v2 (alpha) - Release Notes

The release notes for updates to v2 of the Propeller Platform.

Platform Beta - Version 2.5 - Preliminary Staging Release

This is the first official Beta release of the Propeller v2 platform. It contains the current status of all Propeller services together for the first time.

Not all features are expected to be fully functional, but releasing the services in this manner will provide insights internally and to our partners about the scope of changes throughout the v2 platform and allow us to complete the work necessary to bring this into full production-ready status.

Completely new in v2

Attribute
Business Rule Builder
Carrier
Favorites
Orderlist
Order Status
Pay Method
Price
User Roles
Valueset

Lots of changes between v1 and v2

Cart v2
Crossupsell
Order & Order helper
Product Search
Surcharges
Tax
User Management
Warehouse

Only minor or no changes between v1 and v2

Address
Category
Checkout
Email
External Reference
Inventory
Media
Product Bundle

Completely new in v2

Attribute

Description

The attribute service provides the means to add metadata to objects in a dynamic manner suited to your own use cases.

Attributes are available on the following models:

Products
Clusters
Categories
Companies
Contacts
Customers

The service includes the following entities:

AttributeDescription
AttributeValue
Attributes

AttributeDescriptions define the attribute, holds the type and class and also the high level information.

AttributeValues are the specific values that are assigned. AttributeDescriptions have a default value, and the default value is an instance of attributeValue that is connected to the attributeDescription.

Attributes are the instance that’s assigned to an object.

When a product needs a new attribute, you first define the attributeDescription and the default value as an attributeValue.

Then when you want to add this to a product, you create an attribute and attributeValue with the custom specific value.

Key changes in the v2 release

No longer supports attribute inheritance, all objects need to have a value set on them explicitly
Uses a default value field that can be used for all underlying objects. It’s also possible to set a non-value for an object.
Queries can be modified to include or exclude default values in result sets.

Business Rule Builder

Description

The Rule Builder is a powerful tool that can use a series of and/or arguments to select the exact set of data and then perform a number of actions to add, modify or remove this or related data.

There is a high level setting regarding the rules that determines how multiple rows are treated when applying the rules within the table. This setting is called the "Hit Policy":

FIRST: Return the first applicable rule in the table
COLLECT (ALL): Apply all the applicable rules in the table cumulatively

Key changes in the v2 release

Brand new in v2 with no backwards compatibility or data migration possible
Currently only supports rule creation using the backoffice
Rules are implemented for Incentives and Carriers with further rule sets in development

Carrier

Description

The carrier service provides the ability to set up delivery and fulfillment options for customers purchasing through the platform.

Combined with the Warehouse service, the carrier information can be setup as simply or complex as required. It’s connected to the rule builder service allowing for a dynamic enabling of carriers based on the contents of the basket or profile of the user.

Key changes in the v2 release

Dynamic visibility provided by the rule builder

Favorites

Description

The favorites service provides the functionality to connect a list of products with a user.

While a user can have only 1 default favorites list, it’s possible to create multiple lists for a single user, allowing them to crate and curate lists for different purposes.

Favorites lists can also be created for companies, allowing all contacts within that company to share the same lists.

Key changes in the v2 release

While the feature is available in v1, it is not compatible with the previous backoffice UI.

Orderlist

Description

Orderlists provide the ability to create custom product sets for individual companies and users. The two types of orderlist allow this to be setup according to the type of catalog required. A positive orderlist results in only those products included being visible to the user, where a negative orderlist gives the user access to the entire catalog but excludes the products specified.

Key changes in the v2 release

This service is present in v1 without a backoffice interface.
Replaces previous customer specific catalog functionality.
The ability to assign orderlists by rules will be added in the future.

Order Status

Description

The order status service manages the flow of statuses that an order goes through starting at requesting a quotation through to fulfillment and archival.

This service ensures that the flow can be customized to the setup of the webshop.

There are order statuses and order status sets - the sets are mapped to the tabs in the backoffice UI to group similar statuses together.

