site that can be viewed on any device.
Improved Performance and Security:
Support for MySQL 5.6 and PHP 5.5 has been added. MySQL 5.6 improves site speed and scalability, houses enhanced debugging tools, and reduces memory usage on a database server. PHP 5.5 provides enhanced security and ensures merchants have continued access to code updates.
Resolve Technical Issues Faster:
1.14.1 comes with a feature which allows admins to generate comprehensive reports about installation to help support teams quickly diagnose and fix any issues. The reports provide detailed system information, including MySQL settings, database corruption status, Apache, extensions, and more. This allows support teams and developers to immediately find any issue and solve it ASAP. Of course, this means much easier site maintenance for any eCommerce store.
Google Universal Analytics:
Enterprise Edition supports page-tagging for Google Universal Analytics. This allows merchants to define specific, or customer, dimensions and metrics for tracking, incorporate offline and mobile application interactions, gain access to ongoing feature updates, obtain better user-level tracking, and gain enhanced eCommerce reporting.
Empowerment of Larger Teams:
Backend scalability has been significantly improved, which improves productivity by allowing multiple admins to make product updates simultaneously – without causing any errors. Performance will never be diminished, and productivity will soar, which can in turn allow companies to maintain goals and create a more aggressive approach.
Improved Quality and SEO:
EE will host improvements to promotions, security, product import/export, and multiple other features. For example, merchants can now utilize full-page caching when running on HTTPS. Since Google has stated that HTTPS is now considered when ranking pages, this allows merchants to following Google’s guidelines and maintain site performance.
Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 is a fantastic upgrade to an already exceptional platform. If you are considering the upgrade, or if you want to establish an eCommerce site with the Magento platform, contact Creatuity today. We can discuss the new EE version, walk you through implementation and installation, how it can benefit your business, and next steps to proceed with the upgrade. Seriously, do not wait to have 1.14.1 installed. Upgrade today!
