Tag Archives: Business Catalyst

02/02/2012

New Website Launches at Urban Element

By urbanelementblog

January was a busy month here at UE with four websites launching in recent weeks. All of these sites have been built in the Adobe Business Catalyst CMS and using the combined skills of our web design and SEO teams.

The first two sites to go live were Classic England and Classic Scotland. These two sites are part of the Leisure Creations group who specialise in providing customised tours throughout the UK and Ireland. As well as incorporating all the usual tourist sites, their personalised tours also include author themed tours, gardens, whiskey tours and. The site makes use of the customisable web apps feature in Business Catalyst which will allow Leisure Creations to easily update details of their tours.

We have also launched a website for UKCPI, the leading association for the UK cleaning industry. We are looking forward to working with UKCPI on an ongoing basis, helping them with the content strategy for the website throughout the year.

UKCPI website design

Last week saw the launch of a new e-commerce site for Beaumont Forest, a large timber merchants with branches in High Wycombe, Ascot and Hertfordshire. This new site also allows their customers to obtain a quote for their timber products, as well as buying them outright.

Beaumont Forest Website Design

All of our clients are really pleased with how their new websites haves turned out but we would love to know what you think!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Online Marketing, Web Design

10/11/2011

Busines Catalyst Version 3 – Sneak Preview

By malcolmhmaclean

I thought I would use my first UE blog post to mention the exciting updates both short and longer term for our agency’s main weapon of choice Adobe Business Catalyst.

Since becoming a partner a couple of years ago, the feedback from our customers on the Business Catalyst system has been fantastic with main clients feeding back  that it is an a VERY easy to use system that offers a great deal of functionality.  Our website designers have also hugely enjoyed using a well supported and fully featured Content Management System which means we can now offer our customers more functionality than ever with modules such as Blog, E-Commerce, Text editing, Photo Galleries, Form Builder, integrated CRM (the list goes on).

Being an Adobe product, Business Catalyst is now getting some serious investment and development and so there are some exciting times coming up for us with what we will be able to offer our customers, and indeed with what our customers will be able to achieve with the system.

One of the first things that Adobe are looking to do (that customers will notice) is to release Version 3, which is a big change in terms of the User Interface that appears when you login . As a partner we are able to use this interface right now as it is in ‘Alpha’ release, so i thought i would give some sneak previews of the new sleek looking interface:

business catalyst

Business Catalyst V3 - Client Dashboard

business catalyst

Business Catalyst V3 - Now in Alpha Testing

business catalyst

Business Catalyst V3 - Quick access to workflow items

Just to allay any fears, the new version of the interface will run alongside the old interface for a long time and our clients will be able to switch between both versions until they feel comfortable. We can of course offer training and advice on the new interface so please contact us if you have any questions or need any help.

Having used the new interface I must say it is really clean, slick looking and easy to use. It is great to see BC moving forwards so rapidly and from the recent Adobe webinars I have been watching, this is just the start of a 2-3 year plan to make and keep Business Catalyst ahead of the competition. For us it really helps justify the investment into Business Catalyst for ourselves and our customers, and we cant wait for some of the new features to be released so that we can offer even more powerful features to our clients.

Some recently released features that are available right now

As I mentioned, Adobe have been busy adding (very quietly) some great new features to BC over the last few months,  so I though I would also mention some of the latest released features that some of our newer clients are already using on their sites, but that could be useful on some of our existing client websites:

1) Social Media  comments:

Visitors to your website can now comment on blog posts or e-commerce products by logging in through Facebook or Twitter (an example here on Witney TV)

Witney TV

Website visitors can now leave comments/feedback on news/blog items or e-commerce products via Social Media such as Facebook or Twitter

2) Blog Profiles - When posting Blog or News articles, you can now publish a profile with your post (screenshot below)

business catalyst

3) E-commerce - Some really handy new e-commerce features have the ability to change the ‘status’ of an order and then send an automated email if (as an example) the order has been dispatched. Also customisable packing slips and package labels are now available (print one or multiple at a time)

business catalyst

If you have any questions about Business Catalyst features please drop us a line and we will be more than happy to help.

Look forward to speaking  soon

Malcolm

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Urban Element, Web Design

08/26/2011

Witney TV- Creating a Community Powered Website

By urbanelementblog

Having a business based in Witney has many benefits, not only is the location great, but being here means that we get to be part of a thriving community. So when Witney TV came to us asking if we could help them with their new website, we couldn’t wait to get involved!

web design oxfordshire
Witney TV was founded by Barry Clack in May 2010 and quickly became the site of choice for the West Oxfordshire community to catch up on news and current affairs. As the viewing figures grew it became apparent that original website was going to need to grow as well, so Barry came to UE to see how we could help.