Additionally, each status has a number of settings that refer to the orders with the status:

Default
- Default statuses are provided by Propeller and cannot be modified
Public
- Orders that are not public cannot be viewed by the associated customer. This is typically used for draft orders that have not yet been finalized.
Editable
- This denotes if the order can be modified.
Deletable
- This denotes if the order can be deleted. Non-deletable orders are usually required for financial record-keeping purposes.
Exportable
- Typically exportable orders are set to allow an integration (e.g. with an ERP) to only pick up relevant orders.
Confirmable
- The confirmation process for an order normally occurs before the order is sent out for fulfillment, so only placed (and paid) orders are typically set to confirmable.
Archivable
- Archivable orders are removed from the active screens whilst not being removed from the database. It’s normal to only allow fully completed and fulfilled orders to be archived.

Key changes in the v2 release

This new service exposes this functionality within the new backoffice and allows the statuses to be maintained by the webshop admin.

Pay Method

Description

The pay method service gives the high level information about different payment methods that can be used in the webshop. This includes online as well as offline payments.

While Propeller itself doesn’t handle the front end payment process, the payment methods are required to be present to provide the options at the checkout and include this in the order details.

Key changes in the v2 release

Completely new service with this v2 release.
Replaces the current setup which is based on standard user attributes.

Price

Description

The new price service replaces the existing v1 implementation with a streamlined and optimized set of functionality. The price service takes care of all pricing information on products and includes the data models for default, bulk and cost prices all mapping to the same unified structure.

All prices are applied through pricesheets that contain a set of products and their associated net or modified pricing data. These prices can be assigned to users through a standard id pairing, or can be dynamically applied using the rule builder.

Key changes in the v2 release

All customer specific prices now need to be applied with pricesheets.
There is no data migration for v2, so pricing details need to be fully created.
As of the current release, the backoffice UI is still in development however the data models for prices are already available.

User Roles

Description

The new user roles provide the access rights for the underlying services in the platform. There are a number of available roles that span the platform, dividing the functionality into suitable pieces that are frequently associated together.

When assigning a role to a user, it’s possible to give a access level from:

Viewer
Editor
Owner

Viewers have only read only data access, while the owner has full access. The editor has some write capabilities but it’s limited.

With this change we’re also pulling the internal users out of the webshop user set removing any potential confusion with internal and external user credentials.

Key changes in the v2 release

This feature completely replaces the existing user permissions and access implementations.
We’re initially focusing on the Viewer and Owner roles with the Editor role being developed over time.

Valueset

Description

The valueset service provides management of sets of data. The platform is delivered with a standard list of system valuesets that cover a large number of common functionalities such as country lists, currencies, character sets and date formats.

The service additionally supports custom valuesets that can be created, modified and maintained per environment for any use case where a specific list or dropdown needs to be populated with a curated list of data.

Key changes in the v2 release

Introduction of non-modifiable system valuesets means if a non-standard list is required, these will need to be created as a custom valueset alongside the system.

Lots of changes between v1 and v2

Cart v2

Description

The cart service manages the shopping cart for users in the webshop. The service uses the order helper that calculates the accurate pricing and availability of all products and ensures that any incentive rules are applied realtime.

Key changes in the v2 release

Due to the new rules engine, the cart service has been significantly modified to work with the new manner of calculating product carts and orders.
In this process, the relevant order fields have been standardized to meet the current platform requirements such as capitalization.

Crossupsell

Description

Manages the related product relationships that are frequently used to upsell in the customer journeys.

These exist as a sub-object on a product and can be populated with a number of different relationships.

There’s a type of crossupsell which is one of:

ACCESSORIES
ALTERNATIVES
OPTIONS
PARTS
RELATED

In addition, the service supports a custom sub-type that can be used to create groups within these types supporting incredibly flexible implementation patterns.

Key changes in the v2 release

Introduction of subtype support in both the API as well as the backoffice UI

Order & Order helper

Description

The order service processes incoming quotations and orders. Utilizing the rule builder as part of the order helper, the order service calculates the correct product values to ensure that orders are placed and processed correctly.

Key changes in the v2 release

Due to the new rules engine, the order service has been significantly modified to work with the new manner of calculating orders.
In this process, the relevant order fields have been standardized to meet the current platform requirements such as capitalization.