We wanted the new site to be a real social hub powered by the local community so, as well as hosting all the videos; we also wanted to incorporate event listings, advertising, a business directory and social media. We turned to Business Catalyst (Adobe’s Content Management System) to provide the functionality for this as it not only enables our web design team to create the different applications needed but also allows the Witney TV team to control and update the site easily themselves.

It was decided that the site would need a two phase launch. Phase one went live on August 10th 2011 and allows visitors to register their company information and list local events, as well as of course hosting video of  West Oxfordshire events. Phase two will be a much bigger launch with all the directories and advertising filled with local information and potentially some extra features on the site. The Second Launch will be in November and to celebrate the completion of the site, Witney TV and UE are planning something pretty special. Stay tuned to the Blog and Twitter feeds, as we’ll be announcing our plans soon!

In the mean time if you are a West Oxford Business, Charity or Community group head over the Witney TV site and register your information.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Web Design

08/10/2011

How To Recover Lost Content In Business Catalyst

By Sanik

In The Beginning

The Content Managing aspect of Business Catalyst (BC) proves to be very useful for many of our clients as it offers a fool proof editing capability for them. But no matter how fool proof the system is, there is always the danger that content may vanish from the page due to a number of unpredictable factors.

Bibury Court Website Screenshot

So Is The Content Gone?

Is there a simple solution to this potentially massive inconvenience? That is the question we were asked recently by one of our clients, who runs the lovely Bibury Court hotel. She spent hours typing the content in, using the In-Context editing mode BC offers, which just disappeared. So what is the solution?

Lost Content

Do Not Panic!

That’s where the BC Archive and Rollback feature comes into play. You can find it when you log in to the admin area of your website in the right-hand column of the page the content of which you are trying to restore, as highlighted by the pink arrow below:

Rollback Feature

It’s All In There

Once you are there, you’ll find all of the previous content that you have created for this particular page (for the last 90 days anyway to be precise).

Choosing the correct date

Don’t Forget To Save It

All you have to do now, is just preview the content to see if it is the one you are looking for and then click Rollback button. This will take you back to the editing mode which you’ll have to review and save and publish as shown on the image bellow.

Saving and publishing

Be Safe Next Time

One of the possible ways to protect yourself from losing the content in the future would be to type it in one of your favourite word processors that you are familiar with (for example Microsoft Word or Pages) and then just copy and paste it into your web page. This means that you will always have a document that you can go back to easily if needed.

Use off-line familiar tool to create content

Live Demo

Please follow this link to see a more thorough slideshow presentation about this issue which might be useful for your BC clients.

Now Your Turn

Please tell us how you deal with these issues to help your clients. It also would be very interesting to hear if your CMS offers a better solution.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Web Design

07/22/2011

Summer with UE – Our New Intern’s Take on Web Design at UE

By nikiforecast
I started at Urban Element on July 4th for a two weeks of work experience in the web design department. At the end of this period, I was very happy to be asked to stay on and work the rest of the summer, before I go back to Oxford Brookes University to complete my degree in Media Technology.The first two weeks were quite testing – being thrown into the deep end and learning Business Catalyst from scratch was quite intimidating, however the constant supply of cake and bacon sandwiches that always seemed to be around the office certainly made it a bit easier!Going for a team bowling trip as part of the Urban Element team day on the Friday of my first week was good fun, but I had to play very tactfully as my permanent role in the office was still to be decided by my opponents – although I still managed to beat Jon in a head to head game!The main project I have been working on up until now was a Business Catalyst conversion for the Cotswold Country Clothing ecommerce website. This is part of the Shepherd and Woodward group based in Oxford, and has involved me adding all the new products and restyling the pages with the new format.

Business Catalyst is a very large piece of software with enormous capabilities, so even after two weeks of working away I appreciate that I’ve barely scratched the surface. However, being able to build and manage an ecommerce website is extremely useful, and is a great skill to have behind me especially for my degree.

Now that I am staying for the next two months, I am very excited to be starting work on the Sofa Project website this week, as it’s a very interesting company and there’s a lot for me to learn. I’m going to be building an ecommerce section for the website which sells recycled furniture. This will allow people to purchase the sofas online, making the service available to more people.

The lunchtime table tennis games have also got much more interesting now that my job role is secure – all politeness and friendliness has disappeared in the pursuit of the enormous honour from winning the title of The Urban Element Open 2011 Champion.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Urban Element, Web Design

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