Product Search

Description

The product search service provides the extensive search functionality for products in both the webshop as well as the backoffice. Based on a scalable search index, the service takes the plethora of product data and attributes to power searches across even the largest of product catalogs.

Key changes in the v2 release

Most of the changes are to bring it inline with the updates to the product and catalog services.
No major changes to functionality with this release.

Surcharges

Description

The surcharges service provides the ability to add a standardized fee to any product purchase. This is applied in the order and is most frequently used for deposits on recyclable products, but has many other potential use cases.

Key changes in the v2 release

The service is in v2 fully supported by the backoffice UI.

Tax

Description

The tax service adds VAT (or equivalent sales tax) to purchases made through the webshop. With the ability to define tax on multiple levels for each supported country, the tax service allows for the webshop to always charge the correct tax values.

There is additionally ICP support for EU countries that allows non-taxable purchases to take place where applicable.

Key changes in the v2 release

The service is in v2 fully supported by the backoffice UI.
The backoffice currently displays the shortcode entries for tax codes that will be modified with the descriptive labels.

User Management

Description

The user service manages all webshop users (and no longer manages the internal backoffice users). These users are contained within a structure of folders and are one of:

Companies
Contacts
Customers

Companies being entities that hold information such as payment methods, addresses and attributes, but do not have login information. Contacts are the users (people) within a company that can act on its behalf.

Customers are webshop users outside of a company and are typically used for B2C relationships.

Key changes in the v2 release

The service is in v2 fully supported by the backoffice UI.
Backoffice / Admin users are no longer managed by this service.

Warehouse

Description

The warehouse service provides a database of physical locations. This is frequently used for delivery and pickup locations that can be assigned opening hours and pickup conditions.

When combined with the carrier service and rule builder, this can provide an incredibly flexible shopping experience for end users.

Key changes in the v2 release

The service is in v2 fully supported by the backoffice UI.

Only minor or no changes between v1 and v2

Address

Description

The address service stores all address information for users, orders and warehouses.

Checkout

Description

Managing the checkout process, this service ensures the right data is collected and available to correctly process a new order.

Email

Description

The email service sends out system emails for the platform. This is only a few currently supported mails including the registration and order confirmation emails.

External Reference

Description

This service provides the ability to add a reference identifier to an object where the identifier is sourced from an external platform or application.

Inventory

Description

The service that tracks stock volumes for products.

Media

Description

The service that manages all media data including images and documents. While videos are also part of this service data model, the service does not host videos which need to be externally hosted and connected via a public URL.

Product Bundle

Description

This service provides a manner to sell a group of products with the ability to add a discount to the purchase price of all the products together.

Version 2.4 - 26th March

This is a minor release without any breaking changes
Expected impact: Low but a lot of services will be deployed.

Bug Fixes

Fixed REST Search endpoints

We made updates to the Orderlist, Valueset and PayMethod services to fix issues being experienced with the REST search endpoints preventing the correct data from always being returned.

During this change we also corrected the endpoints to PATCH from PUT to bring this inline with our other services.

Fixed calls to other services

We made a series of fixes to the Carrier and Order services to address some issues we were seeing with cross service queries and mutations.

Fixed partial update mutations

The partial update mutation problems being experienced on the Warehouse, Media and Product Bundle services has been resolved.

Authorization and User Management fixes

We've made a few changes across services to resolve inconsistencies. This includes:

Fixing sorting and roles on the user management service
Fixed required roles on queries for ProductSearch
Added auth guards to the Inventory service

Version 2.3 - 27th February

This is a minor release without any breaking changes.

Sort Order Fixes

We've made a series of updates regarding sort order validation. These mostly address some field type inconsistencies between services and introduce valid sorting to support our new backoffice user interface.

The changes have been rolled out to the following services:

PayMethods
Orderlists
User Management
Carriers
Categories

Surcharges Service

As a continuation from our previous release, we've added guards to the Surcharges service to bring it in line with the latest standard of our internal services. As before, this shouldn't have any impact on current project, but should you experience any access issues, please let us know.

We've also made a bugfix to this service resolving an issue with the input.type that was previously a string and is now an enum as expected.